Tuesday, February 15, 2022

AOC says there is a 'very real risk' that the nation will not 'have a democracy' a decade from now

ALEX NITZBERG
February 14, 2022

Alex Wong/Getty Images

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) said that she thinks there is a possibility that the U.S. will no longer "have a democracy" in a decade.

"The infrastructure plan, if it does what it’s intended to do, politicians will take credit for it ten years from now, if we even have a democracy ten years from now," the Democratic lawmaker said during an interview earlier this month, according to the New Yorker.

"I think there’s a very real risk that we will not. What we risk is having a government that perhaps postures as a democracy, and may try to pretend that it is, but isn’t," she said.

The outlet noted that the interview, which occurred on Feb. 1, had "been edited for length and clarity."

Ocasio-Cortez, a progressive lawmaker who is currently serving her second term in Congress, indicated that the country has a problem with an increase in "white-nationalist, reactionary politics."

"You have white-nationalist, reactionary politics starting to grow into a critical mass. What we have is the continued sophisticated takeover of our democratic systems in order to turn them into undemocratic systems, all in order to overturn results that a party in power may not like," she said, according to the New Yorker.

The legislator said that there is a danger of the nation reverting to the racism of the Jim Crow era.

"I think we will return to Jim Crow. I think that’s what we risk," she said.

"And the question that we’re really facing is: Was the last fifty to sixty years after the Civil Rights Act just a mere flirtation that the United States had with a multiracial democracy that we will then decide was inconvenient for those in power? And we will revert to what we had before, which, by the way, wasn’t just Jim Crow but also the extraordinary economic oppression as well?" Ocasio-Cortez said, according to the outlet.

 

AUTHORITARIANISM AS LITMUS TEST


 
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Another Republican who opposes free multi-party elections wants control of the election apparatus in a major state:

A Republican county clerk in Colorado who was stripped of her responsibility of overseeing county elections is joining a growing movement of people throughout the country who spread false claims about fraud in the 2020 presidential election and want to oversee the next one.

Tina Peters, the Mesa County clerk, who is facing accusations that she breached the security of voting machines, announced on Monday that she would run to be the top elections official in Colorado.

At least three Republican challengers are already running to unseat the current Colorado secretary of state, Jena Griswold, a Democrat.

Colorado is a purple state that President Biden won with 55 percent of the vote in 2020. The state’s primary is on June 28, and Colorado is one of 27 states whose top elections official will be on the ballot this year.

Given what the national context is likely to be in November, not great!

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