The end of democracy in the USA?

[Peter B]

Okay, that's a fairly inflammatory subject line, and not one you might expect from someone like me.

But then I read this article in the local (Canberra) newspaper on Saturday.

http://www.smh.com.au/world/radicals-push-members-out-on-a-wing-20120713-2218k.html

(The Sydney Morning Herald is one of the mainstream newspapers in Australia.)

Lines like "They dream of anarchy, of ending government" or "In a recent poll only 31 per cent of Republicans believed Barack Obama was born in the United States. Who are the others? They are either stupid or crazy" or "Some of the smartest and most sophisticated people I know...sincerely and passionately believe that President Barack Obama...is willfully and relentlessly driving the United States down the road to socialism" are being said or written by Republicans.

The article quotes one person making comparisons with Weimar Germany, but the comparison I see is with the Roman Republic in the 1st century BC.

I've said elsewhere that ragging Americans is almost a national sport in Australia. But the fact remains that we rely strongly on the USA, and the idea of America spiralling into ungovernability seriously worries me.

Perhaps others on the forum might like to ease my fears...

[Noldi400]

Sadly, it does seem to me that political polarization has gotten much worse in recent years. The Republicans, especially, seem to have adopted an "If they're for it, we're against it" stance, along with what I characterize as 'guerrilla' tactics - harassing attacks like the "birther" nonsense that do no real damage in themselves, but distract from the real business of government.

Let me also say that I think Chief Justice John Roberts is a brave and honorable man; by voting to uphold the President's health care reform he had to know that he would be ostracized by other Republicans, but I believe he was making the statement that the Supreme Court is above partisan politics.

I certainly don't hold the Democrat party above blame for the current situation, but they're not the ones really showing their asses at the moment.

That having been said, I continue to have confidence in the basic strength and stability of the US system. We have weathered hard political times before now, and we will survive this without 'descending into ungovernability'.

[Ranb]

Lines like "They dream of anarchy, of ending government" or "In a recent poll only 31 per cent of Republicans believed Barack Obama was born in the United States.

Perhaps others on the forum might like to ease my fears...

31%?  Really?  I would question who performed that poll, exactly what question was asked and who they polled.  Maybe they polled an asylum populated by racist morons?

Ranb

[gillianren]

Yeah, while I realize it isn't exactly a scientific sample, I literally don't know any birthers.  No, I don't have a lot of Republican friends, but the few I have think that's garbage.  We are able to disagree, and strongly, but most of the people I know are able to disagree politely on the subject of politics.  I'm really worried about some things in this country, but I'm a poor, mentally ill woman.  That is not a good thing to be in quite a lot of places.

[Echnaton]

The birther movement is a marginal group within the Republican party, and its adherents are essentially no different that the conspiracy theorist that show up here.  I no longer hang out in Republican circles but I know a few local politicians and judges, none of which have given any support to the birther movement.  It is really just one among many FUD based fund raising efforts.  As shameful as it is, FUD based fund raising is an old phenomenon that has never been limited to one party.  It is not going away so we might as well get used to it.

[Echnaton]

I've said elsewhere that ragging Americans is almost a national sport in Australia. But the fact remains that we rely strongly on the USA, and the idea of America spiralling into ungovernability seriously worries me.

While living in Europe, I got my share of ragging from Aussies.  All taken in stride.  I've always felt that Aussies and Texans have a common attitude from being raised in big countries.  I don't like the direction the country is going either, we are becoming a nation driven the the idea that a failure to follow rules is a moral failing. An agenda that Obama did not originate but is certainly pushing forward.  I see politics becoming more dynamic as some people push back, but not the country becoming ungovernable. 

[Peter B]

Thanks people, you've made me feel a bit better about things.

For one thing, having done a little research I've found the stories behind a couple of the references in the original article.

I found a video of Andrew Breitbart shouting at the protesters. I didn't realise he was shouting at the Occupy protesters, who were quite verbose in response. It's not as though he was shouting at little old ladies straight out of church. It was also curious to hear him change his cry at one point from "Stop raping people!" to "Stop raping the people!" Adding "the" gives the statement a slightly different cast. Having said that, his behaviour was bizarre and over the top, and it doesn't surprise me he died of a heart attack at in his 40s.

