Democracy and the 2024 election

I have been posting daily about election-related things. That has included bad things about Trump and Vance, good things about Harris, Walz, and Biden, and things about business and media literacy.

I was starting to do one last post for today, and it started to have too much substance. I thought, okay, it's a blog post, and then it started to get kind of long for that too.

I generally do have a lot to say, but I am going to try and stay focused on this one aspect.

I was thinking about it because of the ballot box fires, but that came about because of the Proud Boys claiming they will be at polling places and various lawsuits about not counting ballots or removing voters from rolls. I was thinking about how great vote-by-mail is, but then in states with that, you still have people trying to take away the vote from people they don't like.

Of course, they have to be assuming they won't like those votes for the ballot box fires, but they are happening not just in states that tend to vote blue, but near the larger cities, also more likely to be blue. I mean, maybe it would make more sense to try it in Seattle than in Vancouver, but I if it's the same car in Portland and Vancouver, maybe they are too lazy to drive all the way up to Seattle.

It's probably someone different in Phoenix.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_ballot_drop_box_arson_attacks_in_the_United_States 

Anyway, what I was thinking about was all of the times I have seen people chime in -- when democracy is mentioned -- that we are not a democracy, we are a republic.

That is not a lie; on a federal level our laws and a lot of our budgeting are done by elected representatives. 

That is even frequently true for states, though 26 states have ballot initiatives or referendums available.

Those initiatives and that selection of who represents... I believe that is important, even though imperfect.

I can't help but notice that the people who have been so quick to negate democracy have tended to be conservatives. They tend to be the same ones who get irritated that the votes of some counties have more weight, without really dwelling on how that's because there are more people in those counties. 

(You know, if we decided the land should vote instead of the people, it would just end up being the land owners voting. Don't they already do enough damage by lobbying and buying up news sources?)

It also seems worth noting that some of those less democratic/more representative institutions -- like the apportionment of electoral votes and legislator allotment -- tend to favor the former slave-holding states. 

I will also note that when people put forward conservative ideas, it is unusual for it to be original; they tend to come through the same few sources and then get amplified.

Then I see men tweeting about how women shouldn't be allowed to vote (something coming up a lot this election cycle, even though one would think it had been settled over a century ago).

It makes sense that a party that knows that it can't win if everyone votes would teach contempt for democracy. 

It doesn't make it a good idea, and it doesn't make it right, but it makes sense.

I just wish people didn't fall for it so easily.

I know we are capable of better.

That's my wish going forward, and my goal is to help with that.