Presidentvalget i USA 2024

[JK22]

Den første amerikanske delstaten hvor demokratiet avskaffes, er allerede i konturene; TEXAS. 

Texas GOP Amendment Would Stop Democrats Winning Any State Election

The Republican Party of Texas has voted on a policy proposal that would require any candidate for statewide office to win in a majority of the state's 254 counties to secure election, effectively preventing Democrats from winning statewide positions based on the current distribution of their support.

Democratic voters in Texas are heavily disproportionately concentrated in a handful of major cities which only constitute a small number of counties, while Republicans dominate most of the more sparsely populated rural counties.

On Saturday, Texas Republicans voted on a range of policy proposals at the party's biannual conference which took place from May 23-25 in San Antonio. Once these votes have been counted, the official Texas state Republican policy platform is expected to be revealed later this week.

Proposal 21, under the state sovereignty section, called for a "concurrent majority" to be required in order to hold statewide office.

It says: "The State Legislature shall cause to be enacted a State Constitutional Amendment to add the additional criteria for election to a statewide office to include the majority vote of the counties with each individual county being assigned one vote allocated to the popular majority vote winner of each individual county."

In November 2022, Texas's Republican Governor Greg Abbott secured re-election with 54.8 percent of the vote against 43.9 percent for Democratic challenger Beto O'Rourke. However, due to the concentration of O'Rourke's support in cities such as Dallas, Houston and Austin he only secured a majority in 19 of the state's 254 counties.

Republicans already dominate statewide politics in Texas with the governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general and comptroller of public accounts all belonging to their party, as do all nine justices on the state Supreme Court.

Newsweek contacted the Republican Party of Texas and the Texas Democratic Party, by online press inquiry form and email respectively, outside of usual office hours on May 27. This article will be amended if either wishes to comment.

According to The Texas Tribune it is unclear whether requiring support from a majority of counties to achieve statewide office "would be constitutional and conform with the Voting Rights Act" as racial minorities are disproportionately concentrated in a small number of counties.

On Saturday the Texas GOP also voted on whether to back a referendum on the state leaving the United States and becoming a fully independent country, a proposition it approved during the previous party convention in 2022.

The motion stated: "Texas retains the right to secede from the United States, and the Texas Legislature should be called upon to pass a referendum consistent thereto."

Other motions proposed included a call to "abolish abortion by immediately securing the right to life and equal protection of the laws to all preborn children from the moment of fertilization."

There was also a call to reverse the renaming of military bases named after Confederate leaders to "publicly honor the southern heroes," and a proposal that Confederate "monuments that have been removed should be restored to their historic locations."

On Thursday supporters of the Texas Nationalist Movement, which wants the Lone Star State to become an independent country, were photographed holding signs which read "TEXIT NOW!" inside the convention center.

Hvis Proposal 21 blir lov, vil det avsluttet det demokratiske styret i den amerikanske delstaten fordi det vil ikke lenge være snakk om "en stemmegiver, en stemme" som er prinsippet, men en sann ettpartistat etter fascistisk og kommunistisk modell, da det innbar at det vil bli umulig for en utfordrer fra et minoritetsparti å vinne delstatlige valg, når man KASTER UT stemmegiverne til fordel for administrative enheter, ved at den som vil vinne, må ha flesteparten av fylkene - som da betyr at befolkningen i realiteten VIL MISTE SIN STEMMERETT. Hva er vitsen med å stemme når et parti kan vinner i to tredjedeler av landet selv om bare en femtedel av befolkningen holdt til der? Hva er egentlig vitsen?!! 

Dette er demokratifiendtlig, så meget at det texanske republikkpartiet aldri skulle ha et slikt forslag på bordet i den første plassen, som gjør det klart at dette partiet har begynte med å manøvrere seg med å stenge ned det amerikanske demokratiet i delstaten og innføre et rent fascistiskinspirert ettpartistyre.

De aktet å gjenopplive "dixiearvet" a la Putin fra Russland og vil sannsynlig omskrive historien - selv om de konfødererte hadde sloss for å beholde slaveriet - som var selve eksistensgrunnlaget for Texas. Det er så lett glemt - det var først i 1990-årene, til voldsom stor sjokk for mange nordmenn som hadde lenge et fordelaktig syn på den texanske historievinklingen, det var oppdaget at texanerne, som var egentlige immigranter uten fødselsted der, hadde gjort opprør i 1836 for å beholde slaveriet. Texanerne hadde altså gått til krig to ganger for å beholde slaveriet. Texanerne hadde dessuten et meget problematisk historisk arv som det trenges å ta et oppgjør med, og som de hvite kjemper voldsomt for. 

[JK22]

“It can’t happen here.” 

Amerikanerne flest er altfor naiv og meget dårlig informert. 

Denial about Donald Trump has reached a new low (msn.com)

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, who incited a violent insurrection in January 2021 to try and remain in office illegally after he lost the 2020 election, has been clear about what kind of president he intends to be if he returns to the White House in January 2025.

In December 2023, he declared that he would be a dictator “on Day One” of his time in office. He proposed deploying the National Guard and even the military as a deportation force in an April interview with Time magazine. Add in his recent statement at the National Rifle Association convention that he might need three terms, and a new video from his Truth Social account with multiple references to the “creation of a unified Reich” — the Nazi government was known as the Third Reich — and it seems likely that a Trump victory would usher in a new autocratic era for America.

