Still on the path to authoritarianism

My Sunday movie this week was Jingle Jangle on Netflix. It’s a Christmas story. I heard about it a year ago. It looked interesting but I didn’t have access to Netflix at the time. Jeronicus Jangle invents children’s toys. When his most important invention is stolen (a theft prompted by that invention) his life falls apart. His granddaughter, who has the same gift of invention comes for a visit and helps set things right. The setting is definitely steampunk plus elements of magic. It’s also a musical with big dance numbers. The steampunk setting means the toys and other contraptions have lots of gears and moving parts in wondrous ways. When scenes are narrated there are mechanical dolls that advance the story. Of course, all those mechanical delights – especially the matador doll that comes to life – mean the CGI credits at the end are quite long. Another important part of the story is all the major roles are played by black actors – except the banker threatening to foreclose on Jangle’s shop. The extras playing the townspeople are a mixture of races. Also, the second-best inventors are the daughter and granddaughter, the females. It is good to see black people and black women are shown as inventive. I enjoyed this one. Kamil Galeev has tweeted long threads during this war explaining Russia and its culture. It has been a while since I’ve looked at and shared one. This one from last week discusses what happens to Russia after Ukraine pushes them out? We think of Russia as a nation, but Galeev says it is more like an empire – the last European colonial empire to remain mostly intact. What holds Russia together is mythos, summarized as: 1. Russia’s military is so superior the provinces won’t win. 2. Without Russia the provinces have nothing and would fall into a Stone Age. Yeah, that’s laying it out there. I’ve heard despots say “You’re nothing without me!” and its corollary “Only I can save and protect you.” So if Ukraine is a rebel province and not an independent nation Russia will apply the mythos, with a variation – if you don’t fall into a Stone Age we must throw you into a Stone Age. So the mythos is revised a bit:

Territorial integrity of Russia is kept by the Imperial Mythos: 1. You can't survive without us 2. We can destroy you at any moment These two assumptions keep the empire together. Both of them are being tested in Ukraine (That's why Russia *must* destroy the infrastructure)

The future of Russia as an empire depends on it crushing its rebel province. And it looks like it won’t. If the other republics see Russia can’t then there could be a national divorce. This divorce likely won’t be led by the ethnic republics, but Russian republics that are independently rich, the ones the because of their natural resources are paying Moscow’s bills. They’ll divorce by no longer obeying Moscow’s edicts and paying taxes to it. The region, the wider collection of republics, most likely to divorce is Siberia. It has the most resources. If Moscow loses control of Siberia the empire is done. That process might begin within a year. In a Ukraine update Kos of Daily Kos wrote about the US contributions to the war. They have been considerable and contributed a great deal to Ukraine’s success. Kos has a partial list of what the US has given Ukraine and even that list is long. But Kos notes the pace of US aid, ammunition in particular, appears to be slowing and he says the reason is infuriating. The Pentagon has war plans and its policies say they must stockpile enough so those plans aren’t endangered. Those plans call for being able to fight on three fronts, a full out war against Russia and China (or North Korea), and a smaller war somewhere else. The problem with those current plans: (1) The US is already fighting that war with Russia through the aid given to Ukraine. (2) The size of Russia’s military has shown to be significantly smaller and less skilled than the Pentagon would have estimated a year ago. And (3) Ukraine isn’t fighting the war in the manner and with the type of equipment NATO would – NATO has an air force that could establish air superiority and Ukraine doesn’t. So how hard would it be for the Pentagon to reevaluate what it needs to stockpile to defeat a Russian attack? Brian Klaas wrote on Substack to consider whether America is still on the path to authoritarianism. The question is important because so many candidates endorsed by the nasty guy lost in last month’s election. But American democracy is not yet safe. In the past democracies were destroyed in a big wave – a coup, civil war, revolution, or simply electing a guy that turns out to be a dictator. The attack on America is much more gradual, sometimes so slowly we don’t recognize the damage. Here are the current dangers. The Republican Party has embraced authoritarianism. In a two-party system it is only a matter of time before they control all the levers of power. Democrats might be able to keep one chamber or the White House for many election cycles. But they can’t keep it up forever. Reducing the authoritarianism risk means reforming the Republican party and MAGA voters. That takes a long time. Yes, a lot of election deniers lost. Many more won. And we don’t know which states will be battlegrounds a dozen years from now. Who would have thought a Secretary of State elected in Georgia in 2012 would be so pivotal in 2020? Only one of the election denier defeats was a landslide. And only landslide losses will convince Republicans to change their ways. Nasty guy fever is diminished, but not broken. He still has considerable power and has a loud voice that he aims at millions of well-armed extremists. And at millions of authoritarian voters. They don’t care about policy. They only want to win. And if we have a dictator – their dictator – they’re totally cool with that. They’ll still be around and still be hungry for power after the nasty guy exits the scene. American democracy is dysfunctional due to gerrymandering and voter suppression. Over the last decade the margin of victory for Congressional elections has been about 20%. When seats aren’t competitive compromise dies. There is also a Senate where representation isn’t tied to population and the problems of the Electoral College. When one part of the government is extreme there is a strong risk the response will also be extreme. Biden and Democrats have avoided extreme responses, but that isn’t guaranteed to last. I’ll add one more factor that Klaas didn’t mention – the hugely rich guys that have been funding the shift to authoritarianism and funding the lawmakers willing to push for it are still there and even more rich than they were three years ago. There are reforms we can act, though they won’t happen at the national level while Republicans control the House. * Reform the Electoral Count Act (a bill to do that has been in Congress for two years now). * Reform primaries. Open primaries moderate extremism (Klass doesn’t mention ranked choice voting can help). * End gerrymandering. * Reform the FEC. Our patchwork of election laws has vulnerabilities. * Punish election jurisdictions where waiting time to vote is longer than 30 minutes. Wait times are a “time tax” the poor are least able to bear and most likely to incur. * Turn ethics norms into laws. An example is require the release of tax returns. (The Supreme Court also needs ethics laws.) * Establish oversight of politically connected pardons to avoid a president who would pardon people who could testify against him. There are, of course, many other reforms that will be needed. There is hope. Protecting democracy is a solvable problem. All other rich democracies have overcome what plagues America. “It’s far easier to heal an ailing democracy than to bring one back from the dead.” Finally, democracy matters. Citizens suffer greatly under the jackboot of a despot. Greg Dworkin, in a pundit roundup for Kos, quoted Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way writing for Foreign Affairs:

One year into Biden’s presidency, however, the threat to American democracy has not receded. Although U.S. democratic institutions survived the Trump presidency, they were badly weakened. The Republican Party, moreover, has radicalized into an extremist, antidemocratic force that imperils the U.S. constitutional order. The United States isn’t headed toward Russian- or Hungarian-style autocracy, as some analysts have warned, but something else: a period of protracted regime instability, marked by repeated constitutional crises, heightened political violence, and possibly, periods of authoritarian rule.

Mike Luckovich of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution tweeted a cartoon showing a donkey serving as a bodyguard for democracy and an elephant serving as a bodyguard for the nasty guy. I’m not convinced that’s accurate. Democrats had the opportunity to pass some of the items on the list Klaas presented and didn’t take it. The Republican side of that cartoon is, alas, quite accurate.