A/ What could go wrong? America's ugly election - Cahier de Prépa

KH Presse ANglais                   File 2 – “America’s Ugly Election” 2020

                                    A/ What could go wrong?
                                     America’s ugly election
A disputed result in November could be dangerous

Leaders, The Economist, Sep 3rd 2020 edition

   Labor day marks the beginning of the home straight in a presidential election. This one threatens to be
ugly. The president’s supporters are clashing with Black Lives Matter protesters in Portland, Oregon.
Donald Trump flew to Kenosha, Wisconsin, for a photo-op in front of burned-out buildings, a week after
police shot and paralysed an unarmed African-American man and one of the president’s supporters
shot and killed two demonstrators, possibly in self-defence. Having adopted a strategy built around
profiting from fears about unrest, the president has an interest in stoking it. Many Americans worry
that November could herald not a smooth exercise of democracy but violent discord and a constitutional
crisis.
   Is this all hyperbole? America has had violent, contested elections in the past. In 1968 one of the
candidates, Bobby Kennedy, was assassinated. In 1912 Teddy Roosevelt was shot in the chest while
making a speech in Wisconsin. (He finished the speech before heading to hospital, and survived.)
Historians are still arguing about who really won the election of 1876. Yet the country has always
managed to gain the consent of the losers in its presidential elections—even in the midst of the civil
war. That long unbroken streak suggests that doomsayers need to keep things in proportion. However,
there is a real risk that things could go wrong in November.
   To ensure the peaceful handover of power, democracies need the losing candidates and most of their
followers to admit defeat. A clear result on polling day helps a lot: the losers may hate it, but they accept
it and start preparing for the next election. When the result is unclear, a backup system is needed.
Contested election results are rare in mature Western democracies, but they happen. In 2006 Silvio
Berlusconi narrowly lost an election in Italy and claimed, without evidence, that there had been
widespread fraud. The country’s Supreme Court ruled in favour of his opponent, and Mr Berlusconi
grudgingly surrendered. In 2000 America’s presidential election was settled in the Supreme Court after
contested recounts in Florida. In both cases, decrees from judges were just about enough to end the
squabbling and let the country move on.

In the case of a landslide win for Mr Trump or Joe Biden, about half of America will be miserable.
Many Democrats view Mr Trump as a threat to democracy itself. If he wins again millions of them will
be distraught. Among Republicans, by contrast, Mr Trump still enjoys an 87% approval rating. If he
loses, many will grouse that the other side cheated. But that need not stop a smooth transfer of power
if the margin of victory is big enough. If Mr Trump were to lose by eight points, as polls currently suggest
he will, there will be no way to challenge the result plausibly—though he may try anyway, possibly
fomenting further unrest.
   If the election is much closer, things could get even uglier. America is unusual in the degree of power
it gives to Republican and Democratic partisans to administer elections. Decisions over who is removed
from lists of eligible voters when they are updated, the design of ballot papers, where polling stations
are situated, whether early voting is allowed and how many people have to witness a postal vote—
things which in other mature democracies are in the hands of non-partisan commissions—are all taken
by people with a d or an r by their name. If the election is close then all this will be litigated over, and
ultimately end up in courts presided over by judges who have also been appointed by Republican or
Democratic governors and presidents.
   As if that were not worrying enough, covid-19 could add to the legal slugfest. Already more than 200
covid-related lawsuits have been filed by the campaigns. The evidence from party primaries suggests
that though some states, such as Wisconsin, conducted a relatively orderly election despite the virus,
others did not. Postal ballots were still being counted weeks after election day in New York’s primary.
In November some swing states, including Michigan, will experiment with widespread voting by mail
for the first time.
   If the election is close and there are delays in counting ballots on election night, it could well appear
that Mr Trump is winning in some key states. He might then claim victory before the results were in, as
he did in Florida’s 2018 mid-terms. As more postal votes are counted, the result could then shift in Mr
Biden’s favour. America would have two candidates claiming victory. Electoral cases in multiple states
might have to be heard in the courts. Protests would surely erupt, some of them armed. The president
might call out the national guard, as he threatened to do this summer, or send federal agents into
Democratic cities to police restive crowds, as happened in Portland. At this distance, it is easy to forget
quite how wrenching a disputed presidential election was in 2000. And that dispute took place at a time
of maximum American self-confidence, before 9/11, before the rise of China, before elections were
fought on social media, and when the choice was between two men who would be considered moderate
centrists by current standards.
    Now imagine something like the Florida recount taking place in several states, after an epidemic has
killed 200,000 Americans, and at a moment when the incumbent is viewed as both illegitimate and
odious by a very large number of voters, while on the other side millions are convinced, regardless of
the evidence, that their man would have won clearly but for widespread electoral fraud.
   Were Mr Trump to lose the popular vote but win in the electoral college, as happened in 2016, then
almost 40% of Democrats say that the election ought to be re-run. It should not. Were he to lose the
presidency, then almost 30% of Republicans think that it would be appropriate for Mr Trump to refuse
to leave office if there were claims of widespread illegal voting—claims he has already made in relation
to postal voting. It would not.
There is so much riding on this election—for America and for the rest of the world—that state officials
must do everything they can to make sure it goes as smoothly as possible, remembering that they owe
loyalty to the constitution, not their party. Even a landslide election win will be fraught. In the event of
a narrow one, America might not be able to generate losers’ consent. And without that, democracies are
in big trouble.■

