There's a lot I'd disagree with about the last half of your post, jwb:
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Originally Posted by jwb
yeah but like i said the democratic ideal assumes there's an actual choice to be made where the answer isn't obvious. I.e. it assumes there are at least 2 democratic options to choose from.
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Where is this assumption exactly, or is it just something you have assumed? Why isn't a choice between democracy and autocracy an "actual choice" ? Back in Nov 2020, America were divided on the issue; 81 million voting Biden, 74 million voting Trump, so 155 million people seemed to think there was an actual choice to be made.
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If one of those options is a Trojan horse for fascism that actually leaves you with only one option. You can't then rely on the GOP to act as a reliable counter measure against the dems if the dems went tyranical because the GOP have already done so themselves.
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Surely you've seen enough of politics to notice how this has never prevented a politician from adopting a contrary position?
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So while i understand the hesitancy to place all your eggs in one basket, i can't help but feel that is basically already the situation we're in.
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Check the popular vote above and you'll see that the eggs are in two baskets.
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So to me there isn't much utility to choosing between democracy and fascism every 4 years. Call me crazy but i just don't care about the ideal of having people vote just for the sake of having democracy. It's only valuable to me assuming that this is actually the best mechanism to reliably make the best decisions you can make on average.
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This looks to like a conclusion you've come to based on your previously shakey assumptions. Also, "just for the sake of having democracy" is a worthy objective in its own right imo.
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I take your point about one party rule and how self serving it usually is. I'm not necessarily in favor of it either for those reasons though i have my days... But really i was using that just to highlight how little democracy your can really say we actually have to protect. It already seems like self interested self reinforcing system with only slightly more input from the actual populace than your average autocracy....In addition, I don't see the Democrats changing that dynamic, because they benefit from it.
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Actually the Dems are fighting hard to protect the democratic system, though sadly not hard enough. Not entirely clear what the Dems benefit from: they are an old-school party who honour election results, which has actually made them vulnerable if anything. They are set to lose control of the Senate in the next elections and are anything but "complacent", as you accused them of being in an earlier post.