"Democracy on the ballot"? A serious paradox requires a serious answer

 Democracy is on the ballot.  Democracy itself is riding on the 2022/2024 election results.  The stakes of these elections are nothing less than democracy itself.  Choose your wording, but in all likelihood, you have read and heard many variations on the form.  If you are a lefty or Trump opponent with any self-awareness, you should have stopped to ask yourself that deepest of questions, huh?  Or perhaps its close cousin, what the fuck?  The critique is currently making the rounds on the right, as logic would demand.  Wait, you mean if you lose, democracy ends?  Consider this from the Republican perspective.  Are you saying that if you lose the election(s), that would be the end of democracy?  Huh?  Or perhaps, what the fuck?  Wouldn't that just be "democracy," as long as you abide by the results rather than trying to use extralegal means to overturn those elections?  (Just sayin'...)

This is a serious critique, and it does require a serious answer.

Let us first consider a point that I have raised several times in the past.  One variation here is the claim that "voting rights" are on the ballot.  This one, logically, must be bullshit.  If it is on the ballot, and you are voting, then logically, you have the right to vote.  That ballot?  That means "the right."  We can have debates over best procedures, but that is not even close to the same thing as pre-'65 rules.  If it were, it wouldn't be "on the ballot."  But that's not the real issue.

As a card-carrying member of the alarmist faction among political scientists-- I daresay a charter member-- I am frustrated by my absolute contempt for the modern left, but the fundamental threat to democracy posed by the modern Republican Party.  So consider "the ballot," for the 2022 and 2024 elections.

Will the votes be counted correctly?  In 2022, I have a high degree of confidence that the votes will be tallied correctly and that the winners will be the winners under the existing rules.  Does that mean "the will of the people?"  Must I explain, once again, that there is no such thing as "the will of the people?"  Go read Riker's Liberalism Against Populism, or something like that.  Moving on.

What happens if Democrats win?  Well, this is a midterm election, with a Democratic president, underwater approval ratings and a weak economy, so... monkeys fly out of my ass.  Please, for the sake of my non-stretchy anal sphincter, vote GOP.  I don't know how many simians I can take speeding through my lower digestive tract, and taking to the skies.

Am I laying awake at night, terrified for the future of my rectum?  No.  Republicans are going to win.  Yet not just any Republicans.  Conspiracy theorists, and therein lies the problem, because this takes us to 2024, and beyond.  The real question, and the nature of the "democracy on the ballot" issue, is as follows:  if the GOP is given power, will they ever give it up again?

Donald Trump lost in 2020.  This is not a debatable point.  Many points in politics are debatable.  Many points about policy are debatable.  This one is not, and I will not waste any breath nor typin' on conspiracy theorists because one cannot reason with a conspiracy theorist.  Worse, though, Donald Trump's plan was to say, fuck you, I'm not leaving.  Whatever happens, I'm just staying right here in the White House, I'm not giving up the office.

And he came very close to succeeding in that endeavor.  Terrifyingly close.

How prominent is that model within the Republican Party now?  Given that, if such people are put in position, will they leave voluntarily?  Ever?  Put more bluntly, if this crop is given power, will they ever give it up?

That's the key question.

If enough 2020 conspiracy theorists are put in the right (wrong) positions in just a matter of days, it won't matter how anyone votes in 2024.  Those conspiracy theorists will declare Trump the winner in 2024.  He becomes president again.  And he'll never leave, because next time, he will have the full, complete support of every Republican official throughout the country.

But wait-- there's a big problem here.

Does that mean only Democratic victories are small-d democratic victories?  Do you see the problem here?!

This is a serious point.  If the structure of the GOP makes it dangerous for democracy to support many of their candidates, then would it follow that only capital-D Democratic victories are small-d democratic victories?  How could that be philosophically defensible?

It... cannot be, on any extended time frame.

There cannot be a viable political system in which only one party would agree to accept a loss, because that becomes the only small-d democratic party, which means that it is the only party that can win, but that's a one-party system for those who believe in competitive democracy, which is not viable.

When one party reaches the point that it cannot be trusted to yield when it loses, the country is fucked.  The problem is that we are at that point, meaning there is one party, which is not viable.

What does that mean?  It means that the only chance-- which is not a good chance-- is that the GOP is kept out of power for long enough that it tears itself apart and realizes that it needs to accept the concept of democracy as a condition for winning.

Are you putting money on that?  I'm not, but then, I was a charter member of the alarmist faction of political scientists.  And I can't stand the fucking left.

And here's an opportunity for Richard Thompson.  This is a live version of "I'll Never Give It Up," from Sweet Warrior.