B/ « Personne ne sait si le 4 novembre les Etats-Unis auront un président-élu. Ni même le 4 décembre »

Sylvie Kauffmann, Le Monde,

Chronique. Il y a vingt ans, le 8 novembre 2000, les Etats-Unis se réveillent sans président élu. Le décompte total des
suffrages exprimés, la veille, pour l’élection du successeur de Bill Clinton à la Maison Blanche bute sur le résultat du
scrutin dans l’Etat de Floride, où le candidat démocrate Al Gore conteste les quelques centaines de voix d’avance du
républicain George W. Bush. L’incertitude va durer un mois, ponctuée d’interminables recomptages et de débats
surréalistes sur la validité des trous perforés par d’antiques machines dans les bulletins de vote de trois comtés de
Floride.
   C’est finalement la Cour suprême qui tranche. Le 12 décembre, elle met fin aux nouveaux décomptes en Floride et
désigne George W. Bush vainqueur de l’élection présidentielle : il dispose ainsi du soutien de 271 grands électeurs,
contre 266 pour Al Gore. Ce dernier s’incline, bien qu’ayant remporté le vote populaire au niveau national, avec
500 000 voix d’avance. Le monde entier, ou presque, salue cette preuve de la maturité de la démocratie américaine
et du bon fonctionnement de ses institutions.
   En sera-t-il de même dans la séquence qui va suivre le 3 novembre ? Rien n’est moins sûr. La civilité de
l’affrontement Bush-Gore et le civisme qui les a départagés nous ramènent à des années-lumière de l’univers de
vérités alternatives et de foire d’empoigne dans lequel nous a plongés Donald Trump. C’est d’ailleurs le président lui-
même qui a commencé à semer le trouble en juillet, à un moment où un sondage accordait 8 points d’avance à son
adversaire démocrate, Joe Biden : 2020 sera « l’élection la plus erronée et la plus frauduleuse de l’histoire », a-t-il
prédit. Lorsque, sur Fox News, on lui a demandé s’il accepterait le résultat au cas où il perdrait l’élection, Donald
Trump a refusé de répondre par l’affirmative. « Il faudra que je voie, a-t-il dit. Je ne vais pas juste dire oui. Et je ne vais
pas non plus dire non. Il faudra que je voie. » Ah oui, « et d’abord je ne vais pas perdre – puisque ces sondages sont
faux ».
   A sept semaines de l’élection, l’écart entre les deux candidats s’est réduit dans les intentions de vote, et personne
ne s’aventure à faire de pronostics – d’autant plus qu’en 2016 Hillary Clinton avait été battue tout en comptabilisant
3 millions de voix de plus que Donald Trump. Mais le doute semé dans les esprits par le président et la persistance de
la pandémie, qui va, selon toute probabilité, encourager un grand nombre d’électeurs à voter par correspondance
pour éviter les bureaux de vote, nourrissent aujourd’hui les scénarios les plus noirs sur le déroulement de l’élection
du 3 novembre.
    Donald Trump déteste le vote par correspondance : il est persuadé qu’il favorise les candidats démocrates. Il a
donc consciencieusement jeté l’opprobre sur le service public de la Poste fédérale, à la tête duquel il a nommé en mai
un de ses vieux amis avec la mission de restructurer ses activités – dans le sens de la réduction. Désorganiser les
services postaux permettrait de semer le chaos dans le vote par courrier. Le stratagème a été découvert et, devant la
levée de boucliers des démocrates, la restructuration de la Poste a été reportée à après les élections.
Mais plusieurs gros cafouillages au moment des primaires, dans le Wisconsin et l’Etat de New York, précisément à
propos du vote par correspondance, laissent penser que le verdict des urnes sera particulièrement compliqué à livrer
cette année. Selon une enquête du Pew Research Center menée fin juillet, 39 % des électeurs avaient alors l’intention
de voter par correspondance. Cela demande une organisation des bureaux de vote et du dépouillement en
conséquence.
  Bataillons de retraités bénévoles
   Or, aux Etats-Unis, l’organisation des élections relève de la compétence des Etats, y compris pour les scrutins
fédéraux. Les disparités sont grandes. La multiplicité des scrutins locaux soumis aux électeurs, en plus de l’élection à
la présidence et au Congrès fédéral, peut rendre les bulletins aussi complexes à remplir que les déclarations de
revenus. La bonne marche des bureaux de vote dépend en grande partie de bataillons de retraités bénévoles – que le
coronavirus incitera à rester chez eux. Personne ne sait combien d’heures, de jours, voire de semaines
supplémentaires, prendra le décompte des votes arrivés par la poste. Personne ne sait si le 4 novembre, les Etats-Unis
auront un président-élu. Ni même le 4 décembre.

