While Democracy Spreads Throughout the World, It’s Taken Away in the US

It is the best of times to be a democracy. It is the worst of times to be a democracy. All over the world, fledgling democracies are springing up in the place of decades old dictatorships. Tunisia, Egypt, and (any day now) Libya will all be in that exciting new phase of a country where the people who have been in power and bled the country dry will give way to something new. It might possibly be just as bad, but at least it will be a fresh start for a region that had gotten terminally stale, with stagnant wages, little opportunities, massive income disparities, and ready to do something about it.

Of course, the United States can’t say the same. In fact, we can say the exact opposite. In the last month, we have seen Republican plans to destroy unions (the Democrat’s last big fundraisers), defund liberal voices (like NPR/PBS/Planned Parenthood), and strip away Democrat voters (a few days ago brought the announcement several states are trying to make it harder for young people and minorities to vote…presumably because they’ll vote Democrat).

Is it any coincidence all this is happening at once? No. Although many and multiple reasons are being given for the new measures—“the deficit,” “a decrease in spending,” “an attempt to cut back on voter fraud”—there really is only one honest reason: Republicans know they are no longer the majority of the country. They know they can’t win a straight up, majority vote of the people and are doing everything they can to find a way around this…everything but change their richest-minority-first policies.

I can almost hear people saying to their computer screens “But Republicans won big in the 2010 midterm elections,” which of course is true. It is also true that voter turnout was through the basement and that every time there’s a low voter turnout Republicans typically do well. I also remember back in 2004 when George Bush’s own campaign advisors admitted the only way Bush could win Ohio is if voter turnout was low. So they did everything they could to keep it that way, and tried to discourage any African American votes specifically.

Now Republicans are banking on a similar “less is more” strategy by trying to get a low voter turnout in 2012 by making it much harder for college students and minorities to vote, passing new restrictions that target them specifically (without saying them by name of course). All this begs the question: If the only way you can win is by the majority of the country not voting, are you still a Democratic Party? Does a party like that still have a place in a democracy?

I might answer no. After hearing William O’Brien, the newly elected New Hampshire Speaker of the House’s remarks, I am saying DEFINITELY no. O’Brien cut through the bull about these new voting restrictions being an attempt to crack down on “voter fraud” (like Obama didn’t win by a landslide in 2008 anyway and all his votes weren’t earnest), by saying young voters “are foolish” in their choices and “vote their emotions” and can’t be counted on to vote the “right” way (i.e. for the party trying to take away their voting rights). This rationale is no different than any dictator this side of Mubarak who says the people are too “foolish” and “emotional” to see the “big” picture and therefore need a leader to make the “right” choices for them.

Yesterday, the Wisconsin GOP rammed through their anti-union legislation that would end collective bargaining—which Reagan called a “basic right in a democracy”—on the same day it looks like NPR/PBS might lose public funding because a top exec was caught on tape saying the Tea Party is racist. [What’s next? Defunding NASA because a top exec says space is big?] If the Republicans are successful in economically starving the Democrat Party by breaking up all their biggest donors, and then are successful in making it hard for most of their base to vote, how long until we’re a one party system? And not even a party most of the country supports either, just a party with the most money that benefits a select group of interests and a group of people that would rather break every rule in the book than give up power, otherwise known as fascism.

Today, we might be watching foreign events spiral out of control with a Libyan autocrat desperate to hold onto power, but for my money the Midwest is starting to look a lot like the Middle East.