Destabilized Saturday Edition #34
Shaky democracy is like takeoff in a plane, journalists fiddle while America burns, the fate of Obama's house plants, "Get the meatballs ready"
There’s a metaphor for American democracy I want to share because I find myself returning to it regularly. I offer it cautiously and with the caveat that “all models are wrong but some are useful.” Metaphors are a kind of model and will, upon close examination, fail to completely or perfectly analogize reality. But they can be useful, and I think this one is.
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American democracy in 2022 is like a passenger jet accelerating down the runway toward takeoff. Once an airplane chews up enough runway and reaches a high enough speed, there can only be two outcomes:
It will take off, or
It will crash.
There’s no option to stop or turn back. The runway is only so long, the deceleration systems only so powerful. The only possible safe outcome is to successfully take flight.
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In this metaphor, the plane crashing is the death of democracy and the emergence of authoritarian government. What exactly it looks like is beyond the scope of this discussion, but at a minimum it would mean election systems and processes are rigged to such a degree that nobody else can win power.
While nothing is certain, there is a reasonably high likelihood that if a semi-fascist, Trump-aligned Republican becomes president this decade it would mean the end of American democracy.
[This is an important topic that deserves fuller consideration than we have space for here. Pieces worth reading include this, this, this, and this.]
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The taking off element of the metaphor is the ascendance of a strong majority coalition that includes Democrats, a supermajority of swing voters, and Republicans who oppose their party’s authoritarian turn. This coalition, a clear majority nationally, needs to realize its full strength in the near future and deliver a series of decisive electoral victories. Crucially, those victories also have to be certified by the relevant officials and bodies in the chain of legal authority (compelled by courts or otherwise) so they actually take effect.
If this string of “Democratic+” coalition victories can continue for long enough, it will eventually create space for a reformist Republican faction to emerge and fight for power within the party. If authoritarianism, political violence, and fantastical conspiracy theories come to be seen as consistent political losers, the reformers might actually prevail. This could produce the kind of Republican Party we need: one that’s again a willing participant in the infinite game of democracy.
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The key insight in this metaphor is that the MAGA movement’s commitment to power even if it destroys our democracy is analogous to the airplane’s speed (and dwindling runway). It’s the factor that eliminates the possibility of a middle ground outcome. Like the airplane’s speed, MAGA semi-fascism is an unchangeable fact that limits options. It can’t be appeased or accommodated, it must be defeated.
Strategically, this means we need to go faster. Democrats in Congress need to force votes on gay marriage and contraception. We need to commit to passing a law restoring Roe if we win bigger congressional majorities in 2022. We need to shine a bright light on what’s at stake, reveal the nature and intentions of the MAGA movement (with or without Trump), and do it all without pulling punches.
Remember driving as a teenager and learning how to merge on to the highway? You had to condition yourself through repetition, until you could feel it in your hands and feet, that in that context speed was the key to staying safe. Merging on to a highway requires aggression tempered by judgment, and the same is true of politics in 2022.1 Rather than pumping the brakes, we have to hit the gas.
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P.S. Biden’s Philadelphia speech sounding the alarm on American democracy and his calling MAGA Republicans “semi-fascist” makes me think he understands this. And that gives me hope.
My Work
Climate change, reverse network effects, and community decay risk (link)
Why did they pay people to live in Manhattan of all places?
…City and state leaders worried the shock of 9/11 could knock lower Manhattan into the reverse of this dynamic, where an initial cohort leaves out of fear and, as those people leave, the neighborhoods becomes less attractive, causing more people to leave. Lather, rinse, repeat and an area can start to decline. Once this dynamic gets momentum it can be hard to stop, so New York moved quickly to nip it in the bud.
…New York’s leaders acted aggressively to shore up neighborhoods in lower Manhattan after 9/11 to avoid what began in Rainelle after the flood: a reverse network effect.
Interesting Reads
When a man with a pistol shows up outside a congresswoman’s house (link)
Talking about that night now, five weeks later, in the house where Jayapal and Williamson have lived for almost six years, those 47 minutes take on new life. They have shown Jayapal just how many gaps exist in congressional security. They have changed the way she goes about her work as a public official, physically and psychologically — the routes she drives, the tracking device she keeps on her phone, the alarm it sounds when she unwittingly comes within 1,000 feet of the man with the Dodge. It already happened once, on her way to an appointment on a Sunday in August. They have changed the way she thinks about her home, too — she and Williamson see all the ways it needs to be “hardened.”
Tweets of the Week
[The new British Prime Minister is also named Liz Truss. Her twitter handle is @trussliz.]
Extreme Weather Watch
Creeping Authoritarianism Watch
Progress Joy and Hope
Incidentally, aggression is also the right posture for approaching climate mitigation and the energy transition. There, too, speed rather than caution is what will maximize safety.