{"id":5198,"date":"2022-11-08T23:23:39","date_gmt":"2022-11-08T23:23:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.novonon.com\/blog\/?p=5198"},"modified":"2022-11-08T23:23:39","modified_gmt":"2022-11-08T23:23:39","slug":"democracy-is-not-on-the-ballot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.novonon.com\/blog\/2022\/11\/08\/democracy-is-not-on-the-ballot\/","title":{"rendered":"Democracy Is Not on the Ballot"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

An excellent read. I’m not quite as confident as he is, but I think he’s closer to the truth than a lot of the media would suggest.<\/p>\n

In his speech this week, Biden mentioned various issues being contested and then added, \u201cBut there\u2019s something else at stake, democracy itself. I\u2019m not the only one who sees it. Recent polls have shown an overwhelming majority of Americans believe our democracy is at risk, that our democracy is under threat.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is one of the great misinterpretations of public opinion in my lifetime. A recent New York Times<\/em> poll<\/a> found that 74 percent of Democrats, 72 percent of Republicans, and 71 percent of independents believe that \u201cdemocracy is currently under threat.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Americans are all over the place on what poses the actual threat. Voter fraud, voter suppression, corruption, misinformation, polarization, Trump, Biden, nationalism, extremism, and the media all made the list.<\/p>\n

For Biden, the topline number suggests everyone should vote for Democrats because Democrats are the only party committed to \u201cdemocracy.\u201d But that\u2019s nonsense. The mere fact that a majority of Americans are worried that democracy is under threat suggests that Americans like democracy<\/em> and want to keep it around.<\/em> Heck, I\u2019m pretty sure that the quarter of Americans who don\u2019t think democracy is under threat like democracy, too.<\/p>\n

Sure, Americans like to complain about democracy, but they don\u2019t want to get rid of it<\/em>. Indeed, besides a handful of fringe dorks and radical fantasists, there is literally no significant constituency on the American right or left for getting rid of democracy. There are significant constituencies for bending the rules, working the refs, even rigging the system, and these constituencies should be fought relentlessly. But while often in error, most of these people believe they are on the side of democracy. The people who wildly exaggerate both voter suppression and voter fraud believe what they\u2019re saying. They\u2019re just wrong.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Democracy Is Not on the Ballot<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An excellent read. I’m not quite as confident as he is, but I think he’s closer to the truth than a lot of the media would suggest. In his speech this week, Biden mentioned various issues being contested and then added, \u201cBut there\u2019s something else at stake, democracy itself. I\u2019m not the only one who […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5198","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3pfIY-1lQ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.novonon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5198","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.novonon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.novonon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.novonon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.novonon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5198"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.novonon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5198\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5200,"href":"https:\/\/www.novonon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5198\/revisions\/5200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.novonon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.novonon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.novonon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}