The American Experiment Slowly Slipping Into Autocracy…

As an observ­er of the American polit­i­cal process, and my love for writ­ing, over the years I have sought to high­light what I per­ceive to be a wide dis­par­i­ty of effec­tive­ness between the two polit­i­cal par­ties, the Democratic, and Republican Parties.
Over the years I have con­sis­tent­ly writ­ten that the Republican par­ty is a full-blown cult that talks rule of law, patri­o­tism, and fis­cal con­ser­vatism, but that those issues, to the extent they may be con­sid­ered virtues, only apply when Democrats are in power.
The last Democratic President Barack Obama was lam­bast­ed mer­ci­less­ly of run­ning up the nation­al debt, and accused of sad­dling chil­dren yet unborn with debts they did not incur.
The fact of the mat­ter is that Obama slowed the uptick of the nation­al debt and reduced the deficit.
The hyp­o­crit­i­cal Republicans had no prob­lem when Ronald Reagan,& both Bushes were run­ning up both the deficit and the nation­al debt, not to men­tion what now pass­es for a pres­i­dent is doing, large­ly with ill-advised tax cuts and for­eign wars.
On the oth­er hand, the Democratic par­ty brags a lot less about the rule of law, patri­o­tism, & fis­cal con­ser­vatism, but would ben­e­fit from an audit between the per­for­mance on those issues between itself and the Republican party.

What is obvi­ous between the two par­ties, is that the Republican par­ty has become mas­ters of effec­tive mes­sag­ing, albeit that it’s mes­sag­ing is intrin­si­cal­ly devoid of facts, has become more racist, devoid of moral­i­ty, and has all but become unin­ter­est­ed in the American demo­c­ra­t­ic experiment.
It is safe to say that the Republican par­ty has a sin­gu­lar focus nowa­days. That focus is to use every tool in the tool-box, and where nec­es­sary, bring tools from out­side the tool-box, in order to main­tain a sol­id white suprema­cist con­trol of the country.
Those of you who are still stuck in won­der­ment at the silence on the one hand, and on the oth­er, the bel­li­cose defense of a hos­tile for­eign pow­er Russia, by Republicans, must under­stand the lengths to which Republicans will go to remain in pow­er and main­tain white supremacy.
The Democratic par­ty gets out-hus­tled, out­ma­neu­vered, and out-strate­gized at every lev­el. Even, when they are in con­trol of the exec­u­tive branch of the gov­ern­ment, Republicans are ful­ly able to stop the broad­er will of the major­i­ty of American vot­ers who con­tin­ue to elect Democratic pres­i­dents, only to be thwart­ed by the fire­wall to Democracy knows as the Electoral College.

The lack­lus­ter per­for­mance of Democrats, in response to the scorched earth strate­gies employed by Republicans, has now ful­ly placed the coun­try in a crit­i­cal posi­tion. A ten­u­ous posi­tion that far exceeds the cross­roads for­mer Ohio Republican Governor John Kasich envis­aged when he came out in sup­port of Democratic Presidential can­di­date Joe Biden sev­er­al weeks ago.
The pass­ing of Associate Supreme Court lib­er­al Icon Ruth Bader Ginsburg has shown that when it comes to observ­ing pro­to­cols and rules, the Republican par­ty has no inter­est in observ­ing any.
That includes the pro­to­cols they them­selves put in place in order to thwart President Obama’s nom­i­nee Merrick Garland from a seat on the high court.
With ten months left in Obama’s term, Antonin Scalia passed, giv­ing the pres­i­dent the con­sti­tu­tion­al right and duty to appoint a replace­ment to the court. He did, but Mitch McConnell the Senate major­i­ty leader, told the pres­i­dent that he would not even meet with judge Garland, much less to sched­ule hear­ings toward his appoint­ment to the high­est court.
McConnell lat­er gloated;

Now that the exec­u­tive in the white house is a Republican, and the shoe is on the oth­er foot, the very same Mitch McConnell wants to change the pro­to­col back. Never mind that this time around, there is just over forty [days] to the gen­er­al elec­tions, not ten months.
Immediately after the pass­ing of Justice Ginsberg, Mitch McConnell issued a state­ment, “President Trump’s nom­i­nee will receive a vote on the floor of the United States Senate”.
Never in my life­time have I seen a more shame­less and craven politi­cian wield pow­er with such unabashed greed and dis­re­gard for his­to­ry as Mitch McConnell has.
It is an arro­gant abuse of pow­er that can­not, and [must not] be allowed to pre­vail, con­sid­er­ing the stakes. The Supreme court already has what many con­sid­er one ille­git­i­mate mem­ber, in the per­son of Brett Kavanaugh, who filled the seat that Judge Merrick Garland would have filled.
There is already a Conservative major­i­ty on the nation’s high­est court. If Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell are allowed to ram a right-wing judge down the col­lec­tive throat of the nation, it would give the so-called con­ser­v­a­tives a 6 – 3 super­ma­jor­i­ty on the high­est court. That is in addi­tion not to the over two hun­dred judges that Trump has stacked on the Federal Appeals court.
At risk is, Reproductive rights. Health care & dis­abil­i­ty issues. Workers’ Anti-Discrimination and oth­er Rights. Civil Rights. Consumers and Corporations rights. The Environment. Immigration. Police Misconduct. Criminal Justice. Other Abuse of Authority. Voting Rights. Roe Vs Wade. Civil Rights. And even the abil­i­ty of Americans to protest against the gov­ern­ment when they feel aggriev­ed, a con­sti­tu­tion­al guar­an­tee that William Barr the Attorney General, and some Judges like Amey Coney Barrett do not believe in.
Not hold­ing any real cards to play, Democrats can refuse to meet with any nom­i­nee that Trump puts for­ward to fill Justice Ginsberg’s seat. That will not stop the nom­i­nee from being rammed down the throats of Democrats and the American peo­ple, but it would add anoth­er lev­el of ille­git­i­ma­cy to that nom­i­nee in the process of advice and consent.
If the Democrats are suc­cess­ful in defeat­ing Trump this November and retak­ing the Senate, they would be well with­in their rights to pack the court with sev­er­al jus­tices of their choos­ing, and putting the fil­li­buster back in place, that requires a major­i­ty of 60 votes.
The Senate clo­ture rule required 60 mem­bers to end debate on most top­ics and move to a vote.

