This ought to be pretty obvious, but I feel like maybe I should point it out in plain language. It's common to claim that today's Republican Party is "anti-democracy," but if you've been conned into believing that Democrats stole the 2020 election—that is, if you really, truly believe it—then it's Democrats who are anti-democracy and Republicans who are fighting to restore democracy.
Needless to say, I don't believe this and there's no evidence that it's true. But a small number of conservative leaders from Donald Trump down have convinced millions of rank-and-file Republicans that it's true. These leaders may themselves be anti-democracy, but the rank-and-file almost certainly isn't.
This is not a trivial point. As with so many other things, we should continue fighting the conservative elites who push this stuff but we shouldn't assume that Republican voters in general are beyond redemption. They aren't. They're just in the grip of a media-political complex that uses them for its own cynical ends. With the right message and a little bit of empathy many of them can be persuaded to abandon the right-wing grifters who are using them.
Some may be persuadable with a combination of message and empathy, but many others are convinced that "those people" "just want free stuff" or "have a third-world mentality" or some such, and are therefore not true Americans. That is, Republicans are indeed anti-democracy.
This. To say "they're just in the grip of a media-political complex that uses them" is too forgiving. They believe the election was stolen because they want to believe it, because it validates their very deliberate and deeply held belief that they are the True Americans and that Others are lesser beings whose vote does not and should not count for as much as their own.
See also "the Confederate Worldview", as articulated by Nancy Le Tourneau.
Also because to stop democrats THEY would fine with stealing an election. It's the same projection they've done since the Birch society was founded. "Oh we lost. Our Ideas unpopular OR wrong? NO! We are the victims of societal bias! Let us create our own unbiased society!" And they procede to create the bias slanted society they mistakenly thought the left did.
Agree they certainly _would_ be fine with stealing an election themselves, and they'd say precisely that they had to do it to prevent the election from being stolen, or alternatively because the last one was stolen from them. They wouldn't necessarily admit that they're stealing it, just that they need to be sure it's all aboveboard, like the former "true the vote" bs.
Somebody smarter than me said about republicans that "every accusation is a confession." My gloss on that is that mostly they don't have any imagination, so all they can think of when they want to accuse Democrats of terrible things, is the stuff they're busy doing themselves. Their accusations are how you know what they're up to.
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/22274429/republicans-anti-democracy-13-charts
Thanks for the link (and with graphs, too!). Scary article.
Just to highlight the stark conclusions from the article linked above:
"How authoritarian is the GOP compared with other major parties in OECD societies? Very. The GOP position towards ethnic minority rights & liberal democracy is close to Polish PiS and Turkish AKP, although a few others like Greece's XA are more extreme."
https://twitter.com/PippaN15/status/1267935819047854080
That's true, but I think you also have to consider that claims of cheating this election were supported by pre-existing Republican beliefs.
Since 2000 (and probably before), Republican officials have been trying to get in place more onerous voting requirements to depress democratic turnout. (Thus, the official party truly is anti-Democratic.) To sell this, they use claims of Big Cities cheating. The rank and file completely believe these stories. Even before 2020, they'd repeat claims about Democrats busing in minorities to throw elections.
Why do they buy it so easily? Some of it is racial animus. Some of it is the longstanding (but perhaps growing) rural/urban divide that you've talked about. Some is wishful thinking. And some is because Republican officials and Republican news outlets have been repeating these claims for a long time.
So, no, your Aunt Millie doesn't want the US to become a Trump-led dictatorship per se, and she does believe that the 2020 election was stolen, but she believes that because she believes rather ugly fantasies about minority voting in urban settings. You won't be able to persuade her until you can pierce that worldview.
Scott Brown did it first & second, with Massachusetts Democrats bussing Granite State freeloaders to the Bay State to put La Cacique over the top in 2012, & New Hampshire asking the Bay State to pay it back in 2016 to save Jeanne Shaheen's seat.
Yeah, well, here's the thing: Dear old Aunt Millie doesn't think the law shouldn't be changed if she or her representatives can't show any hard evidence of fraud; she thinks the law should be changed unless you get her to agree that there isn't any.
Yeah, Dear old Aunt Millie's raging anti-democratic Fascist.
