Hi, @robreiner. I'm happy to take a stab at answering the question.
A would-be oligarch (who wants both power and wealth) has to keep the masses in their place, so they have to enact legislation that actually hurts their constituents.
That's why Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia.
GOP leaders know that their position on Covid relief is unpopular with their base, but they also know they're giving their base something they want more: Protection from "dangerous" enemies threatening to destroy the U.S.
Hungarian scholar Balint Magyar offers a theory that explains why the US is holding out against the same tactics that caused other countries to collapse into autocracy. His theory also explains why comparisons across nations don’t always work.
2/ While writing about post-communists mafia states, he talked about the “big bang” theory: He says that the “conditions preceding the democratic big bang have a decisive role in the formation of the system.”
3/ Here’s how I understand the theory (to use Russia as an example). At the time of the Russian Big Bang (early 1990s, when a Democracy struggled to be born) the Communist Party had a monopoly on power and resources.
Before the 2020 election, scholars of the kind of fascism taking root in that part of Europe compared what the Republican Party was doing to what Orban did in Hungary.
The conclusion from the comparison in Oct. 2020 was that Trump would steal the election.
I do think, though, that we can learn a lot about the modern Republican Party from studying Magyar's work.
Just don't conclude that the US will follow Hungary's course.
Magyar also talks about the "big bang" theory of Democracy. (If you ask, I'll explain) . . .
Timothy Snyder (@TimothyDSnyder) calls it sadopopulism and explains the formula:
🔹Identify an "enemy" (homeless migrants, Democrats, etc.)
🔹Enact policies that create pain
🔹Blame the pain on the "enemies"
🔹Present yourself as the strongmen who can fight the "enemies."
You can't be a white grievance party if your constituents are not grieving.
Make them suffer, then blame people who are not white.
People misunderstood this comment, so I'll add that this comes from Timothy Snyder, who explained one difference between 20th-century fascists and 21st-century fascists.
20th-century fascists did not deliberately hurt their own constituents. They did not enact laws. . .
If you have multiple parties in a constitutional democracy with a president, the president can come to power with 33% of the vote— or less if the vote is split multiple ways.
Do you really want that?
A majority requires a big tent, which means compromising.