Yet it seems that so many in America are treating this election as politics as usual. Primaries, caucuses and other events proceed, even as the Republican nominee refuses to commit to accepting lawful election results if he is not the victor. And most of the GOP still embraces the false reality that Trump won the 2020 election as well.

This surreal situation reflects both an information deficit and a disinformation surfeit. A March poll of swing-state voters revealed that most respondents were unaware of Trump’s criminal charges, dictator threats, use of fascist language (such as calling people “vermin”), and vows to pardon the “patriots” who attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6. More worryingly still, the poll excluded voters who believed Biden stole the 2020 election. Those surveyed, though they are not lost in the Trumpist alternate universe, lack the information to take the threats to our democracy seriously.

And many better-informed Americans don’t take Trump’s proclamations and actions seriously either. Instead, they accuse those who are sounding the alarm at his strongman actions and rhetoric of hyperbole and hysteria.

Certainly, Americans are prone to thinking “it can’t happen here.” Our country has lived on its reputation as a bastion of freedom and democracy, and since we have never had a national dictatorship at home (though the Jim Crow South was a regional authoritarianism), many people don’t recognize autocratic creep as it unfolds. But as Robert Kagan’s stirring essay for The Washington Post put it: “A Trump dictatorship is increasingly inevitable. We should stop pretending.”

Yet too many are still pretending. President Joe Biden’s age receives far more coverage than Trump’s declarations that if he returns to the White House he will detain and deport millions of people and allow Vladimir Putin’s Russia to “do whatever the hell they want.” Such is his affinity for Russia’s authoritarian that he’d let Moscow attack NATO member states if they pose obstacles to Putin’s imperialist ambitions — a situation that could trigger World War III.

These dire outcomes can seem unreal, a world away from our daily lives of school pickups, doctor visits, work commitments and sports competitions. Dwelling in denial is the default mode for millions who have taken our freedoms for granted and don’t want to think about how their lives would be altered by the advent of authoritarian governance in America.

Americans are not the first to live in a state of collective denial. Authoritarians have often told us what they are going to do, but people have rarely believed them, or they have felt that since they didn’t fit the profile of those the autocrat was targeting, they wouldn’t be affected. Later, when it came their turn to be harassed or persecuted, it was too late to do much about it.

When Italian Prime Minister Benito Mussolini declared dictatorship in 1925, most active anti-Fascists tried to leave Italy or went into hiding to avoid going to jail. But Ignazio Silone, an Italian Communist who took refuge in a safe house in Milan, heard a comrade say that even as the streets filled with Fascist security forces, people lined up outside the La Scala opera house, waiting to see the latest spectacle as though Mussolini’s seizure of power did not concern them.

In Germany, the Jewish linguist Victor Klemperer, who kept a diary of his life during Hitler’s rule, was not in denial, but had to stay in Nazi Germany since he could not find a university position abroad. “Don’t think about it, live one’s life, bury oneself in the most private matters!” he wrote on Sept. 20, 1938, hoping that each new round of persecution would be the last.

Even when democracy dies by coup, and the repression is heavy and immediate, some underestimate the impact and view the situation as merely temporary. After Chile’s bloody 1973 coup, former Chilean President Eduardo Frei Montalva, a conservative Christian Democrat, was sure that the new military dictatorship would restore order and then “return power to democracy.” But as dictator Augusto Pinochet tightened his grip, Frei realized his grave error and began to criticize the regime. He would die less than a decade later, with his family alleging that Frei was poisoned on Pinochet’s orders.

Tyranny “advances with the pace of a tightening screw rather than with the dash of the executioner’s blade,” wrote the Italian anti-Fascist exile G.A. Borgese in 1937. We can learn from this sad history and treat the actions and declarations of Trump with all the gravity they deserve.

Fra Texas har man fått nyheter om at sentrale krefter i det regjerende partiet i delstaten aktet å fjerne demokratiet og innføre ettpartistyre gjennom en fordekt avskaffelse av stemmerettordningen, og det er ikke ennå kjent om de har fått gjennomslag for sine ambisjoner. Men faktumet om at dette hendt, gjør det meget klart at det er meget farefull tid hvor en stor majoritet av befolkningen i USA er altfor opptatt av økonomi, hverdagslivsplager og kortsiktige verdensanskuelse til å fatte alvoret, og dermed lever i benektelse akkurat som i Italia i 1925, Mussolini var et lite kjent ansikt for det italienske folket som bare lot fascistene overtar uten å fatte konsekvenser. Meget mange hadde drevet med ønsketenkning og benektelse fordi de tenker; "det skjer ikke", "det vil ikke vare", mange hadde tenkt slikt i Russland i 1999-2022, nå er disse borte og hundretusener har blødd i en av de meste avsindige kriger i historien som kan bli en storkrig. 