As for the Allen West statement about card-carrying Communists in Congress, I understand he was talking about members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, so an identifiable group of people rather than some secret cabal. Having said that, I had a look at the policies the caucus advocates, and in the context of life in the USA I think I'd support every one of them. In fact most have already been adopted here in Australia, which I think most Americans recognise is not exactly a hot-bed of radical socialism.

So it looks at though the author of the article put the most sinister possible spin on what he described, although there was at least some reality behind it.

[gillianren]

I don't think most Americans have the slightest idea what Australian politics are like.

[twik]

My mother is in her eighties, and would, if she were an American, probably have been a Republican most of her life. She says she cannot recogize the current party as having any connection to what it once was.

I suspect the change has at least a little bit to do with current television journalism. I think things went wrong when producers started allowing people to scream over each other, rather than discuss things as if they were among civilized people. It created a venue that encouraged craziness rather than logic and good faith.

[Peter B]

I don't think most Americans have the slightest idea what Australian politics are like.

Not even enough to know that Australia doesn't sit in the same category as Cuba, Venezuela and North Korea?

[Echnaton]

My suspicion is that most Americans that have an inkling of Australian politics understand that the country is basically a rational democracy that is willing to cooperate with like minded countries.  When we still read newspapers, we don't get much news from Australia here so many people knew very little of the current affairs.  With Internet media, it's even harder because you have to actively seek out real news for so many places. 

The interesting thing about generalizing Americans is that there is not static generalization of our population.  I live in the same neighborhood I grew up in but the demographics have shifted.  Most of my neighbors growing up moved to Houston from somewhere else in the US, but the newer neighbors are just as likely to have originated in another country as another US city.  It makes for difficultly in pinpointing what the products of an American education is, because so many Americans today are only partially, or not at all, the product an American upbringing. 

[gillianren]

When I was getting the five-cent tour of San Francisco the other day (we agreed that the five-cent tour of Olympia will take you much farther), one of the things my friend was telling me was where neighbourhoods were in transition.  (He said the hipsters were battling the Hispanics for one neighbourhood, which had some interesting West Side Story overtones.)  My mom's neighbourhood in LA has remained relatively static, ethnically speaking, since she moved in, but a lot of the other neighbourhoods in the area have not.

I was reading Bill Bryson's book about Australia not long ago, and it talked a lot about how little news from Australia makes it to the US.  I think the average American knows that Australia isn't exactly Cuba, but I doubt most of them know much more than that.

[pzkpfw]

We get some Australian news over here in New Zealand (Sky News, via our Satellite T.V. provider) which I watch from time to time, and from what I've seen it seems more like the current U.S. style than N.Z. style; just for comparison.

They get a bunch of Aussie politicians around a table, in a show that's supposed to be about debate, and they mostly just seem to shout "you are a doody head" at each other; based on what seems little more than their party membership.

(I'm not saying it's all that much better in N.Z., but that's my general impression of it.)

[Not Myself]

Not even enough to know that Australia doesn't sit in the same category as Cuba, Venezuela and North Korea?

They're all countries.

"In a recent poll only 31 per cent of Republicans believed Barack Obama was born in the United States. Who are the others? They are either stupid or crazy"

This one is so far down my list of widely-held and disturbing American beliefs that I probably wouldn't even mention it if asked.  One that bothers me much more is the attitude that the only people more despicable than those with more money (investment bankers, CEOs, whatever) are those with less money (Chinese workers).

[ka9q]

Sadly, it does seem to me that political polarization has gotten much worse in recent years. The Republicans, especially, seem to have adopted an "If they're for it, we're against it" stance, along with what I characterize as 'guerrilla' tactics - harassing attacks like the "birther" nonsense that do no real damage in themselves, but distract from the real business of government

It certainly has gotten worse. And I do wonder if the communications explosion has fed it. I'm an electrical engineer who specializes in communications, so I've always thought of it as a pure good. But when I see Fox News or listen to AM talk radio, I wonder.

The "birther" movement most definitely has caused some real damage. It has polarized people to the point that they're unlikely to cooperate on anything.

I thought that it used to be possible for people to occasionally discover that they agreed on something, set the disagreements aside for a moment, do the thing they agree on, and go back to arguing about their disagreements. Maybe even find some mutually acceptable compromises. Maybe it never really was that way, but it certainly isn't now.

There most definitely is an air of "if you're for it, then I'm against it -- no matter what it is" that's making it impossible to do even those things everyone really wants. It's very worrisome.