Three years ago, I set the official date for the demise of American democracy. This date came after January 6, 2021. After this date, there has been little hope:
I was inspired by Isaac Asimov and his Foundation series. Mr. Asimov prophesied that democracies will eventually fall in on themselves. Then these nations move into some kind of oligarchy: monarchy, military junta, corporate control, one-party state, etc.
Remember, Mr. Asimov made this prediction in the 1950s. American democracy was at the height of its power. It defeated two great oligarchic powers, and it was bringing democracy to those nations. It dominated world economics: its technical, commercial, and scientific experts were bringing American know-how all over the world. How could anyone in the 1950s claim that American democracy was reaching its shelf life?
I don't know if Mr. Asimov read Mr. Orwell's 1984 and used principles in that book to formulate his prediction. But I sure did. Remember when Winston Smith was being interrogated by O'Brien? We got just a little snippet of humanity's natural instinct to organize itself. Basically, Mr. Orwell (through O'Brien) told us that 2% of us want to dominate the other 98%. Just because we live in a democracy does not mean we are immune from this natural force.
The 50/50 Split
The polls in the USA are predicting a 50/50 race between Trump and Harris. There's a little tornado coming. Actually, it is a big tornado — and some people are finally waking up to it, maybe too late.
It is the Electoral College.
No, it is not about the little advantage it gives to the Republican Party, which can tip a 50/50 election in a Republican way. We all knew about that decades ago.
The tornado is the legal wording behind the Electoral College.
You see, the founding fathers had a different vision of the Electoral College than what the College currently displays. The founding fathers had the state legislatures electing the electors. Then the electors would convene in Washington. In about a week of deliberations, they would decide who was the American president. The president was to come from that indirect election. Average citizens (or should I say the "average rich, white men" who constituted 5% of that time's population) did not have the right to vote for the president. Only the electors. Maybe 100 citizens in all in those early days.
Legally speaking, this arrangement is still in the constitution. In the early 1800s, the partisans took control of the American government from the non-partisans. The partisans didn't like the EC arrangement. With a lot of legal quackery and legal wordsmithing, the indirect election was changed to a direct election, even though the constitution itself was not changed.
But these legal workarounds require several legislative steps to move that indirect election to a direct state-by-state election to formally declare the president. Without these steps being properly followed, the ballots cast on election night, and our common-man understanding of how the EC works no longer apply. The byzantine rules will rule.
And these steps are loopholes for ambitious presidents to exploit. I learned about them about 20 years ago. For at least a century, there has been a gentleman's agreement not to abuse these legal loopholes. Even when Mr. Nixon tried to challenge the close 1960 result, he left the EC loopholes alone.
I have recently read several internet articles on the EC loopholes. These loopholes now seem more intensive and problematic than I had originally understood. My apologies: I tried to find these articles again with Google and DuckDuckGo searches, but I was not successful. But basically, if the i's are not dotted and the t's are not crossed on December 11 and January 6, the whole presidential election can be declared invalid.
With the gentlemen's agreement no longer being part of the EC tradition — and the byzantine EC rules coming into full force, a 50/50 election will mean the winner of November 5 will be decided on an interpretation of the EC rules. Of course, both parties will interpret the rules in their favor, which means the Supreme Court will decide, which means . . .
The 55/45 Split
Last spring, Joe Biden and Donald Trump were running 50/50 in the polls. Then Mr. Biden had his little doze in a debate. Many influential Democrats concluded the tight race was because of Mr. Biden's failing cognition. These citizens made a lot of noise for a resignation. Yet after the resignation, the coronation of Kamala Harris, and a great national Democrat convention, the polls are still saying 50/50.
Does this not seem funny to you?
As I was watching the Republican primary in 2016, I thought, "The left-wing media is trying their best to get Trump elected as the Republican candidate?" Keep showing the buffoonery instead of putting the camera crew on the more sensible John Kasich and Jeb Bush. If the buffoon is elected, then any fencepost Democrat can beat him. Things were shaping up quite well for the 2016 presidential election to be an easy win for the Democrats.
I can't prove this media interference behind any of this political theatre. And it may have been more cultural (peers watching peers) rather than direct decisions of back-room dealmakers. So the proof may never be there. I think the same force is happening here with current polling.
I wrote an article about a big flaw in polling: basically the pollsters cannot measure the motivation of voters to actually cast a vote:
Today, the polling companies and media cannot report a 55/45 split in favor of Harris for one good reason. If the soft Democrat voters hear this split is likely, many of them will lose the incentive to vote. Why vote if Harris is going to win anyway? Then the election becomes a 50/50 split, which would likely give the Republicans the victory. If a Democrat's victory is the goal, then truthfulness in polling is a virtue that can be put aside.
In other words, the polls are being manipulated to better the chance of a Democrat win. If the media interfered in the 2016 Republican primary, why not the 2024 polls?
A 55/45 split will take away the advantage the EC gives to the Republicans. This split would also prevent the Supreme Court from ruling in favor of the Republican's picayune interpretations of Byzantine EC rules. And Joe Biden is the sitting president during this transfer of power.
The 55/45 split is a much different story than the 50/50 split.
The 65/35 Split
I believe this split is plausible. In fact, I give it a 50% chance of happening. It comes from my prediction of how soft support (from both parties) is being motivated to cast or not cast a vote for their preferred party. Soft supporters can be encouraged or discouraged from making a trip to the polls or putting their vote in the mail.
As well, this election should convince a significant number of non-voters to vote — and most won't be voting Republican.
This split will help quell some of the violence that is likely to happen. I hope the Harris administration has the political skills to handle five Waco-like situations at the same time. But I won't make any predictions. My crystal ball is fuzzy: this conflict will require a fine balance.
And sometimes my crystal ball has been wrong. I really thought that Trump-holding-the-Bible-in-front-of-church photo op would cause five million soft-support Republicans to not cast a vote in 2020. I was wrong.
Back to the Asimov prophecy
I have interacted with several people on Medium and Mastodon who believe democracy will be saved with a Harris presidency.
Sorry, I have to disagree. Even a 65/35 victory is only going to delay the eventual outcome. American democracy is broken. It can be taped up a bit to limp for a little longer. But it cannot be fixed; it is going down.
Democracies eventually succumb to oligarchies. That's what Asimov said. We are seeing the signs.
Maybe even a Democrat oligarchy.
So I have to ask: "Is a Democrat oligarchy more preferable than a Republican oligarchy?"
I recently published an article, inspired by several detractors of my work who say that the USA is not a democracy. I'm not sure why they make this their reason to dismiss my alternative democracy, but there is some truth to their thinking. Our current democracies are a combination of oligarchy and our ideal democracy.
So whatever state our democracy is in, we can improve that state. But we can't improve that state with a 1960s-type of thinking. We have to get to work. We have to work differently.
Conclusion
And that different kind of work will be building a new democracy.
So if Harris wins, 1% of Americans still need to build this new democracy.
And if Trump wins, 1% of Americans really need to build this new democracy.
Unfortunately, building a new democracy is an unpopular opinion.
I do not understand why.
Maybe we are collectively insane.
I shall close with this famous quote from Albert Einstein:
Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Published on Medium 2024
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