Au vu de ces circonstances particulières et de l’humeur tout aussi particulière du président-candidat, le Parti
démocrate a monté un programme « massif » pour lutter contre les défaillances électorales ; des milliers de juristes
et de militants se tiennent à l’affût des piratages informatiques, des manipulations de l’information et des tentatives
de suppression du vote, c’est-à-dire tout ce qui vise à limiter la participation électorale. « C’est le plus gros effort jamais
mené en ce sens dans l’histoire des campagnes présidentielles », affirme l’état-
  On le voit : à moins d’un raz-de-marée dans un sens ou dans l’autre, cette élection s’annonce chaotique. Que se
passera-t-il le jour d’après ? La Cour suprême sera-t-elle à la hauteur ? Les électeurs reconnaîtront-ils la légitimité du
vote ? Comment réagiront les partenaires étrangers des Etats-Unis ? S’il n’est pas réélu, Donald Trump jouera-t-il le
jeu pendant la transition, jusqu’à l’investiture le 20 janvier, ou voudra-t-il saboter le début de la présidence Biden
? « Nous n’avons pas encore été en mesure aux Etats-Unis de créer un système qui facilite l’accès de la population au
vote : nous devrions en avoir honte », confiait en août au Monde Henry Brady, doyen de la faculté des politiques
publiques de Berkeley. A leur décharge, les Pères fondateurs ne pouvaient prévoir ni le coronavirus ni Donald Trump.

                                              C/ Trump’s fear of Biden
The Morning, October 1 2020
The New York Times morning newsletter by David Leonhardt
          There is a theme that has run through President Trump’s entire re-election campaign: He is afraid that he
      cannot beat Joe Biden.
          It explains his extraordinary efforts last year to prevent Biden from becoming the nominee. And it explains
      his more recent efforts to discredit the election. Rather than running against Biden, Trump now seems to be
      running against democracy itself.
          I think it’s useful to think of the 2020 Trump campaign in three distinct stages. The first was during the run-
      up to the Democratic primaries, when Trump used the powers of the presidency to pressure at least one foreign
      country, Ukraine, to smear Biden (an effort that led to impeachment). Trump took no similar steps to damage
      Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren or Kamala Harris.
          Why? Trump often acts on instinct, and he may have done so in this case. But he is also a voracious consumer
      of polls, and polls consistently showed him faring worse in a hypothetical matchup against Biden than against
      any other Democrat.
          The second stage began after Biden clinched the nomination, and Trump doubled down on efforts to damage
      him. He portrayed Biden as a corrupt old politician, not so different from Hillary Clinton, or a closet socialist.
      It hasn’t worked. Biden’s lead over Trump has remained stable.

