||| BY MICHAEL RIORDAN, SPECIAL TO THE SEATTLE TIMES |||
Democracy in America is under siege, but we may be able to preserve it here in the state of Washington. To do so, however, we will surely have to evade — and avoid — what Alexis de Tocqueville called “the tyranny of the majority” almost two centuries ago. Leave that outcome to the bulging midsection of the “United” States that voted to elect Donald Trump.
In a healthy democracy, the majority rules but still respects the needs and desires of the minority. Or at least tries to. That makes for a vital, smoothly functioning community, state or nation despite the inevitable individual and group differences. Compromise, not confrontation.
But it’s obvious from Trump’s victorious public declarations and head-spinning choices for Cabinet-level positions that he intends to rule as a tyrant, ignoring the will of the more than 75 million U.S. citizens who voted for his opponents. Washington state, which voted resoundingly for Democratic Party candidates, can expect to experience the brunt of his vengefulness.
The numbers speak for themselves. Both Vice President Kamala Harris and Sen. Maria Cantwell garnered over 2.2 million votes — or 57.2% and 59.1%, respectively, of the Washington totals — versus 1.5 million for their Republican opponents. Those are called landslides. And Gov.-elect Bob Ferguson and Attorney General-elect Nick Brown received over 2 million votes, more than 55% of the totals. These voting margins were notably bolstered by a blue shift west of the Cascades, while the state’s eastern portion tilted further into the red.
In fact, the Democratic Party won every statewide office by similar margins. Washington has become what can be called a blue bastion of democracy — a label one can apply to a few other states and regions such as California and the Northeast. Otherwise, there are just a few blue Islands awash in a sea of red. Washington is therefore well-positioned to confront the inevitable Trump assaults on our state values and institutions. These will most likely come in areas of undocumented immigrants, reproductive rights, environmental protections and personal freedoms. We are thus fortunate to have two seasoned, battle-hardened attorneys such as Ferguson and Brown stepping into office, for much of the resistance will initially play out in the courts.
But Washington Democrats must not make the mistakes of the Trump forces, who are now overplaying the hand dealt them in the 2024 elections, which was not the “landslide” they fancy. More than 40% of the electorate voted for the Republican candidate here in every statewide race except the presidential, where Trump garnered just 39% of the vote. So to confront the Trump threat, Washington must avoid enabling a local tyranny of the majority.
That means listening to the moderate candidates in both parties who also won reelection — Democrat Marie
Gluesenkamp Perez in the 3rd Congressional District and Republican Dan Newhouse in the 4th. They have shown how to gain and maintain support from rural voters who populate the middle of the political spectrum. If Washington is to present a solid front against the looming Trump assaults, moderates should be part of the resistance. And there are policies that progressives and moderates agree on wholeheartedly, such as reproductive rights and climate-change mitigation — witness the overwhelming 62%-to-38% percent defeat of Initiative 2117, which aimed to repeal the Climate Commitment Act.
During the years to come, Washington state can present itself to the nation and world as a beacon amid the growing Trump gloom — a tolerant, inclusive democracy. To do so, we must remain united. As Ben Franklin is reputed to have said, “We must, indeed, all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.”
Michael Riordan: is a physics historian who writes about science, technology and public policy.
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Blue Bastion? More like Blue Bubbles bobbing in the Salish Sea.
Imagine what the “tyranny of the majority” looks like to a libertarian in an extremist progressive county
That’s a fair comment, Phil, but “looks like” is impression, not fact. The question is what actually happens and why. “Freedom” is an elusive concept among humans whose numbers and concentration in a deteriorating environment require some manner of regulation between humans, and between humans and the environment. So we only end up arguing “how much” among the “shoulds” and “oughts.”
Shouldn’t a libertarian LGBT+ be free to be the person they discover themselves to be, harming no one else? Should a person be free to pollute downstream waters, downwind air? Each of us has our opinion, ad the only tool we have is to vote, assuming that operates as we all agree it should.
But it doesn’t, and can’t, as long as anyone with enough money (in or out-of-state) can, under the First Amendment, effectively speak louder than anyone else with unlimited funding. This perverts both sides, leaving both of us to feel that even when politically vindicated, something not quite right is going on, but glad or sad at the result.
I suggest that this is something we have to work on together: to amend our federal constitution to move a plutocracy back into a republican democracy. Then, perhaps, whatever the political landscape “looks like” will represent the will of the people governed. We can all wonder what that would look like.
