What Is Happening To Democracy Part II

 This segment attempts to understand Trumpism and what drives those adopting this fascist authoritarianism.  IMO religion plays at least a correlating role, if not an actual driver. 

According to post election studies from NOAC and the University of Chicago, of Trump's support base, 80% of evangelicals supported Trump,  71% of LDS (Mormons),50% of Roman Catholics but only 26 % of those with no religious affiliation supported him.  I believe this stark contrast in support among these groups is very telling. The religious groups listed all have pronounced authoritarian theology, with a strong belief system that:"God" drives events and demands a fidelity to the theological beliefs advocated by each organization.

In all cases, these sects have belief systems rooted in human created myths that IMO are fanciful and "magical." They require a fidelity to the belief system that threatens a dire after death result if not followed.Thus, a basis of fear drives the fidelity.

Myths require no rational, empirical evidence.  Likewise,Trump's fabricated narratives have myth like qualities that are easily digested by gullible people looking for affirmation of their prejudices. And like television preachers and leaders of mega churches, Trump is a convincing story teller and con artist capable of persuading these gullible people to support him financially, though he presents as an already very wealthy person.  Yet many are persuaded that they will benefit if they support him and his movement with their comparatively meager financial resources. 

So, my analysis and that of other observers is that the mentality of people influenced by the Trump fascist, authoritarian message that he alone can solve their problems.  And the more arduous processes of compromises and direct personal engagement required of citizens in a functioning democracy is less effective for them than an authoritarian leader who will make decisions for them.

Most of these supporters are typical Americans who vote infrequently, are engrossed in their own pursuits without much engagement with their communities outside of their immediate congregations with whom they share the same myth values.  These are the people around us who only increase their empathy for others with differing ethnicity, values and lifestyles only when their lives and impacted by such things as relatives/offspring coming out as LGBT, or racial intermarriage in their family for example.  Or the loss of a loved one to disease or war. 

This influence of religious belief without rational evidence and the myths of American rugged individualism being preferred over communal cooperation and American Exceptionalism as well as a huge amount of mythology around our history  are a toxic combination which is driving their abandonment of our great experiment with a democracy.

Trump's political appeal is largely based on fear.....fear of immigrant takeover of our society, fear of minority domination over the shrinking white minority,  Fear of the loss of power and influence and government services favoring white citizens and refavoring minority persons and immigrants.

what Is Happening To Democracy?

 

I am hoping to start a series of blogs exploring data on the troubling trend across the globe, including in our own country, away from democracy and toward authoritarian governance.  This is my first installment.

I've gone to a couple of sources for balance:  The Economist Intelligence Unit, a subsidiary of the respected conservative publication, The Economist, and Pew Research, generally regarded as non-ideological. 

The Economist's data studies 167 countries and creates a complex index ranking/rating the governments on a scale from "fully democratic" to "authoritarian".  Their index says there are only 23 full democracies among the 167, 52 mostly democracies, 35 hybrids and 57 authoritarian governments. They make the general observation that the trend is away from democracy.  They list the top 5  democracies as Norway, Iceland, Sweden, New Zealand and Canada as of 2020.

Pew research studied 34 country's democracies in 2019 in terms of citizen attitudes toward their government.  52% overall were dissatisfied;  59% of U.S. citizens were dissatisfied with their democracy. 

The primary issue Pew research revealed was that citizens believed elected officials did not care about their needs. For example, 46% of U.S. citizens disagreed with the statement that "their country was run for the benefit for all".  In contrast, 56% of Canadians agreed with that statement.  Overall, the countries comprising Eastern Europe rated their satisfaction with that statement higher than citizens of Western Europe and the USA.

Pew research found that gender equality and a fair judiciary were the most important issues for citizens in the 34 democracies.  Freedom of the press also ranked high in citizen priorities, with the USA the highest rating on that quality at 80%.  USA citizens also rated freedom of religion among the highest with democracies at 86%.  I know this is a lot of data to digest, so I'll stop here and let readers digest and think about the meaning of this research as we stumble into a better understanding of our democracy in crisis and grope for solutions. 

