There are, however, a couple of obvious threats to democracy in the US. Both arise because of the US obsession with leaving each State to deal with setting electoral boundaries and voting qualifications and procedures as they deem fit.
Right-wing figures and strategists including the Koch brothers came up with the Red State Strategy. What we call redistributions and Americans call redistricting occurs every 10 years and the last one was in 2010. Each State takes the census data and reorganises their congressional electoral boundaries accordingly. Some States will pick up extra seats because they're growing. Each State has its own commission to organise the redistricting. Each State is free to have an independent commission, a bipartisan commission or a totally partisan commission. The conservative strategists realised that if they pumped a lot of money and expertise into seemingly unimportant State contests rather than the Presidential or Congressional elections, they could gain control of the redistricting process in a number of states. They won a lot of Guberbatorial and state legislative contests and then set about ensuring that the redistricting bodies would deliver gerrymanders which would allow the Republicans to win an impregnable majority in the House. A perfect storm happened in 2010 as the Tea Party had just burst onto the scene and the mid-term elections resulted in a backlash against Obama.
This has resulted in a nihilistic and obstructionist House. It's even backfired on the Republicans. John Boehner lost his position as the Speaker of the House. He refused to shut down the government and compromised with Obama to pass supply bills The right-wing wingnuts were not pleased and forced him out. There are now a lot of Republican congressmen and women who have been gifted safe seats who now feel no pressure from their districts to behave like reasonable adults. Instead, they act like spoilt toddlers. Ted Cruz boasted of trying to force a government shutdown if Obama refused to repeal Obamacare.
This majority is safe until maybe 2022 or 2024. Unless the DNC can do something to negate GOP control of redistricting in 2020, it will gift the Republicans control of the House until 2034 or so. The Supreme Court fortunately ruled that redistricting couldn't result in districts having different numbers of people, so that slowed down the strategy a little bit.
Each State can also do a lot to disenfranchise voters in its State. They can make it difficult to enrol to vote by requiring photo IDs or just make it difficult to vote by ensuring long lines of voters at a small number of polling stations. Remember that the elections are held on a Tuesday and there is no holiday (which Obama thinks needs to change). Even the methods of recording votes can influence results as they did in 2000 when dodgy machines in Florida led to votes being ignored if there were "hanging chads" and Dubya won because his brother was the Governor of Florida and was therefore able to get him over the line.
Right-wing figures and strategists including the Koch brothers came up with the Red State Strategy. What we call redistributions and Americans call redistricting occurs every 10 years and the last one was in 2010. Each State takes the census data and reorganises their congressional electoral boundaries accordingly. Some States will pick up extra seats because they're growing. Each State has its own commission to organise the redistricting. Each State is free to have an independent commission, a bipartisan commission or a totally partisan commission. The conservative strategists realised that if they pumped a lot of money and expertise into seemingly unimportant State contests rather than the Presidential or Congressional elections, they could gain control of the redistricting process in a number of states. They won a lot of Guberbatorial and state legislative contests and then set about ensuring that the redistricting bodies would deliver gerrymanders which would allow the Republicans to win an impregnable majority in the House. A perfect storm happened in 2010 as the Tea Party had just burst onto the scene and the mid-term elections resulted in a backlash against Obama.
This has resulted in a nihilistic and obstructionist House. It's even backfired on the Republicans. John Boehner lost his position as the Speaker of the House. He refused to shut down the government and compromised with Obama to pass supply bills The right-wing wingnuts were not pleased and forced him out. There are now a lot of Republican congressmen and women who have been gifted safe seats who now feel no pressure from their districts to behave like reasonable adults. Instead, they act like spoilt toddlers. Ted Cruz boasted of trying to force a government shutdown if Obama refused to repeal Obamacare.
This majority is safe until maybe 2022 or 2024. Unless the DNC can do something to negate GOP control of redistricting in 2020, it will gift the Republicans control of the House until 2034 or so. The Supreme Court fortunately ruled that redistricting couldn't result in districts having different numbers of people, so that slowed down the strategy a little bit.
Each State can also do a lot to disenfranchise voters in its State. They can make it difficult to enrol to vote by requiring photo IDs or just make it difficult to vote by ensuring long lines of voters at a small number of polling stations. Remember that the elections are held on a Tuesday and there is no holiday (which Obama thinks needs to change). Even the methods of recording votes can influence results as they did in 2000 when dodgy machines in Florida led to votes being ignored if there were "hanging chads" and Dubya won because his brother was the Governor of Florida and was therefore able to get him over the line.