That has led to the third stage: Try to prevent a normal election.
         Trump, with help from other leading Republicans, has increased his efforts to make it difficult to vote. His
      campaign has filed lawsuits in North Carolina, Pennsylvania and elsewhere to restrict voting by mail. (The Times
      Magazine has a new investigation on this subject, including Mike Pence’s role.)
         In recent weeks, Trump also began what seems like an obvious attempt at voter intimidation, encouraging
      his supporters to show up at polling places, purportedly to prevent voter fraud, which almost never occurs.
      Donald Trump Jr. has released a video calling for an “army for Trump’s election security operation.”
         Tuesday’s debate was the apex of the strategy, at least for now. Trump refused to allow a normal debate,
      constantly interrupting Biden. For voters, the result was a chaotic jumble. For Trump, it was one more attempt
      to undermine the normal functioning of democracy.
         There is still more than a month until Election Day — an eternity in politics. At this point, though, the picture
      from the last year and a half is remarkably consistent.
         Trump seems to believe he would lose a normal election to Biden. But in an abnormal election, with low
      turnout and protracted fights over ballot eligibility, who knows what will happen? And if Trump does lose, he is
      laying the groundwork to make the false claim that the election was rigged.
         As my colleague Maggie Haberman put it yesterday, “People close to him are blunt that the president knows
      he’s losing and is scared of it.”

D/ « Presque quatre ans durant, Trump a saboté                  de ses prédécesseurs récents ne l’avait fait. Aucun de
  les pratiques de la démocratie américaine »                   ceux-là n’était un saint : la fonction se prête mal à
                                                                l’angélisme. Mais tous ont respecté les formes, sinon
Alain Frachon, Le Monde, 1er octobre 2020
                                                                toujours l’esprit, des institutions politiques du pays,
                                                                aussi imparfaites, incongrues et désuètes soient-elles.
Chronique. Depuis l’Ouest américain, une journaliste
                                                                Trump a affaibli ces institutions, quand il ne les a pas
amie, qui a ces jours-ci le moral au fond du canyon,
                                                                piétinées. Aujourd’hui, il joue avec la menace d’une
tweete : « Je suis inquiète, je me demande si les
                                                                violence prête à éclater, insinue-t-il, s’il était battu par
institutions vont tenir. » Sur la chaîne PBS, le
                                                                Joe Biden.
conservateur David Brooks, l’un des éditorialistes les
                                                                Discrédit sur le suffrage universel
plus posés du New York Times, déclare : « Je n’ai jamais
                                                                Comme on lui demandait s’il s’engageait à ce que
été aussi pessimiste sur l’état du pays. » « Pas un seul
                                                                la « transition » politique se déroule pacifiquement au
jour ne passe sans que le président jette la
                                                                lendemain du 3 novembre, qu’il soit réélu ou non,
suspicion » sur le scrutin présidentiel du 3 novembre,
                                                                Trump s’est refusé à dire oui : « Il va falloir qu’on
ajoute, toujours sur PBS, Mark Shields, politologue
                                                                regarde ce qui se passe. » La majorité républicaine au
chevronné des bords du Potomac.
                                                                Sénat, qui jusque-là s’était toujours couchée devant les
Que se passe-t-il ? Les élites journalistiques joueraient
                                                                oukases de Trump, a fini par s’inquiéter. Unanimes,
à se faire peur de l’autre côté de l’Atlantique ? C’était
                                                                républicains et démocrates, les sénateurs ont voté un
avant le débat télévisé entre Donald Trump et son
                                                                texte condamnant les propos du président.
adversaire démocrate Joe Biden. Le chaotique pugilat
                                                                Mais distancé dans les sondages, pas forcément de
du mardi 29 septembre ne les aura pas rassurés. A cinq
                                                                façon significative, Trump chauffe ses partisans. Une
semaines de l’élection présidentielle, la situation est
                                                                télévision diffuse des images de milices d’ultra-droite
sans précédent. Le président sortant et candidat à un
                                                                en tenue de combat, casquées et fusil à tir rapide AR16
deuxième mandat refuse toujours de s’engager à
                                                                en bandoulière, arrêtant la circulation en plein jour,
reconnaître le résultat du scrutin du 3 novembre – s’il
                                                                comme une descente d’intimidation du Hezbollah à
lui est défavorable.
                                                                Beyrouth-Ouest.
Cette attitude d’autocrate ne devrait pas surprendre.
                                                                Ce mardi encore, le président s’est employé à saper la
Donald Trump imprime sa marque. Depuis son entrée
                                                                confiance des Américains dans le système électoral. Il
à la Maison Blanche en janvier 2017, il a dégradé,
                                                                a de nouveau délégitimé par avance une éventuelle
ébranlé, miné la démocratie américaine – comme nul