I am sick unto death about the constant media-driven divisive rhetoric about blue versus red.
It’s nothing more than abject propaganda intended to divide citizens and those who push it are evil.
It’s obviously intended to create division among good people. The Seattle Times editorial board is not me, and it’s not you, if you are a thinking person. Why does the media constantly try to divide us when we all have (mostly) the same values, Like family, peace, love and a secure home in a clean environment.
How can any thinking person look at the last four years of our republic without utter revulsion at the abject corruption (Hunter Biden pardon), utter stupidity (Afghanistan, Kamala candidacy), manipulation of information (covid vaccines, Hunter Biden laptop), grotesque glorification of decadent and unhealthy lifestyles (drag queens in the military) without puking?
As a progressive I too am sick of the blue v/s red labels… neither of which truly fit my dream of democratic ideals.
“How can any thinking person look at the last four years of our republic without utter revulsion at the abject corruption (Hunter Biden pardon), utter stupidity (Afghanistan, Kamala candidacy), manipulation of information (covid vaccines, Hunter Biden laptop), grotesque glorification of decadent and unhealthy lifestyles (drag queens in the military) without puking?”
I think a lot of people see this, but, unfortunately, in a political landscape of the lesser of evils they’d rather have this than what Trump has to offer.
Michael, I long ago abandoned hope that society or government would conform to my ideals and decided instead on pragmatism, hoping those of like mind could nudge the US in better directions. After this last election, I’m losing that hope.
And the first three comments above illustrate the great diversity of opinions we have to deal with. In some cases, it’s not worth trying.
Interestingly I agree with most of the foregoing comments.
Dr. Riordan, is giving up hope pragmatic?
“Hope is a longing for a future condition over which you have no agency; it means you are essentially powerless. … When hope dies, action begins.”
— Derrick Jensen, Beyond Hope (https://orionmagazine.org/article/beyond-hope/)
Michael, I have never hoped that society or government would conform to my ideals. I’ve simply always hoped that they would operate on a level commiserate with the common good and well-being of the people. Sadly, this is not the way our government operates.
Looking beyond mainstream news, it doesn’t take much to realize that both major parties are corrupt. There is nothing pragmatic about supporting a system of governance in a society who’s future is determined by the lesser of two evils. The people deserve better, and if we don’t strive towards that we deserve what we get.
While we’re on the subject of hope, and asked by Phil Peterson about giving up on hope, I can say that I have great hope in the Washington state government addressing the real needs of ordinary people (versus the wealthy and big corporations). That’s what the recently supported capital-gains tax tries to address.
But I no longer have much, if any, hope left in the federal government, now that it will be headed by a vengeful autocrat and a cabal of billionaire oligarchs (e.g., Musk, Ramaswamy, Andreessen) that will rival Russia’s dictatorship. And my Seattle Times essay was written and submitted before Trump named Kash Patel to lead the FBI — an ominous choice that, if it goes through, promises a surveillance state much worse than what already exists. Those of us with enough grey hairs can remember the FBI under the leadership of J. Edgar Hoover, who assembled and kept dossiers on many influential US individuals, including Albert Einstein. Pray that the few moderate Republicans left in the Senate join their Democratic colleagues to reject this alarming choice.
As for red states versus blue states, Scott and MJ, I’m sorry but that’s an apt description of the reality we find ourselves experiencing today, by much better writers than Yours Truly. The “United” States has never been so geographically divided since 1860. And we all know what happened after that.
“Ordinary people” democratically voted for the incoming President.“Wealthy oligarchs” contributed over two and a half billion dollars to the opposition campaign and PAC’s, as well as in-kind heavily biased media coverage for a candidate selected by a cabal that currently surveils catholic parishioners, pro-life advocates, parents attending public board meetings and political figures at odds with the administrative state agenda.
Add to that the administrative states unprecedented persecution of a democratically elected president during and after his term of office. False charges of collusion based on a “dossier” fabricated by his political opponent, ongoing “investigations”, two false impeachments, fabricated crimes and indictments that have deeply stained the aura of fairness and justice nurtured over 230 years of our history .
And when none of that worked they tried to kill him. But he rose with blood running down his face, his fist in the air and defiance in his voice, and the ordinary people cheered! Indeed we are “geographically divided” look at the map not by state, but county by county to see where the divide is, then look at City Council meetings in Chicago and New York where ethnic minority protesters in red are demanding change and you might see the future.
