It's not that people don't have any problems with how things are being run.
It's that they don't believe that they have the power to change anything.
They may be aware that some groups protest what they perceive as injustice.
But they don't see any real change. Black Lives Matter is loudly protesting
police arbitrary killings of black people, but the killings continue and the
police continue to be exonerated. They saw Occupy Wall Street groups form
and demonstrate throughout our country, and they saw them crushed by police
power. They've seen their unions crushed. The whole world protested against
the US plan to attack Iraq and all of those protests had no effect. They've
voted for politicians who've sold them out, over and over again. So the
people have learned from their experience, and their experience is that
nothing works.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Sunday, January 03, 2016 2:41 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Cc: Virginia Jarvis
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Has American Democracy Been Trumped?
Has America's democracy been Trumped? The real question is whether American
democracy has been Dumped.
While it's true that, "Of the people, by the people and for the people", was
never meant for All the people, for many years the move was to secure for
more and more Americans the right to vote. And yet, even as the Two-Headed
American Political Party was securing total power over the election process,
they began to find ways of blocking large portions of the population the
right to vote, or at least to make voting a very difficult process.
Democracy requires a people who are involved in the operation of their
government.
Simply showing up at the poles once every few years is not going to
substitute for involvement.
The current actions, or non-actions of Americans tells the Rulers of the
Corporate American Empire that we don't have any problems with how they are
running things.
Of course, it is my personal belief that the Empire's Flunkies work overtime
to discourage public involvement. What is troubling is the fact that we are
allowing it to continue.
Carl Jarvis
On 1/3/16, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
that.
Published on Alternet (http://www.alternet.org) Home > Has American
Democracy Been Trumped?
________________________________________
Has American Democracy Been Trumped?
By Robert Kuttner [1] / Huffington Post [2] December 28, 2015 I've
been having incessant conversations with friends, family and
colleagues about politics, and they all boil down to the same
question. Could Donald Trump be our next president?
Here is an amalgam of the conversation. See which side you're on:
- I think Trump might actually win.
- You mean the Republican nomination?
- No, I mean the election.
- Get serious. For starters, the Republican leaders would never allow
They'd be much better off with Rubio-Kasich or Kasich-Rubio.foresee Trump.
- Maybe they would. But there are no smoke-filled rooms anymore.
Leaders don't make these decisions. Primary voters do, and they love
Trump. The more outrageous he is and the less connected to facts, the
more his support grows.
- Yeah, but he's a media phenomenon. He is such an egomaniac that he
hasn't even bothered to build an organization. He has no ground game.
That's why Cruz has pulled ahead on Iowa.
- Iowa is a special case because it's a caucus state. In a society
where people are increasingly disconnected from politics, Trump can
motivate people just as a media candidate. If he needs an organization
to get out his vote, he can buy one.
- He's already peaked.
- Maybe, but under the new Republican rules that were put in place in
2014, all of the primaries after March 15 are winner-take-all. He only
needs to come in first and he gets all of the state's delegates, even
if he has 25 percent of the vote and, say, the runner-up has 22
percent. The Republicans did this to get an early nominee. They didn't
- It's still unlikely that he will get 50 percent of the delegates. Ifsomehow uniting to block Trump?
he gets less than 50 percent and it's a brokered convention, all of
the others will unite to prevent Trump from being the nominee.
- Think again. Trump may be a fool and a demagogue when it comes to
actual policy, but one thing he's good at is making deals. Suppose he
comes into the convention with 45 percent of the delegates. All he has
to do is offer the vice-presidential nomination to someone who
controls at least 5 percent of the delegates, and he's over the top.
Can you imagine all of the other candidates, who really hate each other,
- Even if by some miracle he's nominated, he can't win. He has justcan't be bought.
alienated too many groups - women, blacks, Muslims, immigrants.
- That depends. If we have a few more terrorist incidents, or if some
more skeletons come out of Hillary's closet, all bets are off.
- Mainstream Republicans will vote for Hillary in droves.
- Yes, such as they are. But Hillary is not producing much enthusiasm,
whereas Trump's base is really fired up.
- But imagine the debates. This is complicated stuff. Hillary is so
much better informed on the issues. He just makes it up.