It is that Republicans are fine with democracy for them, not so much for other people, which sort of defeats the idea of democracy.
I found this interview with Heather McGhee very compelling.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/16/podcasts/ezra-klein-podcast-mcghee-transcript.html
She points out how many people will do things that hurt themselves, like voting against their own self interest, as long as they can stay higher up on the ladder of hierarchy. This is easily accomplished by suppressing other races, but it also works to pit middle class whites against poor whites.
The job of politicians should be to appeal to our better angels to help us pull together as a nation, but the Republican feel they can get power and wealth by dividing us.
"The job of politicians should be to appeal to our better angels to help us pull together as a nation, but the Republican feel they can get power and wealth by dividing us."
Well, it's worked for them at least since the Nixon administration, when Pat Buchanan advised that they should "tear the nation apart, so that we get the bigger half." This might not have worked as well if Dems had, indeed, appealed to our "better angels." Instead, the Dems seem to focused on "your economic self-interest" (selfish) and aggressively pushing rights of despised minorities (without matching calls to altruism and how this relates to first principles, like equal rights.)
They seem to have gotten the message right in the Black Churches, however, which seems a big factor in the "darkening" of the Democratic Party ... and its revitalization.
Right, except blacks are leaving the democratic party. Its only fraying now, but I suspect it will continue.
Hi there, Shootie.
Definitely on the Shootie team, with the Shootie fight song, but he seems to know more verses than the ol' Shootster.
This is a berserk button for me.
No they are not voting against their own self - interest. They simply value different interests. Plenty of people through history have sacrificed comfort for something they wanted more than that.
I agree and that's _exactly_ right. Drives me to distraction as well. One of the bigger problems we have today are the multitudes of cowards unwilling to call a spade a spade.
Well, I think we are learning why Kevin Drum felt he had to escape Mother Jones 😉
they might not be beyond redemption but how do you argue with people who, on a sunny day, are convinced that it's pouring down raining because a pathological liar told them so? that's essentially what we're up against.
Yes, most Republicans are anti-democracy. That's because most people are anti-democracy. Most people don't have a clue about what democracy really is. As long as they're living reasonably comfortably, and they're told that what they have is a democracy, they're fine with it. But anything that they think goes against their best interest, no matter how democratic, is perceived as a threat to their "democracy." Conversely, anything that promotes what they think is in their best interest, no matter how anti-democratic, is perceived as supporting their "democracy."
This is universal. Democracy only works because, in general, it makes people's lives more comfortable than the alternatives. That's the only reason.
I disagree. Without democracy, Republicans got nothing. Capital markets will go under and the huge need for debt since 2000 due to innovation slowing down since the 1920's would collapse corporation after corporation. All property and money would be worthless. Tribal rule would settle in then. Many of these tribes forming don't like Christian zionism, I mean REALLY don't like them. We are talking about mass cullings no matter how well armed they are. Progressives will hide quivering behind the Social Nationalists like they did in Germany circa 1933.
What Republicans want is a banana democratic institutions who bow to zionism. But democracy it is. Proggies basically want the same thing. Except replace zionism with liberal fascism.
You're a clown. Nazi = "liberal fascism"? Good grief, do you people have nothing left to do but project your worst impulses on other people?
Whom is kidding whom?
They vote for closet Nazis on purpose, not because they don't see the fascism, but because they think no one else will because conservatives never call it that themselves.
They complain about Antifa. Only a fascist would complain about anti-fasicts, and if you say they do it because they don't know what it is, what kind of people complain like this about something they know nothing about? It's a totemic thing that gets them feeling stirred up, which is fascism.
Closet nazis...........where??? You aren't even trying.
Yeah, not even trying,
https://old.reddit.com/r/Fuckthealtright/comments/ltnn2j/fascists_have_their_sheep_so_distracted_by/
Republicans are closet Nazis the way Paul Lynde was a straight guy on tv.
You might already know this:
After the movie Bye Bye Birdie wrapped there was a party in which a number of executives toasted Ann Margret (her first film) effusively predicting she would be a major star. Paul Lynde was asked to say a few words and said “Well apparently I’m the only one here who doesn’t want to fuck Ann Margret.”
Love that story , true or not. Paul Lynde made me laugh a lot.