In perusing various opinion writers on the dynamics of the international nature of this trend, the consensus seems to be that authoritarians, especially government leaders in office observe the results of authoritarian policies elsewhere and are emboldened by their implementation.  The research I've read on authoritarian personality profiling suggests this is a correct observation.

Red v. Blue =Autocrats v. Democracy

 If you think the current divide in America is liberal v. conservative, red v. blue, tory v. whig, Democrat v.Republican, you are a typical un-engaged citizen of this country and are sadly ill informed.

This divide is a classical showdown between authoritarian rule and humankind's sporadic attempts at various forms of self-governing, called democracy.  Our particular form of democracy is called liberal, republican democracy.  This means, much of our governing is done by elected representatives, not direct self rule.  This form was chosen by our founders as a means of bridging the previous rule our people experienced prior to our Revolution by an unelected Monarch, without the huge risk of direct self governing.  Central to our form, as you know is the Rule of Law, not the rule of Monarchs, with some among our citizenry, not all, granted the right to elect their rulers.  Those chosen few with that electoral right were white, property owning men.  Women and persons owned by this elite class of citizens were excluded as were poor, propertyless men. This form of democracy was a grand compromise to accommodate a less abrupt transition from authoritarian Monarch rule and to accommodate a mostly agrarian economy dependent on cheap labor to till the soil and harvest the crops to feed and clothe the colonists and to most economically build export trade to maintain a transactional relationship  with the Motherland in England. Slave labor was not allowed in the Motherland but the Monarchs and trading company elites there were quite welcoming of the idea of the colonists owning other humans to facilitate creating the goods of trade needed in England. 

The Declaration of Independence we celebrate on the 4th of July was an act of incredible bravery by the signers, risking their very lives.  We must also acknowledge that this act from very human and flawed patriots was also an act of self interest, given their failure to renounce slavery, some of them also being slave owners.  This flaw in an historic act of courage was also a contradiction in their defiance of authoritarian rule by their Motherland, planting the seeds of authoritarianism in our own land with the owning of other human beings, the ultimate definition of authoritarianism.

That authoritarian seed has plagued our Republic since our founding 245 years ago.  It has been in our soil through many periods of great human rights progress since then.  It was there when our Constitution and Bill of Rights were adopted, excluding freedom for women and the laborers owned by many of the signers. It was there when the Confederacy was founded to support the continuation of slavery as well as the non-Confederate northerners profiting off the work done by people owned by fellow citizens.

The seed was there when the victors of the Civil War failed to punish the leaders of the Civil Insurrection and actually rewarded them for giving up their ownership, while limiting the agency of the the newly freed with a very weak Reconstruction policy. Reconstruction was quickly undermined by some previous slave owning states while restrictive covenants limited the freedom of Black American's residing in northern and western states.  A few authoritarians implemented those restrictions while authoritarianism supporters looked the other way.

It continued to haunt us as we looked the other way as a nation when some among us restricted the citizenship and participation of free former slaves and their offspring into the next two centuries. Authoritarianism reigned in America with the continued denial of complete citizenship of half our population, women until well into the twentieth century, as well as the indigenous Americans we had overwhelmed with our occupation of these lands.

The same seed of authoritarianism reared its ugly head during various periods in our emerging and improving democracy for only some of us with the treatment of Asian and southern European immigrants, some of whom where granted admission to our land to be exploited and segregated as were the ancestors of our freed slaves.

We tried to make amends with the Civil and Voting rights acts as well as the ERA which was never ratified and the seeds of authoritarianism revealed  itself as many among us looked away as rights granted therein were almost immediately undermined by Jim Crow and policies limited full civic and economic participation were implemented. Segregation was a clear adoption of authoritarian dominance.

America has much to be proud of with historic acts over this quarter century have been initiated to improve our imperfect democratic experiment and the good we have done as a nation to improve the lot of humankind here and abroad.  But we also have much to regret in our continued conflicts between Americans who want to improve our Union with expanded human rights and those who see this as a threat to  their economic and civic power and work to maintain their dominance over those they see as unworthy of full citizenship.  