- Right, but that doesn't seem to hurt him. She is hawkish for a
Democrat, but there is no way she will be tougher than Trump. And the
fact that this is very complicated stuff and Hillary really
understands the complexity--that doesn't necessarily play to her
advantage. A lot of voters want simple. And there is one more element.
- What's that?
- Trump is already the most populist of the Republican candidates, and
the most appealing to working class voters. He doesn't hate government
the way the others do. You can count on him to move left after he is
nominated, posing as the defender of Social Security, Medicare and
demanding higher taxes on the rich. Hillary, long allied with Wall
Street, is less than an ideal opponent. She may take some Republican
votes, but he may take more Democratic ones.
- That's sobering. Do you happen to know the rules for emigrating to
Canada?
There is no right answer to this debate, of course. We will find out
soon enough. But at the very least, American democracy is in uncharted
territory.
Democracy has been seriously weakened by the role of big money on one
flank, and by massive voter cynicism about politics and government on
the other.
In
a national security crisis with no easy solutions, it is a sitting
duck for a demagogue like Trump.
Working and middle class voters have been taking an economic pummeling
for decades. The Democrats have tried harder than the Republicans to
remedy that, but they haven't tried hard enough. The voters are right
when they see both parties in bed with Wall Street.
The fact that the populist candidate is a billionaire is an emblem of
just how messed up is the misalignment of self-interest, general
disaffection, and voting preferences. What the hell, at least the man
Trump's use of "political correctness" as an all-purpose gibe ismere p.c.
another reflection of political dysfunction. Much of what he dismisses as
is in fact the legitimate assertion of rights. Black Americans, forrape.
instance, are finally saying enough to chronic mistreatment at the
hands of police. Women are finally saying enough to sexual harassment and
But the demands for respect are interacting poisonously with threethat.
decades of downward mobility for working and middle class white men.
As Thomas Edsall recently reported [3] in the New York Times, polls
show that large numbers of voters are sick of political correctness,
an all-purpose put-down that conveniently uses some silly demands at
the extremes to disparage calls for redress as mainstream as the
movement for civil rights.
Having a president with Great Dictator tendencies would be one more
blow against democracy. We find out soon enough how much resilience
our democracy has left--and if we are lucky we can then set about
rebuilding it.
Robert Kuttner is co-editor of The American Prospect and a visiting
professor at Brandeis University's Heller School. His latest book is
Debtors' Prison: The Politics of Austerity Versus Possibility. [4]
Share on Facebook Share
Share on Twitter Tweet
Report typos and corrections to 'corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx'. [5]
[6]
________________________________________
Source URL:
http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/has-american-democracy-been-trum
ped
Links:
[1] http://www.alternet.org/authors/robert-kuttner
[2] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/
[3]
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/23/opinion/trump-obama-and-the-assault-
on-pol
itical-correctness.html?_r=0
[4]
http://www.amazon.com/Debtors-Prison-Politics-Austerity-Possibility/dp
/03079
59805
[5] mailto:corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx?Subject=Typo on Has American ;
Democracy Been Trumped?
[6] http://www.alternet.org/
[7] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B
Published on Alternet (http://www.alternet.org) Home > Has American
Democracy Been Trumped?
Has American Democracy Been Trumped?
By Robert Kuttner [1] / Huffington Post [2] December 28, 2015 I've
been having incessant conversations with friends, family and
colleagues about politics, and they all boil down to the same
question. Could Donald Trump be our next president?
Here is an amalgam of the conversation. See which side you're on:
- I think Trump might actually win.
- You mean the Republican nomination?
- No, I mean the election.
- Get serious. For starters, the Republican leaders would never allow
They'd be much better off with Rubio-Kasich or Kasich-Rubio.foresee Trump.
- Maybe they would. But there are no smoke-filled rooms anymore.
Leaders don't make these decisions. Primary voters do, and they love
Trump. The more outrageous he is and the less connected to facts, the
more his support grows.
- Yeah, but he's a media phenomenon. He is such an egomaniac that he
hasn't even bothered to build an organization. He has no ground game.
That's why Cruz has pulled ahead on Iowa.
- Iowa is a special case because it's a caucus state. In a society
where people are increasingly disconnected from politics, Trump can
motivate people just as a media candidate. If he needs an organization
to get out his vote, he can buy one.
- He's already peaked.
