Historians will tell you that when empires crumble and collapse, they usually rot from within.  Once-great Rome fell to the Visigoths, but it was only because internal squabbles and the decay of its democracy into dictatorship abetted its defeat.  The Spanish Empire, beyond its disastrous war in the Netherlands, wasted its New World riches on fancy toys, trinkets, and cathedrals, allowing it to be surpassed by the rival French on land and the English at sea.  In turn, the British Empire, stretched too thin by the quest for empire and pursuit of wealth built upon a racist imperialist dogma that was inimical to its democratic principles, crumbled at home and abroad in the vain attempt to sustain it.  And the Soviet Empire eventually imploded under the weight of the internal inconsistency of an avowed pursuit of equality while ruling Communist Party members enjoyed the perks and privileges that their bankrupt ideology rendered unattainable for the glorified yet destitute proletariat.

So it is with the American Empire.  American greatness was built upon a thought experiment: that individual liberty, tempered by sound, rational, representative governance, could transcend the individual and collective desire for domination and overcome the persistent will of even the most fervent minority factions to impose their beliefs on the majority.  This social contract has frayed and is near fracture due to the extreme actions of the Republican Party and its anti-democratic leadership, on full display in the two disastrous decisions handed down by the Supreme Court this week.

Scholars and pundits have presaged the decline and decay of America for several decades now, so this gloomy prognostication is nothing new.  What is a newer phenomenon is the descent (though some might rightfully say return) of the republic into minoritarian, misrepresentative rule.  Allow me to be clear: I say misrepresentative (in lieu of unrepresentative—though it is that too) because a large portion of the Republicans in power not only fail to represent the majority of Americans, they actively contradict their express wishes and policy preferences.  The dual verdicts that were handed down in the few days by a radically reactionary Supreme Court represent an extremist agenda, foisted upon the majority, that they in no way support.  85% of Americans believe that abortion should be legal in some or all circumstances.  And 88% of Americans support sound, reasonable measures like universal background checks before gun purchases are allowed.  Both of these clear preferences have been ignored by this reactivist court.  We are less democratic and worse off for these decisions.  And in authoring these rulings, this court, the least democratic of our three branches of government, has gone a long way to taking us back to the 19th century: we are now less safe and less free given these irresponsible, out-of-touch, and ideologically incoherent rulings on guns and reproductive rights.

When a minority cannot achieve its desired policies democratically and instead turns to manipulation and degradation of its institutions, it has betrayed the republic.  So it is with Republican leadership.  No odious, insidious policy is apparently beneath them in their quest for the preservation of power.  They have denied and will continue to deny the vote to those they deem unfit to wield it.  They accomplished this by gutting the Voting Rights Act which in turn allowed states to pass a series of blatantly-discriminatory voter suppression laws.  Mitch McConnell denied the constitutional right of President Obama to appoint a Supreme Court justice, his bald-faced lies on full display only one presidential cycle later when he conveniently abandoned his former position.  And now baseless claims of voter fraud and stolen elections have whipped up a following of crazed partisans and conspiracy theorists to launch an insurrection in the attempt to overturn a fair election.  The Supreme Court and their rulings this week are only one manifestation of this larger effort to subvert the republic and bend it to their will.  It is nefarious.  It is insidious.  And it is destroying our democracy.  In various indices over the last 10 years, the US has declined precipitously, more than any other advanced democracy, in terms of the quality of its democracy in international rankings.  This is cause for alarm.

Republicans have also gained and maintained power by taking advantage of an archaic, unrepresentative Electoral College that must be abandoned for true democracy to prevail.  To be clear, Republican use of this outdated institution is not immoral, but it has long ceased to be representative and as such, begs for rational reform to maintain the fundamental democratic principle of one person, one vote.  Perhaps it made sense when it was adopted in the 18th century, but we are not an agrarian nation of small farmers, we are a global power, and our strength and people reside in our great cities.  Our founding fathers, while impressive people to be sure, were not prescient, and our Constitution was designed to be amended and updated.  Thomas Jefferson himself thought that the Constitution should be rewritten every 19 years.  Power should be vested in the population, and we should switch to a national popular vote for president.  Maintaining the Electoral College reflects a cynical, antiquated attitude toward tradition that stands in the way of the democratic will of the people.  We must jettison this outdated model and use a system similar to that of the world’s other established democracies.  We cannot be the outlier and a global leader for democracy at the same time.

Our once-great empire, a shining if often imperfect example of democracy, has eschewed its democratic principles, allowed a minority to enforce their radical, reactionary agenda and threatened the very fabric that weaves our society together.  If you think I’m being hyperbolic about the state of the nation, ask a woman in one of 13 states who no longer has control over her reproductive rights (or in any of the several others that are likely to soon follow).  Or ask a parent who lost their child in Uvalde last month who witnessed the irrational, non-sensical ruling that allows unfettered access to personal weapons in public this week how they feel about the direction of our republic given the unwillingness to face a national gun violence crisis with anything resembling rational policy.  Rational policy seems to be a relic of the past, replaced by minoritarian partisan preference.  The barbarians are at the gate, and the sun is setting on the American Empire.

Democracies, as with empires, don’t die overnight.  They erode.  They wither.  They crumble.  American democracy is no different.  The two Supreme Court decisions on abortion and gun control laws this week underscore this ongoing, accelerating deterioration.  I have studied and written on democratic decline in other countries.  It happened in Venezuela.  In Hungary.  In India.  And it’s happening now in the United States.  As my and other studies reveal, the courts are always key in the struggle to impose the minority’s will and enforce unpopular, often unconstitutional mandates that cement the power of the few against the wishes of the many.  We have to fight back, using the tools of protest, voting, and advocacy in the short run and education and institutional reform in the long run.  I, for one, am going to protest and express my profound displeasure at the Supreme Court in Washington DC tomorrow.  While I still can.