The evidence of the current power of authoritarians includes Republican adoption of civic policies to restrict economic equity for non-white minorities soon to comprise a majority of our population.  This includes voting suppression and blockading of economic policies designed to advance full participation in our economic life.  These policies are evident in minority person's disadvantage in wages, personal net worth and economic mobility.  There simply is no denial of the relegation of some of us to second class citizenship as a deliberate act of domination and suppression. 

These American authoritarians and their enablers comprise maybe 30 percent of our population but their power to roadblock human rights progress here this very day is a major threat to human progress,  even to the point of mounting a second insurrection against the majority of us on January 6, 2021. They put our attempts at improving our democracy and Union at very real and alarming risk.  They must be restrained and restricted from exercising their desire to dominate our majority.  Our majority must rise up, speak out and act to disarm their insurrection. 

Liberals and significant Conservative leadership have joined forces to call out the seeds of creeping authoritarianism in our midst.  We are a majority and have the power to defend our very imperfect attempt at advancing human rights.  We will prevail if we employ all the moral, legal and civic tools a our disposal.  What remains to be proven is our resolve to use them.   

Join with your fellow supporters of American democracy on this 2021 celebration of the Fourth of July in committing to advancing the Rule of Law over the rule of despots and authoritarians among us. 

VP Harris Is Right About Solving Central American Migration

 VP Harris may have been somewhat inartful in explaining USA's new strategy in addressing the Central American crisis at our southern border but she's right about solving some of the core causes of its people's migration to our country.

The USA border patrol and policy prescriptions to address longstanding border crises of desperate Central Americans seeking protection and new lives have been an abject failure.  It is time to refocus the reasons these good people are leaving their homes and families for a life free of deprivation, physical harm and abject poverty.

Americans have not a clue as to our history in abetting this human rights abuse in that region. I will lay out few historic facts to give my readers a flavor of our role in direct responsibility for this border crisis and more importantly, the abuse of millions of wonderful people just trying to survive.

On a macro level, since the very beginning of the 1900's it has been U.S. policy to support U.S. companies in their quest to exploit the agricultural resources of this region, including but not limited to El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala.  Among the specific companies are Dole, Chiquita and United Fruit, though there are many others complicit in essentially the colonization of this region by the U.S.A.

How, you ask?  They are just trying to supply us with fruits, bananas in particular, coffee and other stuff we need to sustain our lives, aren't they? Well, yes, but to do so here is what they have done, before I get to the role Central American and US administrations have played to enable this seemingly good work to sustain our diets.  These companies have supported right wing, oppressive governments there who return the favor with special privileges.  Like limiting or rolling back land reforms fought for by peasant/agricultural populations just trying to eke out a living on the land.  Like lobbying those right wing governments for tax policies to favor those companies over the basic need of their people for education, housing and fair employment to sustain life.  Like lobbying the US government for support to sustain tax policies in those countries and to train those government's military forces with such institutions as the School of Americas in repressing public uprisings for justice; yes,through cruel exercise of force and disappearance strategies.  Like direct U.S. military and CIA intervention to overturn left wing governments fairly elected by their people to bring reforms and democracy.  And similar interventions to protect and sustain the rule of right wing, despotic rulers dedicated to upper class domination and economic advantage.  These companies for over a century have turned to the local despots and supporting U.S. administrations to suppress attempts by workers to form unions to bargain for living wages and fair treatment of employees.  Simply put, I urge you to read the history detailing the role these companies have played to suppress democracy in this region and retain near slave-like labor to power their massive businesses.

Now our government's role, it really started with Teddy Roosevelt  who argued we have the right to police powers in this region to support our companies there.  His policies have extended to multinational corporations in recent decades. In El Salvador the U.S.A. helped suppress a popular rebellion n 1932 and again in 1944 there. In 1960 our beloved Pres. Eisenhower ended free elections there to support a right win despot.  From 1980 through 1992 they had a civil war in attempt to bring forth a left wing democracy resulting in the US extending temporary status to migrants from there, only to be stopped by Trump in 2018.  In 2003, El Salvador joined CAFTA, designed by the U.S. to provide favored  regulatory protections to U.S. companies and expand their influence.

