By Mat Wahlstrom
We’re being told that the election this Tuesday is most consequential of our lives, possibly even in U.S. history since 1860. And what’s at stake is “saving democracy” from the cancer of fascism.
It’s maddening trying to understand how we got here, that the entire country appears split down the middle over whether to continue “the last great experiment.” But the warning signs have been evident for a long time, and sadly the Democrats have failed to pay attention.
As recently as July, Pew Research found that fully 72% of the population believes the United States is no longer a good example of democracy. And that less than a quarter of those who identify as Democrats think it still is.
Because the problem is corporations already hold most of the power in America: fascism would just be the final step to make this official. People see that neoliberalism, or what passes for democracy nowadays, is just a slower slide toward that. So why bother?
This election should have been understood and treated as a need to do more than provide lip-service to the status quo. Because what our democracy needs is to be cured. As a fish rots from the head down, there’s no lack of symptoms at the local level that I could point out.
The Union-Tribune’s following its owners order to stay silent on making an endorsement in the presidential race while gaslighting to promote the incumbent mayor is a textbook example. (Apparently the editorial board doesn’t read their own paper, because that’s the only way they could wave away Larry Turner’s pointing out Todd Gloria’s complicity in the 101 Ash scandal.) It smacks of hiding from the patient that their condition is serious.
The regulatory capture of our local electeds and mainstream media by rentier and hotelier masters is just Amazon and Blackstone and Google writ small.
Perhaps we will come to our senses, perhaps on Tuesday morning a majority of citizens will give the current muddling along another chance. If they do — and I pray they do — then our leaders need to treat it as the close call they barely survived, a medical scare for the body politic that requires real and immediate action.
Congress must finally enact overdue voting reforms, overturn the disastrous Citizens United and other corrupt Supreme Court rulings while reforming the court itself, and reinstate the Glass-Steagall Act to separate banking from investment and make stock buybacks illegal again. And it must conduct no other business until these get done.
If fascism is a cancer — and it is — then we need treat it just as aggressively. Otherwise, our democracy is a tumor we’re forced to carry to term.
Plato a student of Socrates almost 2,500 years ago, wrote “The Republic.” The book is the last word in describing the types of government and leadership. He postulated a republic run by philosopher kings was best of all possible governments.
He wrote democracy is a form of government where power lies in the hands of the people. Everyone has a say, but Plato saw this as risky. He thought it could lead to mob rule and that people might make impulsive, uninformed decisions. He wrote that democracy is the precursor to dictatorship. In a democracy fascism grows out of hysteria and elects a leader who promises to be a benevolent dictator. With the election democracy disappears.
On the other hand, a republic is a government with structured rules, often featuring elected representatives. A Republic is the division of power using laws to limit power.
In 1776 Franklin, Jefferson, Adams and other visionaries set out to create utopia. America government was created by an extraordinary collection of citizens who understood what Plato had written. The reason for the electoral college, the division of power at the apex of government and all of the other safeguards created in our constitution is the reason today we can peacefully transfer power in the most powerful nation on earth.
Mr. Wahlstrom fails to understand the no matter who wins what, we are governed by laws not the majority of voters. Freedom of expression by the rich is still protected speech as is his response in the Rag.
Our Republic is alive and well and will be for as long as we are Americans respect each other and follow our constitution.
Not even Plato could foresee a totalitarianism envisioned by Trump, Project 2025 and today’s American fascists.
The elite have always distrusted the grassroots, tossing them aside as “the mob”, from Rome days to this day. We need to toss the Electoral College, a vestige of slavery days.
That’s the rub, Mr. Riel: the MAGA cult doesn’t recognize those who aren’t drinking their Kool-Aid as people, let alone respect them; and their Dipshitler has made it clear the Constitution is only good for wiping his soiled behind.
I could go into how I do know Plato as well as his distinction between direct democracy and a republican form of democracy — as well as his contention in The Laws that their cannot be more than 5,040 citizens in a polis, so good luck with a population of 335 million. But at this point such discussions would be equivalent to rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.