Letter: With authoritarian tendencies evident, where is Utah — and our republic — headed?

FILE - In this Aug. 1, 2015, file photo, Confederate flag supporters climb Stone Mountain to protest what they believe is an attack on their Southern heritage during a rally at Stone Mountain Park in Stone Mountain, Ga. In “How Civil Wars Start,” Barbara F. Walter identifies the two biggest risk factors for civil war as: the devolution of institutions into semi-democracy, and the emergence of identity-based factions such as Christian nationalism.

In Utah, we already live in a dominant-party system. For decades, our politics have been controlled by a veto-proof, Republican supermajority. We have no real check against the Legislature within the executive. We have a small handful of Democrat representatives, but they are effectively powerless unless their ideas appeal to the dominant party — a party that, recently, tried to stymie the referendum for an independent redistricting commission.

That I agree with some of the Legislature’s moves , does not mean that I don’t see an. They tried and failed to propose a constitutional amendment for raising the threshold for some citizen ballot initiatives to 60%. If such an amendment passes one day, expect tax-raising citizen initiatives to never win again.

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