In Honduras, 1911 we helped depose a left wing government; the next year special access was extended to US agricultural companies, who were granted rights to 1 million acres with protections provided by the U.S. military.  As recently as 1975, United Fruit attained reduced export taxes to aid their bottom line. Five years later we were training Contra rebels in suppression  tactics and global capital were granted trade favors.  Honduras entered CAFTA in 2005 and the country became a net importer of agricultural products from being a net exporter.  This was the beginning of the migration of peasant farmers to the USA. In 2009 a duly elected left wing government was ousted with support and endorsement from the U.S.

Finally, Guatemala, in 1920 the U.S. military intervened in a Guatemalan government attempt to oust United Fruit Company. In 1947 United fruit got our government to stop unionization of United Fruit. From 1954 through 1981 the CIA was enlisted to assure left wing administrations did not win free democratic elections and to sustain the rule of right wing governments. In 2006 Guatemala signs onto CAFTA, starting duty free US agricultural imports.  This starts their migration of small farmers to the US border.

This history was equally created by both Republican and Democrat administrations.

Yes, VP Harris might have more astutely worded her response to the question of whether she was "going to the border and when," which would have merely been an photo opportunity, not a meaningful action to address the root causes of the border crisis with Central American people. But she is right; it is high time, way overdue time to address the causes of this migration, which now includes drought conditions in the region, compounding the horrific effects on agriculturally dependent families as well as desperation for protections from drug dealing gangs engaged in violence and intimidation.  These are people desperate for safety and life sustaining employment. We are currently ill equipped to help them at the border and better equipped to help them right at home attain the life they so well deserve.  This is where they want to be if life there were sustainable and possible.  No one wants to leave home to start over if they can start over right at home.  

The Biden administration gets history right here and humbly admits our culpability in helping to create these migration and human rights crises.  Humility to admit error and past transgressions can go a long way toward a more just and livable America.

I want to credit Mark Putterman who did much of this timeline research and published it in Medium.

2 In 10 Republicans Believe In Authoritarianism And Myth, Not Reality

 A recent Pew Research study reveals that about 21% of Republicans do not believe the January 6 insurrectionists deserve punishment.  While somewhat encouraging that a larger number do not support the insurrectionists, this is still a large enough number to successfully overthrow our very fragile and struggling democracy.  A study of world events in governments overthrown, including our own Revolution  suggests this to be quite true and a very serious threat.

The solution?  Communications experts are saying that a massive public discussion on causes and solutions is required of democracy loving Americans, led by the our very necessary media, public figures in many fields of expertise and well regarded democracy loving leaders formed into commissions and panels widely covered by our media if our democracy is to be saved.   This of course, includes massive governing reforms to bolster and increase public confidence that democracy can solve major problems our citizens struggle with every day: economic, social, policing, governing and fairness of our society.  As in the BLM movement, we require a massive public movement demanding help from our leaders in many sectors if democracy is to be salvaged.

This public education requires a massive reinforcement of the necessity for truth telling, logic, rationality, science, the reliability of data and vital importance of critical thinking among the majority not  largely driven by myth and belief over fact-driven truth and rationality.

Authoritarian rule is much easier, more streamlined, requiring little public engagement.  Democracy requires engagement, participation and hard, vigilant work to maintain and improve.  This, for the 20% of Republicans is a likely impossible lift; the rest of us, the majority, must rise up and act now, not tomorrow or down the road.  This likely starts with the elimination of the Filibuster to get anything done at the Federal Level.  Gerrymandering must be eliminated at the local and Federal levels to get this process of saving democracy started.  Anything short of these national and local reforms will result in failure.

