Rachel Maddow showed that by refusing to accept election results Republicans have already harmed democracy.
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Maddow said:
Democracy is mortal, it can be killed. It doesn’t go away by someone, you know, one day proclaiming we are no longer here by a democracy. It goes away when there stops being an expectation that we are governed by democratic means. When there stops being an expectation that elections are how we decide who’s in power, right? The way you lose your democracy is by losing the expectation that we are participating in an election. Because all sides in that election plan to accept the result, right? To go home if they lose and to go into office, if they win. Once we no longer expect that we are no longer in a democratic system of government in many important respects.
Once one of the two major governing parties no longer believes elections are binding then in many important ways, the democracy ship has sailed because they are no longer competing on democratic grounds, right? Once one of the two major parties is no longer pledging that they will abide by the election results. Whether they win or lose the democratic system of government is not threatened with harm, it is wounded already.
And so what do we do about that. One way to start dealing with that is to stop pretending that it’s not happening. Threats to the rule of law are not a theoretical prospect looming sometime in the future. They are here, prosecutors and judges and jurors and witnesses need defending right now right now because they’re being threatened right now. Who for example, who is defending Fannie Willis in Georgia right now, the Republican led legislature in Georgia is trying to destroy her and remove her in order to stop her from prosecuting the alleged crimes of former president Donald Trump.
Who is defending her?
Threats to a democracy are not a theoretical prospect that looms sometime in the future, just like threats to the rule of law, threats to democracy are also here. Now, poll workers and election workers have been chased out of those jobs by the thousands.
Video:
Rachel #Maddow “Once one of the two major parties is no longer pledging that they will abide by the election results whether they win or lose, the democratic system of government is not threatened with harm, it is wounded already.” pic.twitter.com/Wr6jnAxxuO
— Sarah Reese Jones (@PoliticusSarah) May 7, 2024
Republicans have already wounded American democracy by opting out of the agreement to honor the will of the people as rendered at the ballot box as legitimate. Once one party stops respecting the legitimacy of elections, democracy in a two party system has a big problem.
Under Donald Trump, Republicans have already harmed democracy, and it is up to the voters not to allow them to kill the world’s greatest democratic experiment in November.
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Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
