A Grim Direction We Might Take

Here’s some nuts & bolts of why recovering democracy might be tough if a dictatorial president and his associates overstepped traditional boundaries and chose to retain power permanently.

We can’t be sure either constitutional and traditional guardrails or public opposition would save us.

Our democracy is limited: the Senate and the Electoral College give less populous states disproportionate power. If we ever started a Constitutional Convention, the skew would be even worse.

Republicans controlling “swing state” legislatures have been busily changing the rules, purging voter rolls to decrease poor and minority voters, and increasing legislative control over voters’ decisions. There’s even a crazy argument that a legislature could legislate that it, not citizens voting, would choose presidential electors.

We’ve nearly lost the Supreme Court as a principle-based check on presidential power. Trump’s three appointments, Republican senatorial chicanery during Obama’s Presidency, and recent judicial longevity created a nine-member court with five extreme conservatives. And counting.

Thus, executive overreaching, legislative “adjustments” curbing traditional voting rights, and bad corporate conduct would likely all be found “constitutional.” They might even let legislatures usurp citizens’ rights to vote for presidential electors.

Meanwhile, Trumpian legislation would weaken the “non-partisan” civil service. Once, a newly-elected mayor appointed a whole new police department, loyal to him, helping at his rallies and harassing his critics. Presidents appoint top “political” officials but a core civil service has some expertise and non-partisan interest in just collecting the garbage, inspecting drugs or food, etc. A key Trump agenda item is to weaken that protection, letting Trump appoint lackeys, regardless of ability. We’d get non-evidence-based decision-making, elections could disrupt the whole government, and career civil servants who’d developed real skills and expertise could be fired at a presidential whim.

One hopes that abusing immigrants and maybe ethnic minorities, and curbing personal freedoms of speech and choice, would trigger a wave of negative public opinion. Well, look at Brave New World or Putin’s Russia. Citizens don’t stand up to Putin because (a) he’ll kill them and (b) his tight media control few even know the facts.

Large newspapers owned by zillionaires just copped out on editorializing about the Presidency. Newspapers were already in decline. Meanwhile, a Wall-Street Journal study showed that someone signing onto X to discuss chess or basket-weaving, not seeking political discussion, will be buffeted with pro-Trump messages, courtesy of Elon Musk. How might a coalition of reasonable people seeking a return to democracy ever form, and communicate? Musk could buy Facebook, too. After an innocuous post or two, we’d get one saying Kamala was a college prostitute or Trump spent years rescuing dogs. What if Wikipedia were “acquired” by some Trumpist billionaire? What if universities’ scientific research was funded based on companies’ and scientists’ obeisance to right-wing ideology?

What if every federal clerk reviewing your tax or medical issue decides based on your Trump-friendliness? As was surely true in Nazi Germany. Terrible; but with no press left to write about it and no Supreme Court requiring fairness and justice, well, live with it!

It could happen. We don’t wear some magic shield. As in Russia, they perhaps could gain and hold dictatorial power; but (as in Russia) they’d severely weaken the country. When political loyalty trumps merit, your science, your education, your health, and your military security all deteriorate. Look at Russia!

And, as always, the wealthy interests cheating and poisoning us have great ploys to make us blame each other.

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[This column appeared Sunday, 3 November, 2024, in the Las Cruces Sun-News and on the newspaper's website, and on KRWG’s website, under Local Viewpoints. A shortened and sharpened radio commentary version will air during the week on KRWG (90.1 FM) and on KTAL-LP (101.5 FM, streaming at www.lccommunityradio.org/). For further information on the topic of this column, please go to my blog, https://soledadcanyon.blogspot.com/ .]

[Yeah, the column paints a grim picture, but a sufficiently plausible one that it’s worth some serious effort to avoid. Do I think Donald Trump will be elected President again? This morning, I don’t. But for a month I’ve been pretty pessimistic. I kept thinking, “It’s unthinkable that in the 21^st Century a reasonably educated and successful nation could actually elect this guy again,” but feeling pretty sure that we would do so. Obviously, we very well may.

If we do, resistance to the kind of anti-democratic efforts described in the column would be the order of the day. (It was soberting, and helped generate this column, to read [in a recent New Yorker] some of Alexei Navalny’s writing from prison. He was a good and courageous man and died in prison for opposing dicatorship in Russian – reminding me that even our partial democracy is a hell of a privilege in this world.)]

[However, whatever happens, we need to soften this hyperparisanship. We means “we all” there.” We [progressives, skeptics, people of good faith, humanists – whatever you and I are] have a more specific task: to recognize that alhough, yeah, some of Mr. Trump’s most dedicated supporters are racists and haters, many who will vote for him are NOT. I play pickleball with a bunch of ‘em. Some, including people from ethnic minorities, are not being well served by our system [or feel that they’re not] and dislike politicians generally.

What remains important for each of us to do, I think, is to engage with our neighbors. To understand that they are not demented fucks who idolize that huckster, but decent folks – who pet their dogs and make their children laugh just as we do – who, like us, are being cheated, poisoned, and otherwise mistreated by a corporate economic system that has convinced them that in fact, it’s the asylum seekers and illegal immigrants, the people on welfare, the people whose colors, faiths, language, genders and conduct are different.

Underneath, we are allies: we would all like a saner, safer world in which individuals had more of a chance and more personal freedom.

Whether “we” [progressives] win this election and bask in victory or lose it, and feel we’re in danger, finding common ground with our neighbors is an urgent need.

Because while Donald Trump is an incompetent narcissist, the schism that leads nearly half our country’s “adults” to vote for him is a continuing danger; and even the party we’re supporting is too kind to big corporations, too sluggish about dealing meaningfully with climate change, supportive of what many now call genocide, and resistant to doing the normal stuff other modern democracies do, such as taxing excessive wealth, making health available to everyone, etc. ]

[So, I’d say: vote for Kamala and Tim’ and drive someone to the polls who might not otherwise get there; but, whichever side wins, be a skeptic, a critic, a watchdog. Being a pain in the ass to power is an obligation of all citizens.]