Men det amerikanske folket må påta seg skylda - i fakta, hovedskylda må ligges i det amerikanske folket som hadde mistet sans og samling siden 1994, da de stemte republikanerne inn i flertall i kongressen og Newt Gingrich begynte sabotasjekursen hvor GOP deretter nekte å samarbeide med demokratene ved å oppmuntre til åpen konflikt og krangling - som for mange blir den nye normen. Så meget, at en observatør rett og slett fordømte hans egne folk for å ha tillatt og oppmuntret åpen krig mellom politikere uten å bry seg om styre og stell! 

"Trump is all dominance, all the time”: New research reveals "his most formidable political asset" (msn.com)

Political scientist M. Steven Fish believes that the Democratic Party’s inability, despite their many policy successes, to conclusively defeat the Republicans and the larger “conservative” movement and American neofascists, is rooted in much bigger and systematic failings. 

I Europa er ordet "polsk riksdag" meget velkjent, også i Norge, om hvordan kaotiske og motsetningsfylte forhold i en forsamling leder til handlingslammelse, polarisering og statsoppløsning - det har ikke gått borti den europeiske intelligentsia som hadde orkesterplassen da Polen-Litauen nærmest ble utradert som et resultat i 1700-tallet. Siden da har man vært meget bevisst på denne potensielle faren her i Europa (spesielt Skandinavia) - som har blitt nærmest glemt i USA. De amerikanske velgerne oppførte seg akkurat som aristokrater og godseiere som valgt riksdagsmenn som de siden lot gå løs på hverandre for egne vinning. 

Fish warns that Donald Trump and the other Republican leaders use a high-dominance approach to politics and communication that allows them to set the agenda, which in turn puts the Democrats, who tend to be more passive and consensus-oriented, in a consistently weak position of reaction and defense. It is this failure of messaging and leadership style that has largely made the (white) working class so attracted to the Republicans and Trumpism.

Mange går til GOP ikke fordi de vil ha produktive representanter, men fordi de vil ha representanter som ljuget for alle, angripe hverandre med hets og hån, opptre truende og svært handlingskraftig selv når disse i realiteten bedrive meget skadelige virksomhet for velgerne. Trump hadde kunne komme inn i slike omstendigheter. 

In the bigger global picture, what I’ve found is that everywhere they’ve won power, democracy’s adversaries—from Orbán to Modi to Putin and the Philippines’ Rodrigo Duterte—have convinced people that they’re the toughest guys on the block and they can get things done. The specifics don’t matter. What impresses voters is that these leaders can work their will, whatever it may be. They shape opinions and tell folks what they want them to believe, rather than what they think they want to hear. They savor conflict and treat politics as an us-versus-them game. They take big risks and play to win.

They also never neglect the power of narrative and nationalism and always hammer away at their own supposed superiority as lovers and protectors of the nation. They play to voters’ emotions more generally, rather than just appealing to their material interests. They use entertaining, provocative parlance. In a word, they embrace what I call a high-dominance political style.

Liberal leaders today are often more comfortable in the role of petitioners and followers of public opinion than as commanders and shapers of public consciousness, so they’re always taking the public temperature and adjusting their messaging—and even policy stances—to polling. They’re conflict-averse and prefer compromise to combat. Us-versus-them framing and “othering” seem unnecessarily polarizing to them.

Dette hadde demokratene tapt på, selv om det amerikanske demokratiet utspringer av et valgbart oligarkisystem hvor konsensusoppbygging, kompromisspolitiske prinsipper og konflikthindrende atferdsnormer var essensielt. 

Not only are the liberals’ low-dominance ways costing them elections. They also often seem to confirm the authoritarians’ claims that democracy itself is “weaker” than authoritarianism—and that playing by the rules is for chumps. Of course, getting people to believe that is every autocrat’s and would-be autocrat’s aim and the key to ensconcing himself in power forever.

I Europa hadde man lært en bitter lekse om autoritarianismen overalt som et resultat av de politiske konfrontasjonene siden 1789 mellom ideologiske fronter og dermed hadde i lang tid vært meget opptatt med å avverge tilløp mot svekkelse av folkestyreprinsippene, i Skandinavia er det tusenårige tradisjoner for ro og konflikthindring innenfor den politiske dimensjonen, som fremdeles er i livet i dag. Amerikanerne synes å ha mistet alt dette. 

Mange vil ha en "strongman" uten å fatte hva det innbar. 

Endret 27. mai av JK22

[JK22]

JK22 skrev (På 27.5.2024 den 7:04 PM):

Den første amerikanske delstaten hvor demokratiet avskaffes, er allerede i konturene; TEXAS. 

Texas GOP Amendment Would Stop Democrats Winning Any State Election

The Republican Party of Texas has voted on a policy proposal that would require any candidate for statewide office to win in a majority of the state's 254 counties to secure election, effectively preventing Democrats from winning statewide positions based on the current distribution of their support.

Democratic voters in Texas are heavily disproportionately concentrated in a handful of major cities which only constitute a small number of counties, while Republicans dominate most of the more sparsely populated rural counties.

On Saturday, Texas Republicans voted on a range of policy proposals at the party's biannual conference which took place from May 23-25 in San Antonio. Once these votes have been counted, the official Texas state Republican policy platform is expected to be revealed later this week.

Proposal 21, under the state sovereignty section, called for a "concurrent majority" to be required in order to hold statewide office.