victoire de Joe Biden : si le démocrate gagne, dit-il        Sa pratique du débat public a consisté à insulter ses
depuis des semaines, c’est que le scrutin aura               adversaires, à stigmatiser la presse, à mentir aussi
été « truqué ». Le président de la plus puissante            souvent qu’il pratique le golf (beaucoup) – et
démocratie occidentale jette le discrédit sur le suffrage    notamment à mentir sur ce qu’il savait de la
universel : sourires amusés et reconnaissants à Pékin,       dangerosité du Covid. Occupé à diviser les Américains,
Moscou, Ankara et Minsk.                                     à jouer en permanence avec la tentation du racisme, il
Trump s’en prend au vote par correspondance qui,             a donné le sentiment de ne gouverner que pour « les
pour cause de Covid-19, devrait être important cette         siens », le gros noyau d’électeurs qui lui sont toujours
année. « Ce sera une grosse escroquerie », répète-t-il.      aussi fidèles.
Totalement faux, corrige le chef du FBI, Christopher         Pour rester à la Maison Blanche, il ne vise pas à séduire
Wray, nommé par Trump et qui jure que rien, aucune           au-delà de sa base. Il ne cherche pas à emporter une
étude, aucun précédent, ne justifie pareille assertion.      majorité des suffrages populaires. Trump veut gagner
Trump, usant et abusant de la Maison Blanche à des           dans les quelques Etats qui, passant d’un parti à l’autre,
fins électorales, viole la législation Hatch sur le          peuvent lui donner la majorité des « grands
déroulement des campagnes. Presque quatre ans                électeurs ».
durant, il a saboté les pratiques, sinon les textes, de la   Dans cette autobiographie heureuse qu’est son dernier
démocratie américaine. Interdisant à certains de ses         livre – J’irais nager dans plus de rivières (Gallimard, 304
collaborateurs d’aller témoigner devant le Congrès.          pages, 20 euros) –, Philippe Labro, américanophile
Refusant de rendre ses impôts publics – jusqu’à ce que       érudit, consacre un chapitre à sa passion américaine.
le New York Times révèle qu’il s’est arrangé pour ne         Amour déçu, celui-là ? Labro cite Churchill : « On
pas en payer. Démettant les contrôleurs                      peut toujours compter sur l’Amérique pour faire les
d’administrations centrales qui ne lui plaisaient pas.       choses correctement après avoir épuisé toutes les
Recrutant sa fille et son gendre à la Maison Blanche         alternatives ». Mais Labro ajoute : « Peut-on encore
pendant que, par ses fils interposés, il conservait le       vraiment compter sur les Américains ? »
contrôle de ses affaires. Justifiant la désignation          Face à la charge toxique que Trump représente pour
expéditive d’un nouveau juge à la Cour suprême, Amy          elles, il n’est pas sûr que les institutions de la
Coney Barrett, par des raisons électorales : pouvoir         démocratie américaine résistent si bien qu’on le pense.
compter sur sa voix si la cour devait trancher sur la        Questions inquiètes auxquelles les lendemains du
régularité du 3 novembre…                                    3 novembre fourniront un début de réponse.
Charge toxique