How did we get here?  Let's start with religion.  The core Evangelical base of this Republican support for Authoritarianism is a major part of the cause.  This group, along with most other religionists, bases its thinking, if you can call it that, on a massive body of myths, many rooted in Pagan traditions incorporated in early and late Christian theology.  That is a blog by itself.  Theologians have well documented the roots of beliefs like virgin birth, salvation, divine intervention,  miracles and the like.  More sophisticated Catholic theology further amplifies this dependence on mythology and male dominated authoritarianism; things like transubstantiation and Papal infallibility for example and lord knows, Republicanism is strongly populated with Catholics; just look at Republican leadership over the last few decades and the Supreme Court.

The large number of Americans driven by mythological religious belief and also driven by America's penchant for mythology and untruth about our history and origins as a society.  This circumstance is fueled by our failure to reckon with our history of invasion, oppression of those we have displaced  and/or enslaved to meet our economic goals in the Americas and our failure to come to terms with its impact on those we dominate and the success of our current society and democratic governance. 

We are not a bad people.  Our origins are not all bad.  We are not unlike societies which preceded ours.  We are human, thus flawed in some ways, amazing in other ways.  We are capable of correcting our ways and improving on our flaws if we engage our brains and consciences.  

What remains to be seen is if we and our leaders will rise to the challenge to save and improve on our form of democracy and isolate those intent on imposing their deeply ignorant and greedy authoritarianism on us, the majority.

Is More Civics A Solution To America's Democracy Stupidity?

 

Some propose improving and expanding Civics education in our schools.  I presume they mean our public schools.  25% of us attend private schools, 78% which are religious based, which raises all kinds of questions about reliance of facts, critical thinking, the scientific method versus "faith" and "belief" not requiring verification or rational challenges.

But, let's suppose reaching 75% of us with rigorous, fact-based, verified data and truth about our democracy and how they are impacted by self-governance would make a big difference in Civic participation. Let's examine first the concept of self-governance.  

Data suggests that an overwhelming majority of us typically do not vote in America, which is the first principle of self-governance. An overwhelming majority of us, the data suggests, never attend a village, town, city or state legislative meeting and do not know and have seldom talked to an elected official. 

So, would better and expanded Civics education change that materially?  I have serious doubts.  In my own family, deeply exposed to politics, government and political engagement  some are on record saying "fuck politics".  I wonder if my own experience is mirrored in the broader world of our population.  I don't know but deeply suspect that it would have little impact.  That does not mean it is not worth trying if our very democracy is at stake. Which it is at this very moment.

Here is what Civics educators have to work  with in the families surrounding our young Civics students.  According to the Annenberg Public Policy Center in a study published in 2018, only 26% of us can name the 3 branches of our government.  18% of us trust our government. Other studies tell us only 30% of us know that the House of Representatives have 2 year terms and only 25% of us can name the 5 freedoms guaranteed by the Bill of Rights.  23% of 14 year old eight graders are proficient in the National Assessment of Educational Progress Civics Exam.  Only 9 of our 50 states require one year of Civics education in their public schools, only 32 of these states require instruction on American democracy and other systems of government, Constitutional history, the Bill of Rights or how to participate in self governance. Only 6 states require Civics education of any kind and 8 states require none.

Colorado and Idaho are considered models of really good Civics education. Their respective turnouts in the 2020 election, in the 84-85% levels, with very different Presidential  preference results suggests that I might be wrong.  I hope I am wrong. 

There is now serious questioning going on about the factual content of our American history education in public schools, valuing mythology and over actual documented facts about the failures of our founders and their successors in providing democratic governance for all of our citizenry over the course of the many decades and centuries of our history dating back to the 1600's.  That is is the subject of a raging public discussion today and that is both welcomed and invaluable in looking for solutions to ignorance and susectibility  of a significant plurality of our citizenry to cultish preference for untruth and the faster, easier adoption of authoritarian governance over the plodding, sometimes ineffectual methods provided by self-governing and citizen engaged democracy.

Some are advocating some form of national service as a solution.  There is evidence with some other democracies that this improves public engagement  and tolerance for differing cultural and ethnic backgrounds.  Yet, in many of those European democracies there is a similar trend toward right wing, authoritarian fascist movements as we are currently experiencing here in America.