And a story where Paul Lynde, backstage, walks into the women's dressing room and says 'It smells like pussy in here, I assume.'
Empty women's dressing room.
How can you tell if these people are anti-democratic? Simple. Ask them which voter restrictions they approve of that are being considered in their state and how these restrictions make voting more secure.
If you're for shortening the early voting period, if you're against Sunday voting or counting the early ballots as they come in rather than after the polls close .... you just might be anti-democratic 😉
Note that merely stating that you want to, say, eliminate no-excuse absentee voting because doing so 'prevents fraud' is not enough; if you can't say _how_ adopting this measure will prevent fraud and cite specific examples of past fraud that would be prevented under the new legislation then you're anti-democratic, full stop. No, I refuse to play the game of "If you can't make me say I'm wrong I win" that these people so desperately want the terms of this debate to be.
Those aren't restrictions though. They also won't work. It doesn't matter how you count it or when you count it. It will be counted.
Argle bargle hic hic. Hi there, Shootie.
I think there's strong evidence that both mass and elite Republicans are increasingly violating the big two democratic principles of mutual toleration and forbearance. They were primed to believe that the election was stolen because they no longer mutually tolerate the Democratic Party as legitimate opposition. They chant calls to arrest their law abiding political opponents because they no longer value forbearance.
I think your standard (people believing that they are in the right) is too low. A lot of anti-democratic regimes thought they were doing the right thing before destroying their democracies.
True, but they are globalists by nature. Trump pretty much ran a globalist agenda. Everything he did had foreign support. E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G. The Democratic plan is basically restrictions in capital markets and infrastructure spending(ignoring the liberal fascism zionists complain about). Not good for their profits.
Now, _that's_ a load of hooey. Votes are votes, and it was decided beforehand that whoever gets the most wins. Dispute resolution 101. You don't get to say the other side can only win by cheating after the fact.
Not too cold, not too hot, just right. I my me me mine. If belief in democracy keeps me from thinking I will be rich some day.... by give everybody, we will change the meaning of etc. Evidence: no wish to reign in election spending by affluent ..... supremes against democracy ala citizens united and big element of faith , it's been all about the courts....radically undemocratic. little or no controls at FCC or FDA. forget Anti trust/ by freeing up big money to invest in elections . Tax the middle until there is no middle no more.
Wrong again.
To the extent that people believe their positions are right and therefore supported by everyone (whose opinion counts), then almost everyone believes in democracy. Or maybe almost everyone is schizoid--half the time we believe we are on the side of the angels and therefore constitute a majority, half the time we believe we're the valiant persecuted but righteous minority, battling the forces of Satan.
So is Kevin saying that if the swing State Republicans who didn’t go along with Trump and “find” the additional votes he needed to “win” did go along with Trump and overturned the election for him that most Republicans wouldn’t have gone along with that? I think they would have and that we would be living in a de facto dictatorship right now.
Back in 2008 I was shocked by the large number of Republicans who indicated admiration for Putin. For 4 years, one of them was in the White House. I do think that a large number of Trumpists would be fine with a Trump dictatorship. They would act like it was “democracy” and “freedom” but it would be a right wing dictatorship.
Mushroompeenochet.
All true.
Powers that be in the Republican Party: More money for us, fuck you; women are here to supply our pleasures.
Voters in the Republican Party: a mix of pro-gun, pro-life, white supremacist, women should be barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen.
Of course, pushing those issues isn't always enough, so the powers that be in the Republican Party work to prevent people from voting. They do this to suppress the vote, not to win votes.
"We're a republic not a democracy," they monotonally chant with vacant stares (just as they've been programmed to do).
I know lots of Republicans, and more than a few, if you give them an opening, will hasten to tell you that the U.S. "is a republic, not a democracy."
In reality, it is a democratic republic. We democratically elect people to make decisions on our behalf. Those elections are democracy.
If America were "a republic not a democracy," one proposition that would be beyond question would be this: our representatives are there to govern by using their best judgment, not by simply listening to "the people."
It's easy to see *exactly* how the folks who say we're "a republic not a democracy" actually feel about this. Watch their reaction to Republican legislators who voted for Trump's impeachment or conviction. They believe it not at all. (About as much as they believe in the importance of character, or the sacredness of human life, or the need for balanced budgets.)