E/ Donald Trump's plot against democracy could break America apart

Even some conservatives fear a power grab might trigger the disintegration of the US. It’s happened to superpowers
before

Jonathan Freedland, The Guardian, Fri 25 Sep 2020

        We know that US democracy is on the line this November, but what about the United States itself? Is it
      possible that not only America’s democratic health hangs in the balance, but the very integrity of the country?
         Such talk sounds hyperbolic, but start with the danger to the US democratic system that becomes more clear
      and present each day. This week Donald Trump was asked if he would commit to a peaceful transfer of power
      in the event of his defeat. His reply: “Well, we’re going to have to see what happens.”
          Later the White House clarified that of course the president would accept the results of a “free and fair
      election”. But that formulation contained an implied caveat: what if he decides that the election was not “free
      and fair”? After all, Trump has said repeatedly that if Joe Biden wins, that can only mean that the election was
      “rigged”.
          How this might unfold was laid out this week in a chilling essay by Barton Gellman in the Atlantic
      headlined The Election That Could Break America. Many of the dangers are by now familiar. Aware that polls
      show them unable to win a straight contest, Republicans are already working hard to un-level the playing field.
      They have purged electoral rolls of likely Democratic voters. They have hobbled the Post Office, to prevent mail-
      in ballots – which are likely to favour Democrats – arriving in time.
          Once the polls close, Team Trump will claim only the in-person votes, tallied on election night – and likely to
      skew towards Republicans – should qualify. They will try to stop the votes being counted, whether by lawsuit or
      by physical disruption (a tactic deployed successfully in the infamous Florida recount of 2000). As Gellman
      argues, it’s not just that Trump will refuse to concede defeat: he’ll use all the power at his disposal to “obstruct
      the emergence of a legally unambiguous victory for Biden”, even to “prevent the formation of a consensus about
      whether there is any outcome at all”.
          There is one trick up Republican sleeves so outrageous that no one had even contemplated it until now. It’s
      technical, but bear with me. The president is chosen by an electoral college, made up of electors from all 50
      states. For more than a century, those electors have been chosen to reflect the winner of the popular vote in
      that state. But Republican officials have noted that there’s nothing in the constitution that says it has to be that
      way. The legislatures – the mini-parliaments of each state – have the power to choose the electors themselves.
      And guess what: Republicans control the legislatures in the six most hotly fought battleground states. If they
      declare that the official vote tally showing Biden the winner is unreliable – on the grounds that, as Trump says,
      all postal votes are suspect – there is nothing to stop them choosing a slate of pro-Trump electors instead,
      claiming this reflects the true will of the people of their state.
          It sounds like a Lukashenko manoeuvre, a coup against democracy – and that’s exactly what it would be. And
      yet there are Republican party officials talking on the record of how they are contemplating that very move.
          Ah, but surely the supreme court would never allow such a thing. And yet, as of last week, there is a vacancy
      on that court. Trump plans to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg at speed, aiming to seat his own handpicked judge
      in time to settle any election-related cases in his favour. That too he says out loud. Again, the Belarusian reek is
      unmistakable.