It does appear that for all intents and pur­pos­es, that the Democratic par­ty tries to do the right thing from time to time, while the Republican par­ty does what it feels is good for its interest.
But doing the right thing is not enough any­more when the adver­sary is engaged con­tin­u­al­ly in a scorched earth strat­e­gy that observes no rules and adheres to no norms.
In the year 2000, Al Gore the Democratic vice pres­i­dent was elect­ed pres­i­dent by the pop­u­lar vote, nonethe­less, because of the Electoral col­lege, George Bush was allowed to become President, thwart­ing the wish­es of the sev­er­al mil­lions more vot­ers, who chose Gore to be their President.
George Bush’s pres­i­den­cy over the eight years it exist­ed, was an unmit­i­gat­ed dis­as­ter that the coun­try is still pay­ing for almost twelve years later.
Again in 2016, Hillary Clinton, for­mer Secretary of state and United States Senator, won the pop­u­lar vote by a mar­gin of over three mil­lion votes. Despite her his­toric win, again the Republican nom­i­nee Donald Trump, was inau­gu­rat­ed as the 45^th pres­i­dent of the United States.
As we have seen, Trump’s pres­i­den­cy has been an unmit­i­gat­ed dis­as­ter for the issues high­light­ed in the pre­vi­ous paragraph.
The fore­gone, how­ev­er, is far from the gist of the extent to which Republicans have out­hus­tled Democrats on the issues.

The two cas­es in which the will of the peo­ple has been usurped by the archa­ic elec­toral col­lege is hard­ly the total­i­ty of it. At cen­ter stage, is the oth­er issue of two United States sen­a­tors per state, that allows the state of Wyoming with a pop­u­la­tion of about 580,000 res­i­dents to can­cel out the will of 39 mil­lion California res­i­dents in that state with its 40 mil­lion res­i­dents, or New York with its rough­ly 20 mil­lion residents.
American Territories may be more lib­er­al than the main­land, but Terrorists are non-vot­ing. The major­i­ty of states with small pop­u­la­tions ben­e­fits from the two Senators rule are most­ly Lilly-white states that vote straight Republican.
Wyoming. Alaska. North & South Dakota. Montana. Maine. Idaho. West Virginia. Nebraska. Even in states that are run by Democrats in which this trend exists, it still fur­thers the cause and val­ues of white sub­ur­ban and rur­al res­i­dents over that of urban dwellers as well as res­i­dents in heav­i­ly pop­u­lat­ed states.
All things con­sid­ered, America for decades has been a coun­try in which the views of the minor­i­ty has super­seded and can­celed out those of the majority.
It is a task to which the Democratic par­ty has fall­en woe­ful­ly short, time and again, out­hus­tled, out­paced, and outmaneuvered.
The incom­pe­tence and lack of vision on the part of the Democratic par­ty have twice enabled two upstart move­ments, (that of Ralph Nader and Jill Stein) to siphon away votes from the par­ty, allow­ing for George Bush and Donald Trump to enter the white house, result­ing in tremen­dous harm to the coun­try, and much pain to the poor­est Americans.

As the coun­try faces arguably this its most crit­i­cal test this elec­tion cycle, it may be the last oppor­tu­ni­ty for vot­ers to save this democ­ra­cy, to the extent that it has func­tioned as such.
The Democratic par­ty nom­i­nat­ed prob­a­bly the least durable, least appeal­ing can­di­date ever to rep­re­sent the par­ty at the pres­i­den­tial lev­el, at least in my life­time. The polit­i­cal junkie I that I am, means that I ful­ly remem­ber John Kerry’s, Michael Dukakis’, and even Walter Mondale’s los­ing bids, not to men­tion the lack­lus­ter Al Gore and Hillary Clinton campaigns.
None of those elec­tion cycles could rea­son­ably be billed as exis­ten­tial for the old order, this one is.
Donald Trump is said to have won the pre­vi­ous­ly Democratic States of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin by a grand total of just over 70,000 votes.
His vic­to­ry in the Electoral College came down to three states he won by the small­est num­ber of votes: Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan. … (44292 votes), Wisconsin by 0.7 points (22748 votes), Michigan by 0.2 points.
Yet we are told that Residents in the State of Michigan are won­der­ing where they can find a Biden cam­paign office in their state.
The real­i­ty we are told is that there is none.
On the oth­er hand, one would have to be brain-dead not to pause and won­der at the small num­ber of votes that decid­ed the elec­tions in 2016, and the three states in which that sup­posed vic­to­ry was alleged to have been derived from.
The American exper­i­ment is slip­ping decid­ed­ly into autoc­ra­cy right in front of our very eyes.

Mike Beckles is a for­mer police Detective cor­po­ral, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, he is a black achiev­er hon­oree, and pub­lish­er of the blog mike​beck​les​.com. 
He’s also a con­trib­u­tor to sev­er­al websites.
You may sub­scribe to his blogs free of charge, or sub­scribe to his Youtube chan­nel @chatt-a-box, for the lat­est pod­cast all free to you of course.

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