- Maybe, but under the new Republican rules that were put in place in
2014, all of the primaries after March 15 are winner-take-all. He only
needs to come in first and he gets all of the state's delegates, even
if he has 25 percent of the vote and, say, the runner-up has 22
percent. The Republicans did this to get an early nominee. They didn't
- It's still unlikely that he will get 50 percent of the delegates. Ifsomehow uniting to block Trump?
he gets less than 50 percent and it's a brokered convention, all of
the others will unite to prevent Trump from being the nominee.
- Think again. Trump may be a fool and a demagogue when it comes to
actual policy, but one thing he's good at is making deals. Suppose he
comes into the convention with 45 percent of the delegates. All he has
to do is offer the vice-presidential nomination to someone who
controls at least 5 percent of the delegates, and he's over the top.
Can you imagine all of the other candidates, who really hate each other,
- Even if by some miracle he's nominated, he can't win. He has justcan't be bought.
alienated too many groups - women, blacks, Muslims, immigrants.
- That depends. If we have a few more terrorist incidents, or if some
more skeletons come out of Hillary's closet, all bets are off.
- Mainstream Republicans will vote for Hillary in droves.
- Yes, such as they are. But Hillary is not producing much enthusiasm,
whereas Trump's base is really fired up.
- But imagine the debates. This is complicated stuff. Hillary is so
much better informed on the issues. He just makes it up.
- Right, but that doesn't seem to hurt him. She is hawkish for a
Democrat, but there is no way she will be tougher than Trump. And the
fact that this is very complicated stuff and Hillary really
understands the complexity--that doesn't necessarily play to her
advantage. A lot of voters want simple. And there is one more element.
- What's that?
- Trump is already the most populist of the Republican candidates, and
the most appealing to working class voters. He doesn't hate government
the way the others do. You can count on him to move left after he is
nominated, posing as the defender of Social Security, Medicare and
demanding higher taxes on the rich. Hillary, long allied with Wall
Street, is less than an ideal opponent. She may take some Republican
votes, but he may take more Democratic ones.
- That's sobering. Do you happen to know the rules for emigrating to
Canada?
There is no right answer to this debate, of course. We will find out
soon enough. But at the very least, American democracy is in uncharted
territory.
Democracy has been seriously weakened by the role of big money on one
flank, and by massive voter cynicism about politics and government on
the other.
In
a national security crisis with no easy solutions, it is a sitting
duck for a demagogue like Trump.
Working and middle class voters have been taking an economic pummeling
for decades. The Democrats have tried harder than the Republicans to
remedy that, but they haven't tried hard enough. The voters are right
when they see both parties in bed with Wall Street.
The fact that the populist candidate is a billionaire is an emblem of
just how messed up is the misalignment of self-interest, general
disaffection, and voting preferences. What the hell, at least the man
Trump's use of "political correctness" as an all-purpose gibe ismere p.c.
another reflection of political dysfunction. Much of what he dismisses as
is in fact the legitimate assertion of rights. Black Americans, forrape.
instance, are finally saying enough to chronic mistreatment at the
hands of police. Women are finally saying enough to sexual harassment and
But the demands for respect are interacting poisonously with three
decades of downward mobility for working and middle class white men.
As Thomas Edsall recently reported [3] in the New York Times, polls
show that large numbers of voters are sick of political correctness,
an all-purpose put-down that conveniently uses some silly demands at
the extremes to disparage calls for redress as mainstream as the
movement for civil rights.
Having a president with Great Dictator tendencies would be one more
blow against democracy. We find out soon enough how much resilience
our democracy has left--and if we are lucky we can then set about
rebuilding it.
Robert Kuttner is co-editor of The American Prospect and a visiting
professor at Brandeis University's Heller School. His latest book is
Debtors' Prison: The Politics of Austerity Versus Possibility. [4]
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.
Report typos and corrections to 'corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx'. [5] Error!
Hyperlink reference not valid.[6]
Source URL:
http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/has-american-democracy-been-trum
ped
Links:
[1] http://www.alternet.org/authors/robert-kuttner
[2] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/
[3]
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/23/opinion/trump-obama-and-the-assault-
on-pol
itical-correctness.html?_r=0
[4]
http://www.amazon.com/Debtors-Prison-Politics-Austerity-Possibility/dp
/03079
59805
[5] mailto:corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx?Subject=Typo on Has American ;
Democracy Been Trumped?
[6] http://www.alternet.org/
[7] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B
