(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Laboratories Against Democracy: How National Parties Transformed State Politics - A Book Review [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags'] Date: 2023-03-22 Available on Amazon in print and kindle Dr. Jacob Grumbach's book, Laboratories Against Democracy — How National Parties Transformed State Politics (2022) premise is the concept of federalism and the nationalization of party politics at the state level has effectively weakened democracy. That is, supposedly independent state decisions are no longer local, but have been nationalized by party. Much of the following is an extension of his main premise with which I entirely agree. And, of course, it does not take rigorous statistical analysis and exhaustive corroboration and rigor to come to this conclusion. We see it happening in real legislation across the land. The author does a wonderful job of corroborating this observation to provide the hard evidence. "State rights" is a constitutional illusion when the organized selfish power of "Party" is willing to rig elections and suppress voters, deny human and civil rights, erode checks and balances, prevent general referendums and myriad other insults. There are no "State Rights". There is only "Party Power" in states who may or not agree with some basic civic pillars of democracy; 1) Free, fair, accessible elections, majority rule, minorities protected 2) The checking and balancing of all organized selfish powers making inclusive compromise governance possible. 3) The equal application of fair law and a equitable economic policy 4) The use and defense of self-correcting science, journalism, and education in driving public policy and reporting corruption. The reason for the ability of states to "experiment" themselves out of democracy is that Party and Corporation, as organized selfish powers, have been excluded from formal checks and balances between Religion, The Branches and The Electorate. The exclusion of Party and Corporation from formal checks and balances fuels almost every dysfunction of our democracy: gerrymandering, partisan judicial appointments, gridlock duopoly politics, legalized bribery, revolving door corporate regulatory agency appointments, control of the federal monetary policy by a financial elite, etc. etc. arises from not formally including Party and Corporation with Religion, The Branches and The Electorate, in the Constitution. I welcome Professor Grumbach's identification of Party, as a concept, being the reason for our democratic dysfunctions. But, constitutional authors, in general, have not even extended the idea of checks and balances to any other powers but the tripartite branches of government, the US Constitution includes Religion and The Electorate as part of the scale. If they ever do, its a side comment. Without this broadened thinking about "checks and balances", it's unlikely we will include the weakly (informally) checked Party and Corporation in our arguments on how to update and reform democracy. Our anathema to indoctrination, as if there are no hard civic values to stand for, further stands in the way. Grumbach’s prescription is, “At the same time, pro-democracy coalitions, whether partisan or nonpartisan, should use the power they gain at the national level to shift authority upward and away from the state level, where budgets are constrained, voters have less information, business and the wealthy can quickly flood political battles with money—and where threats to democracy continue to arise." But, politics is a visceral game of emotions vulnerable to a couple key triggering civic values to make a movement and persuade citizens. People need "heroes", an ideology or at least an affiliation. In that regard, this book will not inspire anyone but intellectuals. His prescription above would come with considerable backlash among a populace that has been indoctrinated in contradictory values, However, criticism to the main argument of Laboratories Against Democracy simply comes from the standpoint of not being able to commit to the above civic pillars democracy. Most critics of the book will hold allegiance to one or more of the following values: 1) Little or no central authority over states no matter if a PARTY in those states choose to violate human rights, civil, voting rights or protect corporate power. 2) Embrace of and exaggeration of the purpose of the second clause of the second amendment and demonization of government at the detriment of the first amendment and safety of the public. 3) The belief that unregulated capitalism, and rugged individualism, is a civic principle and that an absolute "free market" exists that responds to changes in the socioeconomic impacts better than any federal monetary policy. 4) An entitlement to pseudoscience and misinformation media as basis of driving policy; and a race and culture heritage narrative that whitewashes the actual history of domination and slavery. 5) A general peace and cooperation can arise spontaneously out of personal choices and no need for democratic civic values or their active defense. which aims for the benefit of: 1) One party authoritarians 2) gun cult anarchists and Christo-fascists 3) irresponsible libertarians, corporation and shareholders 4) white Christian nationalists and conspiracy-cults 5) pacifists and fence sitters. Of course, if we were able to transcend party affiliation and loyalty, even if that loyalty is temporarily deserved, we could possibly begin to make reform. Sometimes, people will exclaim country over party when a particularly self-interested power play is made. Or, some will become "independents" all the while enabling the party duopoly and still confusing its machinations with the protocol of truly checked and balanced government. But until we recognize the following we will always be struggling against the forces of authoritarianism. "Party and their agents should be nowhere near the mechanisms of elections and nominations in the Judiciary. Corporation and their agents should be nowhere near the financing of elections and appointments in regulatory agencies. Government officials shall not be invested in the markets which they can influence" There are many ways to manifest the above, either ala carte legislation or an Amendment: strict public campaign financing, national elections standards, ranked and scored voting and multi-party participation, 13 justices on the Supreme Court, popular vote electoral count requirement, the equal rights amendment, etc. But first we must expand our concept of checking and balancing all organized selfish powers in society; require parties platforms to not contradict the four civic pillars of democracy; and teach our children a couple things about the way genuine representative democracy works. There is more than enough room for responsible, expressive speech, debate, discussion, dissent and multiple political parties under the umbrella of the four basic pillars of democracy. 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