There is no question that major reforms are necessary to make our democracy more responsive to the needs of our citizens, all of our citizens and less manipulated to the ends of hyper capitalism so pervasive in our country and its destructive influence on the success of citizen driven public engagement largely ignored by the majority of our people, driven by the failures of hyper-capitalism to provide for the basic needs of a huge portion of our populace.

The jury is out on Civics education.  It is well worth attempting to improve and make relevant to a people mostly driven by the need for economic and social stability.

The Derangement of America

 

America is undergoing a derangement.  This was the hoped for outcome of the Steve Bannon/Mercer Brietbart fascist project in embracing Donald Trump's candidacy as  vehicle to begin the disruption of our American democratic project in order to create a new fascist order themed with White Nationalism.  Bannon continued his project in Europe with right wing fascist organizers following his departure from the White House.

The Covid 19 pandemic was a lucky stroke for their project because it added to the disruptive environment they saw as a tool to weaken American's already unstable commitment to democratic processes and structures.  It made Americans even more vulnerable to untruth and propaganda to undermine public confidence in both government, politics, the economic order and a free press.   Enablers of  this fascist project underway, wittingly or unwittingly are megachurches with its adulation of authoritarian ministers offering a brand of Christianity suggesting righteousness offers material rewards, right wing evangelical Christianity offering a deeply mythological interpretation of the gospels and a fearsome deity threatening hell to non-believers and Catholicism rooted in a male dominated authoritarian ruling structure.   The Bannon and Republican de-democracy project has entailed capitalizing on American derangement in practicing the mind control techniques refined in the Stalin and Hitler eras, repetition and the use of it in selling untruth over proven fact and science based truths. The use of logic and reason so well explored by Plato, Aristotle and those developing the processes of metaphysics, ontology and epistemology by early Catholic scholars, later refined in the Age of Enlightenment have been largely abandoned by this fascist program in favor of myth and "alternative facts" promulgated by this crowd to a vulnerable, mostly poorly educated/informed sector of our citizenry.  Reason has been replaced for these people who rely mostly on "faith", much as was the case in the Dark Ages before the Enlightenment which gave birth to a rejuvenation of democracy attempted in the pre-Christian/Islamic era. Add to that a distortion of American history depicting colonists as religious and material saviors of indigenous people already populating and self governing the Americas, supported by an economics propelled by enslaved Africans brought here to do the heavy economic lifting, mostly condemned by European nations though cheering on the American project. These existing forces further created a mindset receptive to fascist authoritarianism which promises faster results in governance and a promotion of the Anglo Euro-centric dominance of a rapidly diversifying American demographic threatening their interpretation of American Exceptionalism.  Critics of this trend in American life of course are called unpatriotic and bleeding heart liberals. Studies are being published one year or more after the post Covid 19 pandemic are suggesting further conditions favoring the success of the fascist movement.  For example,  one study suggests 34% of patients who survived Covid have indications of  diagnoses of mental or neurological problems.  Their lives are destabilized.  A recent study of Q-Anon followers reveals that 68% of them informed of mental health disease diagnoses.  44% informed of serious psychological trauma in the medical history.  IMO their mental health status mirrors that of other right wing extremist groups with whom they are collaborating. 14 % of us experiencing the consequences  of more than a year of erratic and conflicting information on the health future we face, quarantine isolation and disruption of our previous life routines report psychological distress triple the rate we reported in 2018.  4 in 10 of us report anxiety and depression, up from 1 in 10 in previous non-Covid years.   Thus, a huge sector of the American populace are vulnerable to right wing promises of results-producing governance and improved lives through fascist authoritarianism. This is not to excuse the pre-Trump  drift toward authoritarianism, Trumpite behavior of racism, sexism, selfishness and tolerance for predatory behaviors or the diminishing commitment to the democratic project.  It is to explain at least in part the causation of the state of conflict we find ourselves in .  It may offer some hope that if we are successful in containing and minimizing the pandemic and the Biden Administration's encouraging demonstration that government can actually work to help improve our lives, there may be a way forward with democracy.  Stable comportment of those of us not on the right as an example of how American life can be lived together with a massive expansion of mental health services might at least bring us some remedy to this current American Derangement.