It says: "The State Legislature shall cause to be enacted a State Constitutional Amendment to add the additional criteria for election to a statewide office to include the majority vote of the counties with each individual county being assigned one vote allocated to the popular majority vote winner of each individual county."

In November 2022, Texas's Republican Governor Greg Abbott secured re-election with 54.8 percent of the vote against 43.9 percent for Democratic challenger Beto O'Rourke. However, due to the concentration of O'Rourke's support in cities such as Dallas, Houston and Austin he only secured a majority in 19 of the state's 254 counties.

Republicans already dominate statewide politics in Texas with the governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general and comptroller of public accounts all belonging to their party, as do all nine justices on the state Supreme Court.

Newsweek contacted the Republican Party of Texas and the Texas Democratic Party, by online press inquiry form and email respectively, outside of usual office hours on May 27. This article will be amended if either wishes to comment.

According to The Texas Tribune it is unclear whether requiring support from a majority of counties to achieve statewide office "would be constitutional and conform with the Voting Rights Act" as racial minorities are disproportionately concentrated in a small number of counties.

On Saturday the Texas GOP also voted on whether to back a referendum on the state leaving the United States and becoming a fully independent country, a proposition it approved during the previous party convention in 2022.

The motion stated: "Texas retains the right to secede from the United States, and the Texas Legislature should be called upon to pass a referendum consistent thereto."

Other motions proposed included a call to "abolish abortion by immediately securing the right to life and equal protection of the laws to all preborn children from the moment of fertilization."

There was also a call to reverse the renaming of military bases named after Confederate leaders to "publicly honor the southern heroes," and a proposal that Confederate "monuments that have been removed should be restored to their historic locations."

On Thursday supporters of the Texas Nationalist Movement, which wants the Lone Star State to become an independent country, were photographed holding signs which read "TEXIT NOW!" inside the convention center.

Hvis Proposal 21 blir lov, vil det avsluttet det demokratiske styret i den amerikanske delstaten fordi det vil ikke lenge være snakk om "en stemmegiver, en stemme" som er prinsippet, men en sann ettpartistat etter fascistisk og kommunistisk modell, da det innbar at det vil bli umulig for en utfordrer fra et minoritetsparti å vinne delstatlige valg, når man KASTER UT stemmegiverne til fordel for administrative enheter, ved at den som vil vinne, må ha flesteparten av fylkene - som da betyr at befolkningen i realiteten VIL MISTE SIN STEMMERETT. Hva er vitsen med å stemme når et parti kan vinner i to tredjedeler av landet selv om bare en femtedel av befolkningen holdt til der? Hva er egentlig vitsen?!! 

Dette er demokratifiendtlig, så meget at det texanske republikkpartiet aldri skulle ha et slikt forslag på bordet i den første plassen, som gjør det klart at dette partiet har begynte med å manøvrere seg med å stenge ned det amerikanske demokratiet i delstaten og innføre et rent fascistiskinspirert ettpartistyre.

De aktet å gjenopplive "dixiearvet" a la Putin fra Russland og vil sannsynlig omskrive historien - selv om de konfødererte hadde sloss for å beholde slaveriet - som var selve eksistensgrunnlaget for Texas. Det er så lett glemt - det var først i 1990-årene, til voldsom stor sjokk for mange nordmenn som hadde lenge et fordelaktig syn på den texanske historievinklingen, det var oppdaget at texanerne, som var egentlige immigranter uten fødselsted der, hadde gjort opprør i 1836 for å beholde slaveriet. Texanerne hadde altså gått til krig to ganger for å beholde slaveriet. Texanerne hadde dessuten et meget problematisk historisk arv som det trenges å ta et oppgjør med, og som de hvite kjemper voldsomt for. 

Det har blitt vedtatt. Proposal 21 har blitt vedtatt som del av partiprogrammet i for det texanske republikanske partiet. 

Texas Republicans’ Brazen Plan to Control the State Forever (msn.com)

The Texas Republican Party approved its new platform at its annual convention last week. It reflects the hard-right stances of its members, with reiterations of Texas’s “right to secede,” demands for bans on quarantines during future pandemics, calls to investigate “unidentified aerial phenomena,” and more. Tucked in between these more outlandish provisions is an ominous one that would effectively end representative democracy in Texas—and keep the state firmly in GOP hands even as it becomes increasingly diverse and urban.

The platform calls for the establishment of what can best be described as an electoral college of sorts for Texas statewide races. “The State Legislature shall cause to be enacted a State Constitutional Amendment to add the additional criteria for election to a statewide office to include the majority vote of the counties with each individual county being assigned one vote allocated to the popular majority vote winner of each individual county,” the new plank declared.

The proposal is born from the party’s fear that it will not rule Texas forever. Texas Republicans frequently tout their state’s economic growth in recent years and brag that residents in sapphire-blue states like California are fleeing there. But those migrations are turning statewide races in the Lone Star State more competitive, and right-wing leaders in Texas fear that Democrats might once again hold the governorship and other key offices.

It is hard to imagine that such a system as the Texas GOP has proposed would comply with the one-person, one-vote principle, to put it lightly. Texas has 254 counties, some of which are extremely sparsely populated. Loving County, which is on the state’s western border with New Mexico, counted only 64 residents during the 2020 census, making it the least populous county in the United States. Eight Texas counties are home to fewer than 1,000 people, and an additional 86 counties each have fewer than 10,000 inhabitants.