Perhaps we can reflect on Newton’s third law of motion, “For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction”, then maybe its pragmatic application can accommodate a bit of wisdom “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.” then we might find hope that our Constitutional Republic will survive without a repeat of 1860.
it is somewhat ironic that Dr. Reardon cited the capital gains tax in a discussion about avoiding tyranny by a majority. Have you forgotten that the constitutionality of this tax rests on a declaration by a supermajority state supreme court that “capital gains are not income”?
“The central point that emerges from our research is that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while mass-based interest groups and average citizens have little or no independent influence.”
— Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page, Cambridge University Press
When our choice is limited to two preselected, thoroughly vetted candidates, who will say and do exactly what their sponsors think they should say and do, that is not a democracy. We live in a “civil oligarchy.”
My opinion: there is no “hope” to be had in politics, at least not as politics exists now. “Blue”, “red”, “progressive”, “independent” — makes no difference. These are just slight nuances on business-as-usual. Embedded in a fundamentally insane and ecocidal system of infinite growth on a finite planet, the pressure to maintain business-as-usual is too high, no matter what party someone is aligned with. A person would simply never be elected if they actually tried to do what is best for the living planet, including humans. So our choices are limited to the people who will always cave to corporate interests over those of small, sustainable communities (which don’t exist anymore, at least not in this country).
Here in our small county politics is driven by that same growth imperative; it must be since without constant inputs from beyond the county, our community is utterly unsustainable as it exists now.
I imagine our ecological footprint extending for hundreds of miles all around us, as we pull those “resources” in to maintain a fundamentally unsustainable way of life. The politicians we elect will always work hard to maintain that crushing, cruel footprint because if they don’t they will not be re-elected. That’s the way of politics in a world in catastrophic overshoot.
p.s. this is a good video on why democracy leads to tyranny, for those interested: https://youtu.be/qrl8YorTa1U?t=13
Elisabeth, I tend to agree with your pessimistic view of the human future under the current regime of corporate statism.. However, I think you have it somewhat reversed in terms of who is bending whom to their will. I remain suspect of mass-based public interest groups as I think they are almost always infiltrated by statist actors.
As of today, the U.S. government is the largest single human organization on the planet. It is larger than the Chinese Communist Party and its army of 2 million soldiers. If you include state and government employees, our unelected ruling class is larger than the CCP, its army and ready reserves, and the Russian army combined. Congress has shown that it is almost powerless against the monolith that some call the “deep state” or what some wittily call the “Blob”. For example, who has actually been making policy decisions during the catastrophic Biden administration. Clearly it is not Joe or Jill Biden.
When I was a young pup fresh from university, I worked in fed.gov for a couple of summers. One summer was spent in complete boredom in the EPA and one in the International Trade Commission. What I witnessed in those two summers convinced me that I would never be happy in that world. Large organizations have only one imperative, and that is to perpetuate their own existence. I clerked for a couple of Federal judges after that to burnish my legal career, but I saw the same servile deference in the judiciary to political actors.
Large corporations, particularly in the defense and pharmaceutical industries, are almost completely populated by executives who steer their companies in the directions that fed.gov prefers. At the end of the day, their merger is practically complete,
I found a home in a small, entrepreneurial biotech company (less than 120 employees when I joined.) I was able to contribute almost immediately to the ultimate success of that company. We had several large pharma partners. I learned to use their organizational morbidity and turgidity against them. Small can be beautiful.
I had a professor in business school who illustrated graphically how small organizations can survive in an environment dominated by large beasts. He drew 4 circles on the blackboard in rectangular symmetry to show the ground footprint of an elephant. He then sketched in the spaces left within the elephantine footprint where mice can move freely.
Scott, I don’t see my views as pessimistic, rather as realistic. However, most people are optimistic by nature, and they tend to see realism as pessimism. Along with the optimism comes a lot of denial.
I find all mass-based public interest groups are generally focused entirely on the human public at the expense of the non-human world. They seem to think humans aren’t animals, and therefore we are exempt from the normal rules of ecology. They operate within the “normal system” which is actually incredibly abnormal; this is after all, the most abnormal period in the history of humanity and certainly in the last few thousand years, thanks to extracting vast amounts of Earth’s “resources” for the use of only one species, one out of millions of species.
