The POPE has warned that US Democracy is at risk .. says historian Heather Cox Richardson on Sunday!
This is no small concern.
Speaking in Athens, Greece, yesterday, Pope Francis warned Americans, “We cannot avoid noting with concern how today, and not only in Europe, we are witnessing a retreat from democracy." He warned against politicians with "an obsessive quest for popularity, in a thirst for visibility, in a flurry of unrealistic promises,” and called for people around the world to turn away from authoritarianism, individualism, and indifference. Instead, they must rededicate themselves to the common good and strengthen democracy.
Further, Richardson quotes David Atkins the Washington Monthly
The problem is this: “Democrats…need to win every single election from here to prevent the destruction of democracy, while Republicans only need to win one.
“And the American system is set up so that Republicans will win sooner or later, whether fairly or by cheating.”
[Richardson continues:]
Atkins urges the American people to “start thinking about and planning for what ‘Break glass in case of emergency’ measures look like—because it’s more likely a matter of when, not if. It not only can happen here; it probably will happen here. Conservatives are guaranteed to make every attempt to turn America into the next Russia or Hungary. It will take coordinated, overlapping solidarity among both regular people and elites across various institutions to stop it.”
Not clear what actions we the people can take to forestall this dramatic tragedy that is predicted. As Richardson hopes we can recall the halcyon days when “the public good” was central (or at least close to central) to public debate.
With the call of so many observers to defend American democracy from those who would replace it with authoritarianism, many are reaching backward to remember what things were like in the past, when politicians of different parties worked together for the nation. In the Philadelphia Inquirer today, Will Bunch reminded readers that before politicians fetishized guns and individualism, we used to rally around something called “the public good.”