Adopting a county-majority requirement for statewide elections would obviously cement Republicans into perpetual power in statewide races. In modern American politics, Democratic voters tend to be concentrated in urban areas while Republican voters are overwhelmingly popular in rural counties. President Joe Biden received 1.9 million votes just from the three Texas counties in 2020 that cover Houston, Dallas, and Austin.

Beyond the partisan implications, a county-majority requirement would dramatically shift the state’s electoral power toward its rural residents in general. Roughly 3.9 million people live in the least-populated half of Texas counties. They would enjoy an effective veto in statewide elections over the other 26 million or so Texans who live in denser areas. That proportion is similar to Texas’s population within the United States. If that power disparity were similarly reflected in the Electoral College, Texas would have an additional 229 electoral votes.

The Supreme Court has never ruled on whether such a system would be constitutional. Only one other state has ever adopted something like it. During its 1890 constitutional convention, Mississippi implemented a dual-track system of its own. It required candidates for statewide office to win a majority of the popular vote and a majority of districts in the state House of Representatives. If no candidate met both thresholds, the state House would elect them instead.

A person who is casually familiar with American history will have already guessed based on the year and the state that Mississippi’s 1890 system wasn’t created with good intentions. Those who participated in the convention openly declared that its purpose was to eliminate Black political power. “There is no use to equivocate or lie about the matter,” Mississippi Governor James Vardaman, an ardent white supremacist, recounted a few years later. “Mississippi’s constitutional convention of 1890 was held for no other purpose than to eliminate the n— from politics.”

The two-tier system prevailed in Mississippi until 2020 when state voters approved a constitutional amendment that repealed it. A voting rights coalition had filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the state in 2019 to challenge the system’s constitutionality, and a federal judge had suggested in court that the system might violate the equal protection clause and the one-person, one-vote principle. State lawmakers rushed to replace it before a ruling could be handed down.

It would be impossible to justify Texas’s system under existing legal precedent. So to whatever extent Texas Republicans are thinking strategically about the matter, they may be hoping that the Supreme Court’s conservative supermajority will side with them. At least one of the justices is already willing to excise the one-person, one-vote principle from American constitutional law.

The Supreme Court first articulated the one-person, one-vote principle in a series of cases in the 1960s that addressed state malapportionment. In the 1962 case Baker v. Carr, the justices ruled that the apportionment of state legislative districts could be reviewed by federal courts. That led to landmark rulings over the next few years that required equally drawn districts for federal House races and for state legislative seats. The only legislative body in America today where that principle does not apply is the U.S. Senate.

In the 2016 case Evenwel v. Abbott, two voters went to the Supreme Court to challenge Texas’s state legislative districts. They argued that Texas had violated the equal protection clause by drawing those districts based on total population instead of voting population. By relying on total population, the plaintiffs claimed, the state had diluted their votes by using noncitizens and otherwise ineligible voters to apportion districts.

Their argument ran counter to more than two centuries of historical practice. State legislatures have always used total population to apportion state legislative districts, and the Constitution effectively requires it for congressional districts. The Supreme Court unanimously rejected their complaint and ruled that it was permissible for Texas to use total population to apportion its state legislature.

Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a concurring opinion to note that he agreed with the ultimate result, but not with the reasoning that the majority used to get there. “In my view, the majority has failed to provide a sound basis for the one-person, one-vote principle because no such basis exists,” he wrote. No other justices joined his opinion.

“The Constitution does not prescribe any one basis for apportionment within States,” Thomas claimed. “It instead leaves States significant leeway in apportioning their own districts to equalize total population, to equalize eligible voters, or to promote any other principle consistent with a republican form of government. The majority should recognize the futility of choosing only one of these options. The Constitution leaves the choice to the people alone—not to this Court.”

Thomas’s concurring opinion was focused on the unspoken question raised by the case. While the justices unanimously said that the Evenwel plaintiffs could not force Texas to use voting population for apportionment, they did not address whether Texas lawmakers could choose that method themselves. But his denunciation of one-person, one-vote and the precedents that established it would upend American political systems in other ways.

In a decision last month on a racial-gerrymandering case from South Carolina, Thomas once again called for those precedents to be overturned. He argued that the Constitution gave the federal courts no role to countermand how states draw their political divisions, even if they do so to weaken or eliminate Black electoral power. Thomas even expressed doubt about the validity of the high court’s efforts to enforce Brown v. Board of Education in the face of widespread resistance to desegregation from Southern states.

By recognizing the one-person, one-vote principle in the 1960s, the Warren court effectively dragged the United States into liberal democracy. If the Texas Republican Party had its way, the country would be dragged right back out of it. And at least one justice on the Supreme Court would be sympathetic to their goals of perpetual one-party rule.

