Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Marge, god is saying you’re stupid.

Roe is not about choice. It is about freedom.

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

Do we throw up our hands or do we roll up our sleeves? (hint, door #2)

You are so fucked. Still, I wish you the best of luck.

Museums are not America’s attic for its racist shit.

Speaker Mike Johnson is a vile traitor to the House and the Constitution.

There are no moderate republicans – only extremists and cowards.

Not all heroes wear capes.

Quote tweet friends, screenshot enemies.

Bark louder, little dog.

This really is a full service blog.

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

No one could have predicted…

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

A norm that restrains only one side really is not a norm – it is a trap.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

75% of people clapping liked the show!

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

American history and black history cannot be separated.

People are complicated. Love is not.

You come for women, you’re gonna get your ass kicked.

Well, whatever it is, it’s better than being a Republican.

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Cliff Notes On the State of Democracy?

Cliff Notes On the State of Democracy?

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When I think about the current state of our democracy, which seems to vary by the day, I am reminded of this cartoon from long ago.

The folks at The Contrarian are providing a scale so we can weigh in on the state of our democracy each week.

I am pleased that they don’t appear to be giving us a rating; it’s just a few words about various events for the week that will allow us to take a look at the state of our democracy.

This week we saw the consequences of autocratic overreach. Although there are still heartbreaking tragedies and dangers inflicted every day, it’s important to step back and see where democracy has been resilient.

That is what we do in this week’s edition of the Democracy Index, as we also unveil our brand-new Visual Index. We’ve broken it down into six key pillars: rule of law, free elections, national security, corruption, civil rights/public safety, and free press/disinformation. Every week, we take the temperature of these metrics in an attempt to gauge the overall health of our democracy. You can explore the full, interactive graphic — and our analysis of the week’s developments follow below.

I’m not a big fan of the interface at this point – it seems awkward – and there’s a lot of back arrow-ing to get from one of these six categories to the next.  No back arrow-ing needed; you just have to click on the coffee cup to get back to the menu above.

Here are the 5 areas they watch for in each of the 6 top-level pillars of democracy.  The graphic below would look much better if “Corruption” were on two lines like the others.  I humbly suggest “Corrupt Motherfuckers” as an alternative.

Click on National Security at the top level and then Civil Rights / Public Safety to see this:

Cliff Notes for the State of Democracy? 3

The Interactive Graphic

Depending on the week, I struggle to keep up with everything that’s happening.  Not to mention the dozens of interesting newsletters that are out there.  I just don’t have a great system yet for managing this new way information is being thrown at us.

Speaking of which, I WILL get back to finishing the list of alternate new sources.

I imagine some of you are doing a better job than I am at staying on top of the firehose of information.  If you are, please share your strategies!

Open thread.

Reader Interactions

17Comments

  1. 1.

    Baud

    My strategy is to tune out the details and just go Leroy Jenkins on all the fascists.

  3. 3.

    Doc H

    A new nascent source to consider: https://unbreaking.org/ I know about it b/c a friend is involved. Lots of folks from the Covid Tracking Project, so they know what they’re doing.

    “How the administration is breaking the government, and what that means for all of us.”

  4. 4.

    Gin & Tonic

    Happy Mothers (or Mother’s, or Mothers’) day to all the mothers among the jackaltariat.

  9. 9.

    sentient ai from the future

    “find a lane and stay in it” is a suggestion that comes up in these discussions a lot. i think that does help. i’m sticking to my lane of trans-kids-and-parental-rights mostly (though i’m also on bluesky*, under a different name, because i want things to be as cryptic and confusing as possible to the forces who might want to put a single name and alias to a person’s identity)

    So, i want to encourage everyone here to get involved editing wikipedia. because you folks are the sort that are going to sit down and learn the rules first, but it is increasingly a target by the right wing specifically because of its organization and how it supports freedom of speech and the accuracy of information, in the absolute best way we have right now.

    you know something and can dig up reliable sources to support that? you know how to write in an encyclopedic style? you can contribute to insuring the world at large has accurate information about….about fuckin everything.

    there are current events that come up too, and they need articles written or improved about them.

    and more to the point, it allows you to stay in that lane, and to really focus on a topic area for an extended period of time, and see meaningful improvement in providing access to information in that area, which is, as everyone commenting or writing here knows, a deeply critical activity in this perilous time.

    So, make an account, make some practice edits, and find an article that’s mostly ok but that you see could be improved, and improve it. it’s like gardening, but for information. there’s a lot of effort targeted at new editors to try and make things welcoming.

    again, everyone sitting here reading these comments is precisely the sort of target audience Wikipedia needs to have as editors.

    *bluesky is good as a pressure release valve for me, being able to make gallows humor jokes but also comment in what i think is a meaningful way on breaking news events, and keep updated from a lot of sources i wouldnt otherwise have access too. like twitter was 15 years ago.

  11. 11.

    Ruckus

    “Corrupt Motherfuckers”

    Sounds like a very loud band. Which plays very loud so that no one can hear after the first 10 seconds, how bad they are.

    Also, a very apt moniker.

  12. 12.

    Ruckus

    @Baud:

    That won’t help, I don’t think he’s human.

    Now it’s possible that I’m wrong but there seems to be overwhelming evidence he’s not even close.

  13. 13.

    Paul Warren

    I cannot make heads or tails of these gauges… are things good or bad? Why have colors if things are going up and down, does a high temperature mean something good is happening?

    And then also the further color palate for those circles are bad as well as a partially color blind person I don’t understand why every category is a different color, what is the color scaling here?

  14. 14.

    WaterGirl

    @Paul Warren: I don’t think it is a color scaling.

    I think the 5 options are just different colors to separate them visually from the others, but the colors themselves are not significant.

    I also don’t think they are gauges.  I think they are including short descriptions of events they think are significant, and they are leaving it up to the reader to evaluate.

    I think it’s kind of highlights of 6 key areas, with each area broken down across 5 subheadings.

    They don’t appear to be evaluating the weeks, just presenting individual events in the various areas – some are positive and some are negative.

    My two cents.

  15. 15.

    Jackie

    @oldster:

    Rick Wilson on MSNBC this morning:

    With the jet being dubbed a “flying palace,” Wilson had another suggestion when speaking with host Ali Velshi.

    “First off, this is what we call a bribe,” Wilson began. “It’s not a gift, it’s a bribe, this is a bribe. This is a very, very expensive 740 7-8, it’s a very fancy plane.”

    “In fact, the reason, I think that Qatar has been so smart about this is the interior decorating style.,” he continued. “It looks like Saddam and Liberace’s decorators got together and said, let’s make a flying brothel that will appeal to Donald Trump.”

    “It is the most vulgar thing you’ve ever seen in your life, he added, “But that is his –– this is a bribe. This is not a gift, it’s not a, it’s not a loan, it’s not a deal –– it’s a bribe. And you need to, I mean, we need to just recognize how transactional and corrupt this is.”

    BWAAAAHAHAHAAAA!

    I appreciate Rick Wilson’s dry tone of snark.

    (bolding is mine)

  16. 16.

    BellyCat

    Terrible graphics.

    Detail supersedes Overview when it should be the reverse. This is what happens when scientist believe they are graphic designers.

  17. 17.

    WaterGirl

    @BellyCat: You know how some people here don’t want to watch or listen to something because they could read it so much more quickly?

    That’s how I feel about this new tool.  I would have to click 150 times in order to see all 30 of the permutations.  Click the coffee cup and then click the first top level item, then click the first of the five in the row, then click the coffee cup again and do it all over again for the second item in the row… that would make me crazy.

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