democracy 
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SOURCE: The New Republic
4/21/2022
Will the Dems Use 14th Amendment to Punish States for Voting Rights Crackdowns?
Congress is entitled under the Amendment to strip states of representation if they don't maintain a republican form of government. Do proposed voting rights restrictions and other red-state legislation qualify?
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SOURCE: Boston Review
4/19/2022
T. Thomas Fortune: The Forgotten Founder of Abolition Democracy
by Robin D.G. Kelley
T. Thomas Fortune's critique of Reconstruction is a radical intellectual document that has valuable lessons for the activists and scholars associated with the prison abolition movement.
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SOURCE: The New Republic
4/11/2022
Authoritarianism Isn't Just About Personality Cults
Recent books on "strongmen" reduce the problem of authoritarianism to the phenomenon of charismatic leadership and ignore many of the structural factors contributing to democratic collapse.
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SOURCE: The Watergate Story
4/4/2022
Watergate at 50: The Consequences of Impunity
by Barry Sussman
The Washington Post's City Editor at the time of the Watergate breakin launches a series of posts on the ongoing legacy of the scandal. This one discusses the legacy of elite impunity that resulted from the failure to prosecute Richard Nixon.
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SOURCE: The Guardian
3/21/2022
The Right Isn't Just Rejecting the 2020 Election – It's Worse than That
by Thomas Zimmer
For a growing number of Republicans, the illegitimacy of an election reflects not the process but the results – Democrats winning.
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SOURCE: Washington Post
3/13/2022
What if the Constitution is the Source of Democratic Erosion?
by Noah Feldman
James Madison feared from the beginning that the design of the US Senate was contrary to the core principles of a democratic republic. A Harvard Law professor says that if the nation can survive with a fundamentally undemocratic institution at the heart of the government, partisan gerrymandering might not be too bad.
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SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
1/27/2022
Manchin's Self-Proclaimed "Principled" Acts Mean Shunning His Constituents
by Ashley Steenson
Joe Manchin's torpedoing of the Build Back Better legislation reflects a historically prominent principle, though maybe not one the Senator would like to acknowledge: contempt for most of his constituents.
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SOURCE: Washington Post
1/24/2022
The Threat of the US Becoming an "Anocracy" Again? Civil War
by Barbara F. Walter
Anocracies combine the superficial trappings of democracy, like elections, with the suppression of civil liberties and the press and the hardening of factions in place of a common civic culture. By some measures, the US is now an anocracy, like Yugoslavia in the early 1990s.
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SOURCE: NPR
1/24/2022
One National Republican Wants (Narrow) Action to Tighten up Electoral Count Act
Former Congressman Zach Wamp (R-TN) says that the 1887 Electoral Count Act needs to be revised to take away an opening one party could use to contest election results.
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SOURCE: The Guardian
1/24/2022
The Senate is a Long-Term Threat to Democracy
by Thomas Zimmer
The idea that the Senate is "the world's greatest deliberative body" is American exceptionalism that hides the undemocratic nature of the institution.
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1/23/2022
Patrick Henry and the Defense of Democracy
by John A. Ragosta
Patrick Henry has become a hero of the Tea Party and the January 6 insurrectionists. But his famous demand for liberty or death doesn't capture his personal commitments to liberty under the rule of law and acceptance of the outcomes of elections.
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SOURCE: The Atlantic
1/20/2022
The End of Democracy won't Look Like You Think It Will
by Tom Nichols
The authoritarian right isn't motivated or organized enough to create the kind of dystopia some fear. But federalism means that significant chunks of the Formerly-United States will turn the clock back to the late 1950s.
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SOURCE: The Guardian
1/19/2022
Now or Never to Stop US Descent to Authoritarian Rule
by Thomas Zimmer
The Republican Party has operated on the core propositions that the Democratic opposition and its core constituencies are fundamentally illegitimate long before Donald Trump. Biden's victory shouldn't obscure how close they are to establishing permanent minority rule.
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SOURCE: Substack
1/17/2022
Of Course the Federal Government Can Regulate Elections
by Heather Cox Richardson
The Constitution not only enables, but requires the federal government to act when state authority violates the principles of democracy, something President Harry Truman realized in 1946.
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1/16/2022
Can Libya's Elections Lead to a Second Chance at Stability and Engagement with the World?
by Luiza Carter
The recent postponement of elections is another hurdle on Libya's path from post-dictatorship chaos toward potential democratic stability.
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SOURCE: Organization of American Historians
1/7/2022
The Assault on Democracy from Historical Perspectives: The January 6 Insurrection One Year Later
George Sanchez moderates a discussion featuring Anthea Hartig, Clarence Lange, Erika Lee and Nancy MacLean on the state of democracy on the anniversary of the capitol riot and attempted coup.
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SOURCE: Aspen Institute and Craig Newmark Philanthropies
1/12/2022
The State of Democracy: Jan. 22, 2022 (Feat. Carol Anderson)
"One year after the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, 92Y’s second annual State of Democracy Summit—co-presented with Aspen Digital—will explore the most important questions facing the country right now."
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SOURCE: The Guardian
1/8/2022
We Must Fight the New Lost Cause Myth Trump has Birthed
by David Blight
"Yes, disinformation has to be fought with good information. But it must also be fought with fierce politics, with organization, and if necessary with bodies, non-violently."
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SOURCE: MSNBC
1/9/2022
Tim Snyder: Degraded Integrity of Elections Threatens Democracy
“Democracy needs history, because history teaches you about your mistakes.”
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SOURCE: BoingBoing
1/7/2022
Timothy Snyder's Dire Speculations on the Next Trumpist Coup
The worst-case scenario for 2024 is pretty bad, according to the Yale historian of European fascism.
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