Nok en gang ser vi at den fargede høyesterettsdommeren angripe hans egne bakgrunn og hans egne mulighet man hadde i ungdommen, da han ikke bare vil ødelegge raselikestillingsdoktrinen som den legendariske Warren hadde introdusert, men også stemmeretten basert på "en person, en stemme"-prinsippet. Da Warren tvunget gjennom allmenn stemmerett på et føderalt grunnlag var store deler av USA den gang i fakta kvasidemokratisk, fascistisk og ikke-demokratisk, spesielt sørstatene. Det var tre sentrale høyesterettsavgjørelser som hadde sørget for at USA blir et ekte liberaldemokratisk land, sluttførte utviklingen av den progressive USA som startet i "den progressive æren" 1900-1917 - Baker v. Carr (1962), Wesberry v. Sanders (1964) og sist Reynolds v. Sims (1964) - Earl Warren som er norskættet og kjent som en av de meste rettskafne mennene i USAs historie både som politiker og dommer (Nixon og Warren hatet hverandre i en klassisk ondskap vers godhet-konflikt) kan sies å være det amerikanske demokratiets far. 

"The right to vote freely for the candidate of one's choice is of the essence of a democratic society, and any restrictions on that right strike at the heart of representative government. [...] Undoubtedly, the right of suffrage is a fundamental matter in a free and democratic society. Especially since the right to exercise the franchise in a free and unimpaired manner is preservative of other basic civil and political rights, any alleged infringement of the right of citizens to vote must be carefully and meticulously scrutinized." (Earl Warren 1964)

Det avslører at USA i realiteten er et ungt demokratisk land. Ikke så gammelt som mange trodde, amerikanerne selv, og det skyldes grunnlovsfedrenes egne beslutning om å innføre rasesegregering som kriterium for det amerikanske samfunnet - det var de som bestemte at en fargede skulle være mindreverdig mot en hvite. Dette skaper meget alvorlige problemer den dag i dag. Dette er under angrep av republikanerne med flere høyesterettsdommerne i spissen, mest notert Clarence Thomas som åpenbart har blitt for mentalt forstyrret av hans identitetsforvirring. 

Fra Texas har det blitt avslørt at republikanerne aktet å forkaste den allmenne stemmeretten hvor 3,9 millioner skal ha fortrinn foran 26 millioner som i realiteten betyr at Texas ikke lenge kan kalles et demokrati når alle prinsipper knyttet til stemmerett forkastes til fordel for et minoritetstyranni. Fra Kansas hadde den delstatlige høyesteretten hvor dommerne nesten gikk løs på hverandre med never, bestemt at den delstatlige stemmeretten ikke beskyttes i tråd med verken den føderale "Bills of Rights" eller den delstatlige konstitusjonen. 

Opinion: Pay-to-play politics is killing our democracy — we can save it using the Constitution (msn.com)

Det er nå oppstått meget voldsomme bekymringer "over hele fjøsa" i hele USA hvor det nå er sett en intellektuell reisning der man mener det amerikanske demokratiet er under seriøs fare ikke bare fra Trump, men også republikanerne og den føderale høyesteretten. 

In the past few decades, in cases like Citizens United, the Supreme Court essentially rewrote the Constitution, deciding that the First Amendment prohibits Americans from having fair and even-handed spending rules to protect the integrity of our elections and the votes of all Americans. For the first 200 years of American history, no one thought that the First Amendment stripped Americans’ ability to limit spending in elections. Now, a handful of lawyers and judges have decided otherwise, and all Americans are paying the price.  

For example, 86 percent of Maine’s voters approved a ballot initiative in November to stop foreign government owned or controlled corporations from spending money to influence elections there. Such foreign entities spent $100 million in the state’s election in the previous three years. Earlier this year, a federal judge granted a preliminary injunction to block the law, explaining that the law likely violated Citizens United.  

Foreign influence is a threat to self-government. Foreign actors exploit dark money groups disguised as domestic organizations to funnel money and carry out electioneering activities in local, state and federal races. Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) and Jared Golden (D-Maine), who introduced their own legislation last year to curtail foreign influence in elections, point out the blatant national security risks associated with the campaign finance system’s opacity, writing that “it is undeniable—foreign agents and individuals, with agendas of their own, can affect our electoral process, and by extension, our daily lives.” 

Siden 2010 har det politiske systemet blitt et "pay-to-play" arena for milliardører og pengerike krefter - og dette var ikke godt mottatt av den amerikanske offentligheten, som dessverre forbli blind for at dette var hendt som et resultat av den republikanske kontrarevolusjonen om å feie bort den progressive USA og at den føderale høyesteretten er de egentlige skurker, støttet av republikanske politikere som McConnell i kongressen og erkekonservative organisasjoner som FedSoc som aktet å ødelegge Warrens verk. Thomas blir disses villige slave. 

Red, Blue & Now Authoritarian: The New Political Party Rising in America (msn.com)

* Florida Book Bans: Governor Ron DeSantis has been actively reshaping the public education system in Florida by removing books from school shelves.

* Transgender Rights Restrictions: The rights of transgender people are under attack throughout the country, with many states passing laws restricting their access to healthcare and other basic rights.

* Voting Restrictions: Efforts to restrict voting rights and suppress dissenting voices are also prevalent, with many Republican leaders questioning the legitimacy of election results and advocating for stronger, unelected leaders.

* Trump’s Authoritarian Rhetoric: Donald Trump’s political career has been marked by authoritarian tendencies, including attempts to overturn election results and his statements about using force to achieve political goals.

