Want to fight Trump? Then act now to strengthen democracy

Want to fight Trump? Then act now to strengthen democracy
Americans don't actually want Trump's hateful policies. If we had a real democratic process, that would matter

By Paul Rosenberg
Contributing Writer
Published December 7, 2024 5:45AM (EST)


(Salon) While a post-election CBS News poll found majority support for Donald Trump’s promise to deport all undocumented immigrants, a more nuanced and less noticed poll from Data for Progress in late October showed exactly the opposite: Mass deportation is highly unpopular when you shift the question from an abstraction to specific details, such as asylum seekers or DACA recipients brought here by immigrant parents. Deporting members of these groups was opposed by more than three to one.

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We can’t turn the clock back and alter the 2024 outcome, but these contrasting polls reveal important truths. First, Donald Trump’s toxic ideas are far less popular than the media would have us believe, and should be combatted vigorously. Second, that in fighting the authoritarian threat Trump represents we need to strengthen democracy, to make facts matter, and to draw people into serious deliberation about the future.

The best-developed tool we have for that in America is the state initiative process, as highlighted in Amanda Marcotte’s recent article on “America's political discordance,” where she noted, "In state after state, voters backed both Trump and ballot initiatives that advanced and protected progressive goals." That partly reflected the failure of Kamala Harris’ campaign, but also a long-term disconnect that Democrats have never seriously dealt with.

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Citizens assemblies

Athenian-style citizens assemblies, which I wrote about in my previous story, provide the purest, richest and clearest example of high-quality deliberative democracy in action, and also serve as focal points for the other three examples to interact with and support. I’ve written previously about their use at a national level (here and here), as well as their global spread and a project to develop such an assembly in Los Angeles. ..............(more)

https://www.salon.com/2024/12/07/want-to-fight-trump-then-act-now-to-strengthen-democracy/