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BJones12 | 3 months ago

> Historically when a pendulum swings one way, eventually it swings back. But I'm having trouble how we're going to swing back, when both sides have swung to and then doubled down on polarization.

It may not have to. There are societies where men and women can vote, and there are societies where men can vote. If there is enough male anger at the left then men can disenfranchise women (heavily correlated with Democrats) and the left loses viability due to lack of votes. And that can be the new stable equilibrium.

discuss

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btilly|3 months ago

It is true that both sides are working to disenfranchise the other. Mostly through gerrymandering. Like how California just decided to screw democracy with Proposition 50, because Texas chose to screw democracy the other way.

But the real risk isn't an attempt to appeal the 19th amendment. It is that an authoritarian executive abolishes democracy entirely. That this is the risk has been obvious for a long time. Latin America is full of countries who adopted constitutions based on the US Constitution when they threw off Spanish rule. Those democracies consistently fell when legislative deadlock and judicial corruption created a window for an authoritarian executive to declare a state of emergency and override both.

We have the legislative deadlock, and a court system that is rapidly losing public respect. We have an authoritarian leaning President who is already teasing about an unconstitutional third term. He probably doesn't have the popular support to actually abolish democracy. But if we remain this polarized for another decade or two, we're likely to go the same way as every other democracy whose constitution was based on ours.

randallsquared|3 months ago

In the US, there would have to be a constitutional amendment, and no amendment proposed after 1971 has been ratified, and getting 38 states to ratify disenfranchisement of women could only happen in a very different political landscape than we have today.

BeFlatXIII|3 months ago

This is why it is vital to teach women how to build ANFO bombs.