* Polarization and Isolationism: The Republican Party has shifted towards isolationism and rejecting international institutions. 

'Greatest threat you never heard of': Report reveals lurking menace to U.S. democracy (msn.com)

Det er oppstått en militant bevegelse med kristenfascistisk ideologi som er i ferd med å bli en seriøs trussel - og speakeren Johnson er knyttet til disse. 

"Mike Johnson, who is now the speaker of the House, joined the NAR’s 'Global Prayer for Election Integrity,' which called for Trump’s reinstatement as president, in the weeks leading up to the attack on the Capitol. Johnson has also stated that Jim Garlow, an NAR leader, has had a 'profound influence' on his life."

The NAR is an amalgamation of like-minded organs such as Truth and Liberty Coalition and City Elders pursuing the same aims: to wrest control of political sway throughout American society.

City Elders founder Jesse Leon Rodgers seeks to create the mission of a Kingdom of God in America.

That translates into a way of life where all businesses, culture schools are beholden to religious tenets.

The SPLC describes what happens with any detractors of the NAR's grand plans.

It suggests that opposition are literally “demonic” and argues demonizing any argument is perilous.

"When everyone but your own is demonic, there is no room for discussion or any daylight left between you for compromise, which undermines the very heart of a modern, democratic system," according to an SPLC release. "The effect is a wearing down, and sometimes, a tearing down of institutions and trust meant to hold people accountable to each other and to help moderate conflict before it breaks into violence.

"The destruction of our civic institutions, even when they need reform, will only give the hard right a free hand unencumbered by checks and balances to rewrite our social contract into a dystopian, Christian supremacist, and even neo-fascist future."

Vi nærmere oss borgerkrig. Hva tror man vil skje når 26 millioner få beskjed om at deres stemmer er verdt mindre enn stemmer fra under 4 millioner? De vil eksplodere. Bokstavelig talt. Og det er ikke bare i Texas hvor innflyttere er i ferd med å få sterk ideologiske innflytelse, i delstaten Idaho har tradisjonelle republikanerne i stigende grad kommet i konflikt med ekstreme republikanerne som hadde flyttet fra demokratiskkontrollerte delstater som California. Mange republikanske delstater har kuttet sine skatteinntektene så meget, at mange flytte til disse - uten å ense de politiske og kulturelle forskjellene - samtidig som disse er i ferd med å oppleve alvorlige følger innenfor velferd, sosialstøtte, naturvern og mikroøkonomi. Det skjer en voldsom flytteorgie i USA som har skapt meget forvirrende orienteringsrot. 

[Snikpellik]

På Fox News sin nyeste måling har Biden allerede passert Trump. Endringen er 3 prosentpoeng fordel Biden siden mai.

https://www.foxnews.com/official-polls/fox-news-poll-three-point-shift-biden-trump-matchup-since-may

32% svarer også i målingen at de mener det går bra med økonomien, det høyeste på mange år.

Endret 20. juni av Snikpellik

[shockorshot]

Økonomien i USA går utrolig bra, arbeidsledigheten er superlav, og inflasjonen er ikke et problem lengre. De kom jo seg ut av inflasjonsproblemene over et halvt år før de første landene i Europa. Mener jeg husker at en økonom forklarte meg en gang at det tar ca ett til to år før folkeopinionen får med seg at det har skjedd gode endringer i økonomien. Det er jo perfekt timet til valget.

[jjkoggan]

shockorshot skrev (1 time siden):

Økonomien i USA går utrolig bra, arbeidsledigheten er superlav, og inflasjonen er ikke et problem lengre. De kom jo seg ut av inflasjonsproblemene over et halvt år før de første landene i Europa. Mener jeg husker at en økonom forklarte meg en gang at det tar ca ett til to år før folkeopinionen får med seg at det har skjedd gode endringer i økonomien. Det er jo perfekt timet til valget.

Hva skjer i Europa?

In 2008, the eurozone and the US had equivalent gross domestic products (GDP) at current prices of $14.2 trillion and $14.8 trillion respectively (€13.1 trillion and €13.6 trillion). Fifteen years on, the eurozone's GDP is just over $15 trillion, while US GDP has soared to $26.9 trillion.

[shockorshot]

45 minutes ago, jjkoggan said:

Hva skjer i Europa?

In 2008, the eurozone and the US had equivalent gross domestic products (GDP) at current prices of $14.2 trillion and $14.8 trillion respectively (€13.1 trillion and €13.6 trillion). Fifteen years on, the eurozone's GDP is just over $15 trillion, while US GDP has soared to $26.9 trillion.

Det er jo det store spørsmålet. Vil anta det er veldig sammenfattet, men tror ikke økt proteksjonisme mellom land i europa, manglende reformer og brexit har hjulpet.

[jjkoggan]

shockorshot skrev (16 minutter siden):

Det er jo det store spørsmålet. Vil anta det er veldig sammenfattet, men tror ikke økt proteksjonisme mellom land i europa, manglende reformer og brexit har hjulpet.