"A republic not a democracy" is simply another way of saying "We deserve more power, for... reasons... and... for the same reasons... you should have none."
It's not that they've been convinced by an evil elite; it's that they want to be convinced by an evil elite. It's not hard to figure out that Obama isn't a muslim and wasn't born in Kenya. It's also not hard to figure out that the people who lied to you about that are lying to you about the election, which again has ample evidence of having mostly been free and fair. ("Mostly" because the Republicans clearly worked hard to steal the election.)
Republican voters, one and all, are despicable deplorable racist bigots. And they've worked hard to earn that badge.
Sure, if you ask them, they'll say they support democracy. But most are willing to bend the definition pretty heavily to suit their own interests.
They may not vote to reimpose poll taxes or to make it impossible for anyone to vote by mail. They will support measures that make it more difficult for the poor, college students, or other Democratic-leaning constituencies to cast their votes. Only one early voting site for a huge urban county? Long waits at the polls? Piles of paperwork and registration requirements? No problem! They believe that people should get a chance to vote, not that the election results should strive to reflect the actual majority desires of the nation.
One thing we should all remember: there are many ways Democrats could screw over rural whites in elections. They could put in place population requirements for early voting sites, or ignore county lines or distances when placing polling stations, forcing rural voters to drive long distances to vote. But they don't do that.
Any evidence of that? Don't dem's stand for votes for citizens, every one?
How sorry I feel for those poor misguided innocent GOP voters??!!
Give me a break. They are neither pro-democracy (small d!) nor against. That would require thinking about politics and the country. They want the GOP to win. They are not consciously anti-small-d-deomcracy. They are somewhere in between don't care and don't know.
Also: They think democracy is when they win. Only the left has enough experience in losing to know that is not so.
I find it highly likely that a large percentage of GOP voters who say they believe the election was stolen at, to be blunt, full of shit. They know it wasn't stolen just as well as all the GOP politicians and pundits do. It happens to be a convenient excuse to claim that belief instead of the truth: they don't care about democracy if it means people they don't like get power. Meaning for the most part non-white, non-christian people.
I am sorry, Kevin, but a majority of the leadership of the Republican Party today is showing itself to be opposed to democracy— as shown by their very public actions: declaring the election”stolen,” declaring the Electoral College ballot counts fraudulent, supporting radical gerrymandering, restricting voter eligibility, closing polling places, eliminating early voting or mail voting, requiring ID’s.
Republican voters elect these leaders, and must be judged by their support of these leaders.
It is naive and counterproductive to give Republican voters the benefit of the doubt as you suggest
These are testing times. Democracy, at its most fundamental level, is about the ability of people to accept losing elections, and, as a byproduct, power.
The cheap vote, who only want their taxes used on what they deem proper, has been a part of the R party since whenever, and those voters have never been very sanguine about taxation.
The racist vote, was not only unwilling to accept it when Democracy turned against them, they resisted violently. Ditto the anti LGBTQ segment.
The fundamentalist religious vote .... (same, obviously).
We are thus facing a true test of Democracy. For perhaps the second or third time depending on how you count the 1960s.
The difference is that the civil war was one group of white people against another group of white people.
Today, its a coalition of actual Democratic values, which means although I am not a minority I accept minority rights, against the R coalition which is standard human"I've got mine, Jack" nature.
Unlike China, Japan, and pretty much all homogenous European countries, this is the test.
Its like the EU, which is already stressed enough, but on a much bigger scale.
So yes, the Republicans are completely against democracy. Jan 6 proved it. Case closed.
What we do about it is another post.
Yeah. No.
While there are some that are in the grip of the media-donation-industrial complex, it seems that there is a pretty hardcore group who have checked their brains at the door. Here in northern Ohio, we still have Maga-heads keeping their Trump 2020 signs proudly and defiantly up.
True, if they really believed it, but I've dug into this with the Republicans in my life. A small sample I'll grant you - maybe 6-7 people. They don't really, truly believe the 2020 election was stolen. They've just been conditioned to repeat whatever lie the GOP wants repeated for a couple of decades - the knowingly repeat that lie. When you dig onto it none that I've talked to know why Trump had no evidence to take to court - because there was none. How long they keep up that façade is just a measure of their conservative dedication.
