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My latest in @TheAtlantic : the GOP's two paths away from Trump - forward toward democracy, back toward the methods of Jim Crow: leveraging anti-democratic local rule to wield national power https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/11/gop-has-two-paths-forward/617105/
A last-ditch Trumpist plan to overturn the 2020 election results: beg GOP state legislators in Biden states like Pennsylvania to substitute pro-Trump electors.
This idea was thinkable because GOP had won majority in PA legislature with 500,000 fewer votes than Dems in 2018. 2/x
This idea was thinkable because GOP had won majority in PA legislature with 500,000 fewer votes than Dems in 2018. 2/x
Similar outcomes in MI and WI: GOP had won majorities of the seats with minority of votes.
In the end, the legislators flinched. The idea was illegal anyway. (Little Trumpists care about that.) But it demonstrated ... 3/x
In the end, the legislators flinched. The idea was illegal anyway. (Little Trumpists care about that.) But it demonstrated ... 3/x
The interoperation of minority over-representation at the federal level with minority dominance in the states. This was how the white South asserted its claims in the pre-civil-rights era. Now that seemingly banished past is becoming future. 4/x
My last three articles in @TheAtlantic form an (unplanned) trilogy on the state-federal minority rule.
I wrote this just before the election on how a Blue Wave would threaten the minority-rule system https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/10/raw-desperation-republican-party/616904/
I wrote this just before the election on how a Blue Wave would threaten the minority-rule system https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/10/raw-desperation-republican-party/616904/
I wrote this the day just after November 3 about how federal-state minority rule had probably survived the severe threat of the anti-Trump wave in 2020 https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/11/american-system-broken/616991/
And here is latest - and final - about the future prospects of the federal-state minority rule system. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/11/gop-has-two-paths-forward/617105/
The Republicans wins in 2010 - plus favorable judicial decisions - enabled them to draw the most gerrymandered maps since before the civil rights era.
The Democratic vote in 2020 was not big enough to overcome those maps and change state legislatures to redress the maps
The Democratic vote in 2020 was not big enough to overcome those maps and change state legislatures to redress the maps
Prospects are that after the surge of 2020, Republicans in 2022 and after can again count on maps that privilege a minority of the state vote with a majority of the state seats - and then leverage state majorities into disproportionate federal power.
- more -
- more -
I hope each of the articles stands on its own, but if you have time/interest, you'll get the clearest picture by reading all 3 in sequence
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/10/raw-desperation-republican-party/616904/
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/11/american-system-broken/616991/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/11/gop-has-two-paths-forward/617105/
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/10/raw-desperation-republican-party/616904/
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/11/american-system-broken/616991/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/11/gop-has-two-paths-forward/617105/
Conclusion: it's a great step to have defeated President Trump and opened the way to a more normal administration. But the US remains in dire need of a democratic agenda to do what democracy promises: award the power to govern to those who win more votes in a competitive election
If anything, the outcome of the 2020 election should teach Republicans to trust democracy. They did WELL down-ballot, and with many different kinds of voters. There's a multiethnic democratic future for GOP - if they will compete *for* votes, not compete by *preventing* voting.
