Magazine review from December 14th, 2021 | Lawrence Lessig on the state of American democracy – Timothy Snyder on Memorial – Anouk Grinberg on acting

The US can no longer give advice on democracy to other countries, explained the Jurist Lawrence Lessig in somewhat excessive rhetoric that they are already one themselves failed state. All the procedural tricks that Republicans use to secure political sovereignty – partisan constituency cuts, voter discrimination, filibustering, the Electoral College, the corrupting campaign donations – made America one Minority Democracy: “Like otherwise only segregationist or sectarian regimes, such as apartheid South Africa, Iraq under the Sunni rule of the Baath party or Syria under the Alawis, the American republic, which was originally designed as a representative majority democracy, has become a minority state.” Lessig’s calls for rescue sound more desperate than constructive: “Today we are dealing with one republican party to do, which has basically declared war on majority democracy. The leadership of this party opposes the fundamental principle of majority rule at all levels. Instead of tailoring their policies so that they really appeal to a majority of Americans, Republicans have shifted to a minority strategy, in fact one partisan, quasi-ethnic group to protect against possible democratic challenges. They manipulate the system so that the majority cannot rule. Faced with this threat, America needs something Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the words of Arnold Hyatt: A statesman who made a ‘reluctant nation to go to warto save democracy ‘. Better still would be a Winston Churchill convincing a distracted nation that our democracy is fundamentally threatened and that we must wage war to save it. But we don’t have a Churchill to guide us through this struggle. We have a Chamberlain. Instead of calling the threat by its name and turning America into a position against it, President Joe Biden is trying to handle the differences in a conciliatory tone. “- .