The trouble is, Democrats are all but powerless to stop a president and a party that has no shame in smashing
through every democratic guardrail regardless of the hypocrisy: recall that, in March 2016, Senate Republicans
refused to give Barack Obama’s supreme court pick so much as a hearing, insisting it was unconscionable to
make such an appointment in an election year. Yet here they are, ramming their choice through a matter of
weeks before polling day.
    The result is that soon there will be a 6-3 rightwing majority on the US’s highest court, ready to overturn
landmark decisions on healthcare or reproductive rights, and to thwart action on the climate crisis. What’s more,
a seat on the supreme court is for life, and several of these rightwing judges are relatively young. That 6-3
majority could be in place for decades.
  So now a dark question arises. What will the US’s increasingly progressive majority do if Republican state
officials reinstall Trump in the White House, in defiance of the voters? What will they do if that 6-3 court
overturns Roe v Wade and bans abortion across the entire country?
    Think for a second how that latter situation will have arisen: it is because the Senate picks the judges, and
the Senate enshrines minority rule. With two senators per state, tiny Wyoming (population: 600,000) has the
same representation as gargantuan California (40 million). On current trends, 70% of Americans will soon have
just 30 senators representing them, while the 30% minority will have 70. When it comes to their right to medical
treatment or to rid their streets of military-grade assault weapons, the urban, diverse majority are subject to
the veto of the rural, white, conservative minority.
     How long is that sustainable? How long will a woman in, say, California accept the presence of guns and the
absence of abortion rights because that’s what a minority of voters in small, over-represented states wants?
Serious people are beginning to ask that question. Gary Gerstle, professor of American history at Cambridge
University, says he’s found himself reading about countries that once had democracy but lost it – and that he’s
doing that “to understand the future of America”.
    He wonders if progressive, “blue” states might increasingly go their own way – flexing their right to deviate
from the federal government, as branches of it move ever further out of democratic reach. As we spoke, New
York governor Andrew Cuomo announced that he will not accept any federally approved Covid vaccine for his
state until New York experts have tested it first. That, says Gerstle, could be a harbinger of things to come. (…)
   In a new book, Divided We Fall, the conservative writer David French raises the once-taboo question of
“America’s secession threat” – imagining, for example, a “Calexit” as California leads a breakaway of liberal
western states after a rightwing supreme court has struck down a California law to curb guns. Since Ginsburg’s
death, that reads less like dystopian fiction than a forecast.
Such talk might seem fanciful. (…) Oceans rise, empires fall – and even America is not immune.

• Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnist

                                     More Links and Resources

>> This is The Altlantic’s very long piece that got all the alarm bells ringing in the liberal mainstream media:
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/11/what-if-trump-refuses-concede/616424/
>> A podcast from the Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/audio/2020/sep/14/is-democracy-in-america-under-threat

F/ To Honor Ginsburg, Democrats Have One Choice: Go Nuclear
They will have to bring a bazooka to the GOP’s gun           Mother Jones, September 18, D A V I D
fight.                                                       CORN

