Stephan: Readers write me asking, "You write about each of us getting involved with defending democracy, what can I do?" Here is a first answer. I hope you will act on it.
After a week of urgent warnings about the state of American democracy, there were several requests in the What Matters inbox for something more useful than a warning.What’s the average citizen supposed to do about it?I asked a politician, an activist and a professor who studies democracy. And there were some interesting thoughts from Karl Rove, too.
Barbara Walter is a professor at the University of California San Diego and has a new book out, “How Civil Wars Start and How to Stop Them.”
She’s among those who have warned the country’s democracy is in a dangerous place.When I asked her what everyday Americans could do to protect democracy, she sent back a thoughtful and lengthy email, which I’ll boil down to a few key points.
Vote. Even in presidential elections, there are millions of Americans not taking part in the democratic process. The share of nonvoters is even larger in midterm elections, and larger still at the local level.”If they voted it would perhaps change the makeup of Congress and break the minority’s hold on power in many […]
Stephan: What is happening in the United States, and the fact that we have one party that is now openly committed to ending the great American democracy experiment, as it is often called, is having a effect on the world's entire geopolitical structure. Authoritarian leaders and outright dictators are cheering Trump and his MAGAt Republicans on, realizing that if American democracy fails it will strengthen each of them. They are all hoping that the MAGAts win control of the House and Senate. The only thing that can stop this from happening is you.
The Head MAGAt
Fiona Hill, the former National Security Council expert and adviser to Donald Trump, addressed the international community’s fear about what’s happening in the United States.
One headline cited says that the next election will determine whether “the U.S. is hurtling toward autocracy” and if Canada should intervene. Other headlines show that the international community is fearful America could fall “off the cliff” in 2022 and gave a guide on how Canadians can hold on while sharing a concerning border to the south.
“They’re not alone,” said Hill. “Look, there is consternation across Europe at the moment. If you think about the role of the United States and the post-World War II world and in the post-Cold War world, we have been the bastion of democracy, and our bread and butter has been democracy promotion. Many of the institutions that Europeans have interacted with over the long sleep of the last 70 years, the last 30 years have been the National Endowment for Democracy, the International Republican Institute, the National Democratic Institute. our parties have […]
Stephan: Here is a deep dive into the corruption of Joe Manchin who, I think, is a truly despicable human being. That one man could be this unconscious about what he is doing to the planet and the people of the United States is appalling. That he is doing it not from ignorance but because of corruption condemns him to history's septic tank.
One of the hardest things to grasp about the climate crisis is the connectedness of all things. One recent drizzly afternoon, I drove from Charleston, West Virginia, to the John Amos coal-fired power plant on the banks of the Kanawha River, near the town of Nitro. In the rain, the plant looked like one of the dark satanic mills that poet William Blake wrote about, with three enormous cooling towers that steamed like giant witches’ cauldrons. Across the river from the plant, mobile homes cluttered the bank of the Kanawha, streaked black with pollution that rained down on them 24/7.
I had visited the plant 20 years ago, on my first reporting trip to West Virginia. Back then, the plant seemed like an indomitable monument to the power of Big Coal. The facility, owned by Ohio-based utility giant American Electric Power, is capable of generating 3,000 megawatts of electricity, enough to power 2 million homes. It is also one of the biggest carbon polluters on the planet, emitting 13 million tons of CO2 […]
Stephan: I think Bernie Sanders has it right. I find the Democrats deeply disappointing.
Senator Bernie Sanders and voters
Senator Bernie Sanders has called on Democrats to make “a major course correction” that focuses on fighting for America’s working class and standing up to “powerful corporate interests” because the Democrats’ legislative agenda is stalled and their party faces tough prospects in this November’s elections.
The White House is likely to see his comments as a shot across the bow by the left wing of a party increasingly frustrated at how centrist Democrats have managed to scupper or delay huge chunks of Biden’s domestic policy plans.
In an interview with the Guardian, Sanders called on Joe Biden and the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, to push to hold votes on individual bills that would be a boon to working families, citing extending the child tax credit, cutting prescription drug prices and raising the federal hourly minimum wage to $15.
Such votes would be good policy and good politics, the Vermont senator insisted, saying they would show the Democrats battling for the working class while highlighting Republican opposition to hugely popular policies.
Stephan: What I find amazing is how blatant the MAGAt Republican attempt to destroy democracy is, and how little push back we are seeing. Fair voting by all is the base principal of democracy. What are you doing to protect it?
Officers stand between two opposing groups of demonstrators outside of the Georgia state capitol building on March 3, 2021, in Atlanta, Georgia. Credit: Megan Varner / Getty
After Republican legislators in 19 states passed 34 laws restricting ballot access in 2021, largely fueled by Donald Trump’s election lies, more than a half-dozen more states are gearing up to go even further ahead of this year’s midterm elections.
Georgia Republicans, who last year passed a sweeping set of restrictions that Democrats likened to Jim Crow-era laws and led to widespread corporate condemnation and boycotts, have introduced a torrent of new voting bills that go well beyond the limits in last year’s legislation. Missouri Republicans have pre-filed multiple bills that would impose stricter voter ID requirements for in-person and mail ballots, after their previous attempts were rejected by courts. At least four states have already pre-filed seven bills that would “initiate or allow illegitimate partisan reviews” of election results, according to the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law. Republicans […]
