Tag: Voting
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Black Americans Understand America’s Promise More Than White Americans Ever Have
The whole American franchise – our experiment in human self government – rests upon one thing: the vote. That’s where the self-government starts. If you screw with the vote, you’re screwing with the whole concept of self-government. If you stop some people from voting because of their race or creed in favor of others (because…
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This ‘Democracy Thing’ Is Waaaaaaay Harder Than It Looks
We Americans have it in our heads that we are what “democracy” looks like. Democracy has news for us: no, we’re not. If the bottommost line there is in what sets democracies apart from other forms of government is voting — by the total number of citizens legally qualified to vote — then, historically, America…
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Look At It From The GOP’s Point Of View — You’d Cheat Too If All You Had To Sell In The Marketplace Of Ideas Was A Turd
To compete in a democracy, you have to sell your idea of how we should self-govern better than the other guy is. It helps a lot if your ideas are empirically better, too. That’s the case with the Democrats. Their ideas indicate that, unlike Republicans, Democrats still care about democracy. They still care about governing…
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The Truth Is, America’s Never Actually Been Very Good At “Democracy”
As shocking as it is that we’ve come to this, it’s even more shocking that, to a third of the country, “this” makes them happy. They’re glad America has come to this. Racists are never going to like Democracy because every election is a gamble — that is, if you let everybody vote. The whole…
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Either Every Vote Counts Or No Votes Count
We need to make up our goddamned minds about voting. Personally, I believe that literally EVERY VOTE counts. In election 2018, according to the Washington Post, in 133 races out of the 4,137 run that election cycle, the winner’s margin of victory was under 100 votes. That’s 3.2% of all races. That would mean that…
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Hey, America — Next Time, Let’s Take Better Care of Our Democracy, Okay?
There’s a Joni Mitchell song — pretty well known — with a lyric that goes something like this — They paved paradise And put up a parking lot With a pink hotel, a boutique And a swinging hot spot Don’t it always seem to go That you don’t know what you’ve got ‘Till it’s gone…