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Curious Bystander's avatar

I noticed that he didn't get around to debunking concerns about gerrymandering. I'm not an expert, but from what I understand, the political manipulation of legislative districts in the U.S. (and the gerrymandering arms race between red and blue states) is indeed highly peculiar. This is not only undemocratic, but creates very bad incentives for house members. Last I checked, incumbents won more than 90% of house races, up from something like 60% decades ago. Many reps are more likely to be unseated in primaries than general elections. This pushes them to be more extreme and uncompromising.

He notes that presidential powers in the U.S. are in some ways more constrained than that of prime ministers in, say, the U.K. Point granted, but the U.S.'s clunky system of government combined with an increasingly polarized electorate has caused congress to become more and more gridlocked. Presidents are increasingly tempted to sidestep congress with executive orders of dubious legality. Trump's extension of pandemic unemployments and Obama's DACA order are two examples of this.

I don't think these problems presage the imminent breakdown of American democracy into civil war. But, as Matthew Yglesias noted, presidential democracy has a poor track record outside the U.S. The U.S. seems to be able to persist with this brittle type of government because of its deep democratic traditions and enormous geographic and economic advantages. Yet it remains to be seen how long it can be kept up in our era of polarization and rampant negative partisanship. We will all see, because sweeping constitutional change is highly unlikely

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Feral Finster's avatar

I find the increasing calls for censorship, ostensibly "to protect free speech!", to be Straight Up 1984.

This and the increasingly heavy-handed reliance upon overt repression merely shows that the ruling PMC knows that its grip on power is slipping.

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