It’s often said (in Democratic fundraising, for example, or opinion columns) that democracy is at stake in the upcoming elections, threatened by measures to restrict voting, the Supreme Court’s fairly unpopular decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, partisan gerrymandering, and the appointment or election of Trump-like state officials who’ll try to delegitimize election results they don’t like. If people aren’t sufficiently impressed to disgorge a contribution by “democracy is at stake,” they go for “our very democracy itself is at stake,” which means the same at greater length.
Some of these are threats to democracy, if not to our very democracy itself, and the idea that partisan conspiracy theorists will be running state elections, in particular, is chilling. But I think there’s a much more…
