by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
It seems to me that the only unknown aspect of how American democracy dies is if it happens peacefully or violently. But how, exactly, would it happen? It would happen something like this — if we do manage to get past the weakest part of the whole situation which would be the transition from anocracy to autocracy.
It would happen rather subtly.
It would just become conventional wisdom that a Democrat can’t become president unless Democrats not just control the House and Senate but they control the actual number of delegations to the House. The thing that makes all of this possible is aggressive gerrymandering and voter suppression.
And, according to the conservative Traditionalists in my life, they specifically believe that the United States is not a democracy and they will support whatever is necessary to establish white (autocratic) minority rule. How do you shame people for not believing in democracy when they tell you point blank that they don’t believe in democracy?
The only question is — do we transition into autocracy peacefully or do we have a “national divorce” with the Red States getting their autocracy via some sort of Trumplandia and Blue States getting, I don’t know, some sort of United States of Canada?
At the moment, I think it will all happen peacefully. People will just give up on voting and because things won’t really change at first, lulz, what was the question? But there is, a greater than zero sum possibility that there really will be some sort of “national divorce” instead of the entirety of the United States slipping into autocracy.
But only time will tell. I can’t predict the future.