It’s a popular sentiment on the left: Don’t mourn,           have a chance of thwarting them, they must realize
organize. But with the death of Supreme Court Justice        that this fight is not only a matter of persuasion. They
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, that won’t be enough. Ginsburg,         will not win by writing well-reasoned op-eds. Cable
a hero of female empowerment and of the Supreme              host tirades will be of little use. Panel discussions will
Court, deserves much mourning. But Democrats and             be irrelevant. Clever ads highlighting GOP hypocrisy
progressives can waste no time prepping for the battle       won’t do the trick. Angry editorials in the New York
royale that lies ahead. After all, it took Senate Majority   Times won’t help. Not even a freckin’ David Brooks
Leader Mitch McConnell mere minutes after the news           column (“conservatives should realize they have an
of RBG’s passing to declare that the GOP-controlled          interest in preserving democratic norms!“) will do them
Senate will vote on whoever Donald Trump sends its           any good. Passionate speeches on the floor of the US
way to fill the Supreme Court vacancy—a direct eff-you       Senate? Fuggedabout it.
to the Democrats after McConnell in 2016 refused to          This is about power.
consider President Barack Obama’s SCOTUS nominee             Sure, the Democrats and influential voices in the
Merrick Garland with the phony-baloney argument              political media world might focus on a few GOP
that the Senate should not consider new justices during      senators and, appealing to that good ol’ American
an election year. So yes, Dems will have to organize,        sense of fair play, urge them to preserve institutional
but they must do more: They have to get ready to             norms and refuse to go along with McConnell’s night
rumble.                                                      ride against democratic governance. But that is a long
                                                             shot. Susan Collins, hero of the Republic? Do you want
Yes, Dems will have to organize, but they must do            to bet? (She did tell a reporter earlier this month she
more: They have to get ready to rumble.                      would not seat a Supreme Court justice in October and
                                                             would oppose doing so in a lame duck session if Biden
What is coming, at least as the Republicans see it, is a     wins. Yet…) Mitt Romney might be willing to throw his
grand political clash. They have been hellbent on            body on the tracks. And Lisa Murkowski has already
reshaping the entire federal judiciary and especially        said (before Ginsburg’s death) she won’t vote to
drool over the prospect of locking the highest court         confirm a new SCOTUS appointee until after the
into a right-wing course that will last decades and          inauguration. But if the Dems round up this trio, you
counter demographic trends that favor Democrats.             got a tie, with Veep Mike Pence eager to break the
This is their Holy Grail. After all, nothing galvanizes      deadlock to please his lord and his Lord. Are there
conservative evangelical voters more than the courts.        other Rs willing to derail the Trump-McConnell
For political consultants, it has long been conventional     express? Don’t wager the mortgage. (One interesting
wisdom that right-wingers obsess over the                    wrinkle: If Arizona Democrat Mark Kelly defeats
composition of the courts and the Supreme Court far          incumbent Sen. Martha McSally on November 3 in
more than progressives. So Ginsburg’s departure is a         what is a special election, he could be immediately
gift for Trump. If there has been any erosion occurring      sworn in, and the Democrats might pick up a vote. But
on the edges of his conservative and evangelical base,       don’t think for a moment that McConnell hasn’t
his effort to shove another anti-choice, pro-corporate       already taken that possibility into account.)
conservative on to the highest court could certainly
shore up that ground for him. Here’s something Trump         It will be bare-knuckles politics from the right. Do or
can campaign on for the next six and a half weeks,           die. By any means necessary.
without breaking a sweat or fielding a tough question.
It’s his lifeline. A cure for his coronavirus problem.       The     win-over-reasonable-Republicans-with-reason
It will be bare-knuckles politics from the right. Do or      strategy is weak sauce. That leaves the Democrats with
die. By any means necessary. To replace Ginsburg with        one other choice: total political warfare. The Senate’s
a young right-wing extremist. And for the Democrats to       Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer—with the backing

of Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi—needs to threaten             nation’s capital. But with conservative voters fired up
massive retaliation. Should McConnell try to ram a          by the dream of replacing Ginsburg with a
Trump nominee through, Schumer ought to vow that            thirtysomething right-wing firebrand, the Dems will
the Democrats, if they win back the Senate and Biden        have to counter with more than a this-isn’t-fair
is elected president, will demolish the filibuster, which   argument. Bring a gun to a knife fight? They will need a
will allow the Senate to proceed to make Washington,        bazooka. Sorry if that sounds violent. But, as one sage
DC, a state (two more senators, who are likely to be        person likes to say, we are in a fight for the nation’s
Democrats!) and that they will move to add two or four      soul. And sometimes you don’t get to choose the
more seats to the Supreme Court. (There is nothing in       weapons or levels of intensity.
the Constitution that limits the court’s size to the        Ginsburg was an uplifting force in the ongoing
current nine justices.) In other words: They will           American experiment. She was a feminist pioneer. She
implement a Republican nightmare (which, as it              was an inspiring champion of equality, fairness, and
happens, can be justified on arguments of equity and        perseverance. She wrote eloquent opinions that
fairness).                                                  advanced and expanded progressive values and that
Schumer should utter this declaration publicly to lock      made the United States a more perfect union. She
the Democrats in. Of course, this could further propel      penned blistering dissents that kept alive those values,
Republicans to the polls. But it might do the same with     even when they experienced setbacks. Her memory
Democrats. (The stakes in this election are now higher      deserves more than passionate remembrances and
than they already were.) Crucially, there would need to     praiseful eulogies. It warrants a fight. And perhaps a
be buy-in from Biden. The veteran Washington player         fight like one never seen before. One that will be damn
will have to put aside his somewhat admirable (if           notorious.
misguided) desire to return to the older and more
genteel means of legislating and compromising in the
DEMOCRACY DOES NOT EXIST...

without free and fair elections, a vigorous free press, and engaged citizens to reclaim power from those who
abuse it.
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