Two quite different definitions of democracy

Carolyn Fiddler of Daily Kos reported the highlights of a new Kos/Civiqs poll. It says 87% of those polled are worried the US is becoming less of a democracy. A couple other things in the poll: 52% say transgender youth should get health care that supports their gender identity. 56% recognize people of color face discrimination based on race. 54% of Republicans say white people are treated unfairly because of race. Kerry Eleveld of Kos also looked at the results of the poll, in particular the other questions about democracy. Should America remain a democracy? 93% agree. Are the new voting laws passed by Republicans an attack on democracy or to protect it? 44% say protect, 50% say attack. Are the new voting laws proposed by Democrats an attack on democracy or to protect it? 46% say protect, 43% say attack. We recognize democracy is in trouble, but we’re almost evenly split on what to do about it. One aspect Eleveld didn’t mention is this shows there are two quite different definitions of democracy. Charles Blow wrote an opinion piece for the New York Times and Dartagnan of Kos discussed it. Dartagnan summarized it as advice for Democrats:

Forget about any ideals of compromise with the Republican Party. It has become utterly irredeemable, a wholly un-American juggernaut with one goal in mind: to suppress and eliminate the voice of the American people in running the government that controls their lives. ... As long as Trump and his ilk continue to be the model and template for Republicans and party leadership, and as long as Republicans continue to kneel and pledge their fealty to his disgrace, there can be no cooperation, no compromise with them, ever. On anything. That may be a hard pill to swallow for some, but it’s the truth all Democrats need to live by, for now, and for the foreseeable future.

Mark Sumner of Kos looked at a few countries with high vaccination rates. Some, like America, have seen a dramatic drop in COVID cases, down to a case rate of 248 per 100K. In others, like Uruguay, the virus is still raging. It has a case rate of 4000 per 100K. The difference is that Uruguay has been using Sinovac, made by China. This vaccine does not do well against variants of the virus, especially the delta variant, which is much more transmissible and much more deadly. Uruguay used it because China made its version widely available at little cost. The US vaccine production has been locked up by wealthy countries and costs more. So Uruguay didn’t have much choice. It’s great that the US and other G7 countries have made a billion doses available. Alas, that’s 4 billion short of what’s needed. I like the early afternoon program on CBC Music. That stands for Canadian Broadcast Corporation (hearing this is an advantage of living in Detroit, so close to Windsor). The host, Tom Allen, has a much more interesting and humorous take on classical music than the hosts on the classical station in Detroit. So I hear the five minute hourly news a couple times each weekday. Over the last couple days the news has been about finding another field of hundreds of unmarked graves on a residential school property. One was found just a few weeks ago. These residential schools were where First Nation (their word for native) children were sent to have their culture drummed out of them, to make them think and act more white. That’s as horrific as it sounds. Leah McElrath, who advocates for human rights around the world, linked to a column about the current find in the National Post. Then she added:

I keep thinking, “There are no words.” But there are: Child abuse. Ethnic cleansing. Genocide. Among others, like heartbreaking.

Then McElrath quoted Mumilaaq Qaqqaq, a member of Parliament from Nunavut, showing a map of these residential schools. I count about 100 of them. Qaqqaq wrote:

This is a map of every residential "school" site in Canada. Every dot is a crime scene. Only a few have been investigated so far. Canada, do not get used to these numbers. Do not let them become statistics. Put yourselves in the shoes of these children in the ground.

Qaqqaq added that the map is incomplete. It doesn’t show schools in Newfoundland & Labrador because that was not part of Canada at the time the schools were started. The map also doesn’t show day schools. Canada is coming to understand what they did. Similar schools were set up in the US. We’re ignoring what we did.