Because of this focus, these groups also tend not to be reality-based. They might do good work, but it’s not sustainable work in any meaningful sense of the word.
Small grassroots organizations, the mice between the elephants feet, are the ones that will be more likely to best support the community when the vast infrastructure of modernity fails for those of us who take it for granted (not long now, in the big scheme of things). Supporting local food producers and appreciating those with wisdom about local ecosystems and how to live well in this place are probably the most practical and effective things we can do to build resiliency for the future. That work transcends political parties (as we know them now) and can bring together a wide variety of people if we are willing to put party ideology aside.
Oh Phil… dear, diluded Phil. Please listen to your family. They love you. Escape from the Infowars, Breitbart, Newsmax, and Fox News noise. They are poisoning your mind. You are too strong and too intelligent to succumb to this crazy addiction.
Well, darn all those “cabals” who have been suppressing vitally important details about the contents of Hunter Biden’s laptop. And why have we stopped hearing about those critical Biden impeachment hearings that the intrepid Republicans have held, and what about that Biden crime family and corruption that has been alluded to here?
Fortunately, the avenging hero Trump will soon descend upon us with his coterie of anti-elite, if utterly incompetent yes-men and women to fix all of our woes. Just look at how happy Musk must be to have his couple hundred million investment in getting Trump elected repaid by a vast surge in his net worth? Is it not our duty to see that he becomes the world’s first trillionaire? We can only hope that the even lower corporate and capital gains tax rates and elimination of pesky environmental and other regulations will move even more of our national wealth out of the hands of those clueless former middle class members and into the offshore accounts of the 1% (or is it the 0.1%?). Meanwhile, let’s listen carefully to the words of cable commentators who trade their millions of dollars a year in compensation for their opionions about why you should be paying attention to Hunter Biden’s laptop, and not that billionaire who just removed your wallet…
I very much appreciate nearly every thread of this discussion. Each of us has individual life experience as context for our world views and because we have lived in the last decades of most fortunate circumstances and almost unlimited choices in the entire history of humankind. But solutions for these complicated issues are few and far between simply because there are too many of us and the collective “we” have fouled the natural world terribly.
Our form of government, often extolled and admired, has evolved to be completely controlled by corporatism that is itself a terrible bastardization of fundamental capitalism. The 2 party duopoly fueled by insane monetary inputs is a train-wreck. Human interests are now entirely subservient to corporate interests.
Bringing our many perspectives home to these little islands that we inhabit, in some form of collaboration, with functional, resilient small communities as the outcome, is (beyond the well-being of my small family) my focus anymore as a conflicted, realistic conservationist in my mid-70s. As so articulately stated by several of you, or at least implied, we are flailing badly due to our odd socio-economic mix and tendency toward inertia in the face of mounting challenges. The awful delusion of “living in paradise” is crippling nonsense. I believe one thing as a retired resident here for a scant 18 years and that is intentional growth and more strict controls over insatiable local government is the only affirmative future. The bigger picture is just too much for my little mind and aching heart anymore.
Good Holidays all!
My thanks to Bill King and Robert Austin for dealing with two earlier commenters who descended into the fever swamps, so I don’t have to rebut them.
To extend my earlier comments and those in my Seattle Times essay, I think we have been experiencing a period in which neither of the two major parties can attain what I call a “governing majority” and have instead been using (and abusing) executive power to have their own way despite narrow wins in national elections. Yes, it can be called “the tyranny of the majority” — a phrase that probably traces back to James Madison and even John Adams. And it looks especially ominous now, with a president-elect who has absolutely no democratic spirit whatsoever.
From a broader perspective, this looks like the withering of national authority in general. Which can lead to individual states and regions trying to fill the vacuum and assume political power. Other writers have made this point recently, notably Franklin Foer in The Atlantic on “The Coming Democratic Revolution”:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/the-coming-democratic-revolution/ar-AA1vgzkL?ocid=BingNewsVerp
Applying similar reasoning to coalitions of Blue states, he makes a similar point to the one I made about Washington state in the Seattle Times.
And I’d here like to make another point about Alexis de Tocqueville’s “Democracy in America.” Writing in the 1830s, he found the abiding American interest in face-to-face democracy, as embodied in town-hall meetings and voluntary associations, to be the bedrock reason for the success of democracy in the young nation.
We do a pretty good job of that here in San Juan County, which is one reason I choose to live here, but we could do even better.