Kanskje 28 forskjellige land med 28 forskjellige reguleringer spiller en rolle.  Fareeds take forklarer

https://www.cnn.com/videos/world/2024/06/16/fareeds-take-europe-america-pace-gps-digvid.cnn

[Tussi]

Jeg har ikke fulgt denne tråden, men dette er jo vilt absurd

https://www.dagsavisen.no/nyheter/2024/06/26/amerikansk-hoyresides-prosjekt-2025-dystopisk-plott/

Her planlegger man en total maktovertagelse av statsapparatet, og så vinner motsatt partienes gang, da har man skjegget i postkassen 

[sedsberg]

Var det i dag det skulle være debatt mellom Trump og Biden?

Jeg kan ikke se for meg hvordan dette kan gå bra for Trump. Han klarer jo ikke si en sammenhengende, meningsfull setning uten å bytte tema 100 ganger. Han er jo dønn avhengig av teleprompter skal han si noe som helst.

[VifteKopp]

sedsberg skrev (6 minutter siden):

Var det i dag det skulle være debatt mellom Trump og Biden?

Jeg kan ikke se for meg hvordan dette kan gå bra for Trump. Han klarer jo ikke si en sammenhengende, meningsfull setning uten å bytte tema 100 ganger. Han er jo dønn avhengig av teleprompter skal han si noe som helst.

Kulten bryr seg ikke om det Trump sier er sammenhengende eller ikke.

Det spennende ligger i om Biden klarer å fremstå opplagt og energisk for de uavhengige gjerdesitterne.

[sedsberg]

Tror det er større sjanse for at noen i kulten plutselig våkner og tenker "hva F er det den galne mannen rabler om egentlig?" enn at hjemmesitterne plutselig tenker "Trump har et poeng der, egentlig".

[Zork]

49 minutes ago, sedsberg said:

Tror det er større sjanse for at noen i kulten plutselig våkner og tenker "hva F er det den galne mannen rabler om egentlig?" enn at hjemmesitterne plutselig tenker "Trump har et poeng der, egentlig".

Det er ingen mulighet for det - han reiser jo land og strand og babler usammenhengende tullprat hele tiden uten at noen av kultistene bryr seg om det.

Når ikke rableriet hans om haier og båtbatterier eller oppvaskmaskiner som han åpner og lukker (og åpner og lukker og...) får noen av dem til å lure, så vil ingenting av det han kan finne på å si en en debatt gjøre noen forskjell.

[sedsberg]

Det overrasker meg ikke om Trump plutselig trekker seg med en unnskyldning om at debatten er rigget av den demente mesterhjernen Joe Biden. 😛

[Gargantua]

Pinlig å se Biden i natt. Han er ikke ved sine fulle fem.

[Patek]

Hvordan er det mulig at USA ender opp i denne posisjonen for 3. valg på rad at man kun kan velge mellom to kandidater som åpenbart ikke er skikket til å styre et land. Biden har slitt med å snakke og gå i hele sin presidentperiode, at han skal kunne ta 4 år til er bare ikke mulig. Det er helt åpenbart at han begynner å slite skikkelig, men det har blitt nevnt lite i media de siste årene... Og når det kommer til Trump så gidder jeg ikke si noe en gang.

[FriskLuft]

Gargantua skrev (18 minutter siden):

Pinlig å se Biden i natt. Han er ikke ved sine fulle fem.

Er det ikke like pinlig å se Trump? Tenk deg at en av disse to skal bli USA sin neste president. Begge er gamle, de kan bli senile begge to før perioden er over - de kan dø lenge for perioden er over osv. Og dette er altså de to kandidatene USA har klart å få frem...Det er vel større sannsynlighet for å vinne i Lotto enn at ett av verdens største og rikeste demokratiske land klarer å få frem to slike kandidater til det vervet..Å være amerikaner i disse dager må være flaut

 

[Gargantua]

35 minutes ago, FriskLuft said:

Er det ikke like pinlig å se Trump? Tenk deg at en av disse to skal bli USA sin neste president. Begge er gamle, de kan bli senile begge to før perioden er over - de kan dø lenge for perioden er over osv. Og dette er altså de to kandidatene USA har klart å få frem...Det er vel større sannsynlighet for å vinne i Lotto enn at ett av verdens største og rikeste demokratiske land klarer å få frem to slike kandidater til det vervet..Å være amerikaner i disse dager må være flaut

 

Like pinlig å se Trump? Nei. Biden er på et helt annet nivå. Han mumler, babler, roter seg inn i setninger han ikke kommer seg ut av, og står igjen med et patetisk og forkomment ansiktsuttrykk etter at han mener at setningen er ferdig. Trump trenger ikke engang å si noe, bare observere hvordan Biden graver sin egen grav med sine inkoherente mumlinger. Her er en spade, fortsett å grave.

Til og med aviser og forståsegpåere som vanligvis har et horn i siden til Trump må innrømme at dette var katastrofalt for Biden, og Per Olav Ødegård sier at Biden kanskje allerede der tapte valget.

Endret 28. juni av Gargantua

[TAC-2]

Det er deprimerende å se at demokratene har satt seg i denne situasjonen. 

[Brother Ursus]

Trump er farligere. Og mer koko. Men Biden fremstår mer dement, og dermed svakere.

Dette er illevarslende. Trump leder allerede på målingene. Dette vil ikke overbevise noen om å stemme på Biden.