Fascism creeps in slowly at first, gets normalized, and accelerates until it is too strong to defeat. We who value democracy, freedom, and the rule of law must sound the alarm.
Excellent point about John Stanley’s book. I had presented that at a men’s book club, but had forgotten how he characterizes fascist *tactics* vs a fascist state, which is harder to define. Definitely, the GOP is using fascist tactics and has to be stopped.
I agree and find this frightening. Working with African asylum seekers for 7 years I am appalled at the dehumanization. This has been a long time coming as we reduce the middle class into poverty and then enslave the poor.
Wouldn't that be nice! But how do we know what people's top priorities are? And, would our representatives pay attention and vote that way? For example, here in North Carolina all the polls have, for many years, shown strong support for Medicaid expansion, yet the General Assembly has not passed it until this year (and it is still held hostage to a budget deal). Polls have shown strong support for broadband Internet in rural areas, yet the General Assembly has refused to repeal laws that they passed that restrict the ability of municipal governments to solve the problem for their people.
So, I think we have two issues: (1) how do we really know what people want and (2) how do we ensure that our representatives act on what the people want and not on culture war issues that are low priority to most people.
I've often thought that it would interesting to reconsider what representative government could look like in the modern era where we have communications capability that didn't exist when representative government was created. We'd still have the problem of some politicians using fascist political tactics to divide people, but perhaps we could alleviate problems of representatives voting against what their constituents want. But, of course, there's also still the problem of money in politics.
I’m confused why the answer to your first question isn’t obviously opinion polling on what people’s priorities are. I provided links to three recent examples. Like every poll I have seen literally for years the economy is the top issue. I haven’t seen our party in nc focus on economic issues in my voting life. For your second question the answer is you vote for people based on what they have done or say they will do. If they aren’t on board with what most voters want we get someone else. You are right to point out that a major confounding factor is money. This creates a condition in which politicians are trying to serve two different constituencies the first of voters and the second being donors. Obviously in the theory of democracy representatives are only supposed to try and represent one constituency. Donors have no trouble making them choose. It is up to voters to make it clear that a representative must side with their voters over their donors if they want the job of representing the voters. All I hear the Democratic Party in our state talk about is cultural issues. Thanks for the response.
I misinterpreted your comment. I thought “why don’t we just run on” meant “why don’t we just run the government on” but you meant “why don’t Democrats just run on”. Sorry.
The Democratic Party in NC has done a poor job of focusing on what’s important to most people, which, as you say are economic issues broadly. I hope that the Party’s new leadership will change that. We’ll see. That said, some Democratic candidates do run on economic issues like education funding and Medicaid expansion, but in general most are still pretty middle of the road.
Agreed. But only if by middle of the road you mean the middle of the donor road. If you look at public polling most dem officials are nowhere near what large majorities of the electorate wants. My recollection of nc dem party campaign issues includes abortion, education funding, gerrymandering, and Medicaid expansion. I would say the only things in that platform that are in the top 5 issues of any polling are gerrymandering (only if you equate the broad topic of democracy which registers in some polls to that one specific practice) and Medicaid which obviously falls under the healthcare topic but doesn’t directly impact most voters and is about to be co-opted anyway by republicans passing an expansion now that it is almost fully privatized. So after that the dems in this state will be left without a major issue that clocks in the top 5 of most voter surveys.
Excellent point about John Stanley’s book. I had presented that at a men’s book club, but had forgotten how he characterizes fascist *tactics* vs a fascist state, which is harder to define. Definitely, the GOP is using fascist tactics and has to be stopped.
I agree and find this frightening. Working with African asylum seekers for 7 years I am appalled at the dehumanization. This has been a long time coming as we reduce the middle class into poverty and then enslave the poor.
Why don’t we just run on addressing the things that people say are their top priorities?
https://www.npr.org/2023/03/29/1166486046/poll-economy-inflation-transgender-rights-republicans-democrats-biden
https://www.economist.com/president-joe-biden-polls
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1362236/most-important-voter-issues-us/
Wouldn't that be nice! But how do we know what people's top priorities are? And, would our representatives pay attention and vote that way? For example, here in North Carolina all the polls have, for many years, shown strong support for Medicaid expansion, yet the General Assembly has not passed it until this year (and it is still held hostage to a budget deal). Polls have shown strong support for broadband Internet in rural areas, yet the General Assembly has refused to repeal laws that they passed that restrict the ability of municipal governments to solve the problem for their people.
So, I think we have two issues: (1) how do we really know what people want and (2) how do we ensure that our representatives act on what the people want and not on culture war issues that are low priority to most people.
I've often thought that it would interesting to reconsider what representative government could look like in the modern era where we have communications capability that didn't exist when representative government was created. We'd still have the problem of some politicians using fascist political tactics to divide people, but perhaps we could alleviate problems of representatives voting against what their constituents want. But, of course, there's also still the problem of money in politics.
I’m confused why the answer to your first question isn’t obviously opinion polling on what people’s priorities are. I provided links to three recent examples. Like every poll I have seen literally for years the economy is the top issue. I haven’t seen our party in nc focus on economic issues in my voting life. For your second question the answer is you vote for people based on what they have done or say they will do. If they aren’t on board with what most voters want we get someone else. You are right to point out that a major confounding factor is money. This creates a condition in which politicians are trying to serve two different constituencies the first of voters and the second being donors. Obviously in the theory of democracy representatives are only supposed to try and represent one constituency. Donors have no trouble making them choose. It is up to voters to make it clear that a representative must side with their voters over their donors if they want the job of representing the voters. All I hear the Democratic Party in our state talk about is cultural issues. Thanks for the response.
I misinterpreted your comment. I thought “why don’t we just run on” meant “why don’t we just run the government on” but you meant “why don’t Democrats just run on”. Sorry.
The Democratic Party in NC has done a poor job of focusing on what’s important to most people, which, as you say are economic issues broadly. I hope that the Party’s new leadership will change that. We’ll see. That said, some Democratic candidates do run on economic issues like education funding and Medicaid expansion, but in general most are still pretty middle of the road.
Agreed. But only if by middle of the road you mean the middle of the donor road. If you look at public polling most dem officials are nowhere near what large majorities of the electorate wants. My recollection of nc dem party campaign issues includes abortion, education funding, gerrymandering, and Medicaid expansion. I would say the only things in that platform that are in the top 5 issues of any polling are gerrymandering (only if you equate the broad topic of democracy which registers in some polls to that one specific practice) and Medicaid which obviously falls under the healthcare topic but doesn’t directly impact most voters and is about to be co-opted anyway by republicans passing an expansion now that it is almost fully privatized. So after that the dems in this state will be left without a major issue that clocks in the top 5 of most voter surveys.
Thank you, Lee. I’m going to share this essay with my colleagues
Thanks for sharing it with others. I appreciate it.