As evidence, I ask you to consider the "Obama is a Muslim from Nigeria". All manner of conservatives repeated that for 8 years - or more in some cases. By the end of that though you could barely find one that could say it and keep a straight face. They all knew it was nonsense, but they loved the kabuki theater of it.
It's the same thing with this election was stolen stuff - even now if you watch them they go though this "wink, a nod and a grin" charade - they know damn well it isn't true. They'll keep repeating it anyway - because they don't give a damn about Democracy - just like they didn't when they kept saying Obama was Muslim even though they knew it wasn't true.
I’m going to do you a solid and correct you. You are supposed to say “Obama is a Muslim from Kenya”. If you walked into a bar and said “Obama is a Muslim from Nigeria”, no one would take you seriously.
Republicans want to _hold_ power, they don't want to _win_ power.
And sure, if you quiz every individual who checked the R box, you're not going to get a lot of overt boot-worshippers (overt vote-suppressers, well, I'm a little less sure about that).
But you have to look at what they'll support, or approve, or tolerate, in order to _hold_ power.
There's probably a good range of reasons why different sub-groups are willing to tolerate having the party they vote for pull a lot of anti-democratic crap in order to hold power. But in the end they _do_ tolerate it, the people Kevin's talking about.
And that brings to mind something David Frum said quite a while ago now, which I'll paraphrase because I don't remember the exact quote: If conservatives have a choice between democracy and holding power, they'll give up on democracy first.
Which is exactly where we are right now. You have to be willing to accept electoral defeat to live in a democracy. How many R voters are willing to do that? There's your real shibboleth test.
This is a terrible take. I could say that Germans from 1933-1945 weren’t anti-semitic, it was just that “a small number of NAZI leaders from HITLER down have convinced millions of rank-and-file GERMANS that it's true. These leaders may themselves be anti-SEMITIC, but the rank-and-file almost certainly isn't.” The positions of most Germany weren’t that they hated Jews for being Jews. It was that they hated them for the things they did and they knew what they did because their leaders told them what they did. Likewise, American segregationists said Blacks were only being treated as they deserved.
Remember, the Republican party has for 25 years had it as their main policy to disenfranchise as many Democratic leaning voters as possible, and the rank-and-file simply do not care. They’ve gone along with every attempt.
Oh, but what about this specific case? The actual Republican position, one they actually argued in court, was that the votes for President should be thrown out, but the congressional votes kept since the Republicans did better than expected in those races. It is one thing to say that the voters are being conned. It is another to defend willful ignorance.
I supposed I could go on and mention the Republican judges and even Trump appointed judges that refused to throw out votes and the rank-and-file response that they are in on it too, but why bother. There are millions of Republicans that are “anti-democracy”. Any vote they win is legitimate. Any vote they lose if fraudulent. This is not a new position. I’ve read several columnists/editors that have been pointing this out for more than 4 years.
Hey Kevin - you have on a number of occasions said that we should not disparage Republicans. Especially the rank-and-file. Not taking them at their word is doing just that. At some point they own their own positions.
[And yes, I know this is an example of Godwin's law. Still fits. If you don’t like Nazi analogies, stick with the segregationist example.]
Most of Trump's Republican supporters are in favor of democracy - or say they are. Although many claim that they know what is right and intend to enforce that regardless of any election outcome. But the way they take the word of the cult Leader as truth is fundamentally anti-democratic. Elevating a leader like this is a common human trait, used by many autocrats at both ends of the political spectrum - Mussolini, Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Juan and Eva Peron, and many others. Democracy fails if voters don't have some independence of thought. Usually leader-worship is minimal in Anglo-Saxon countries, but Republicans have been cultivating irrational racism and religiosity for over 50 years so it is not surprising that so many can't think for themselves.
If I was a political leader, I would simply alter my party's messaging to attract Republican voters.
messaging? Like adding the stars and bars?..... the party of no ! attracting that crowd requires radical adjustment to independent thinking.
But the only thing that attracts them is racism and misogyny do you really want to do that?
When you perceive democracy as a threat to your very existence, you don’t mind if someone overthrows it.
Didn’t Trump say in a tv interview that if we had democracy, the gop might never win another election? I’m sure his hard core fans believe it.