This piece is spot on: Instead of pretending that individual politicians are the problem, we need to acknowledge what @ThePlumLineGS calls the “larger truth”: That the Republican Party itself has become an anti-democratic force and an acute threat to American democracy. 1/
As @ThePlumLineGS rightfully notes, not every Republican has gone as far as Rep. Andrew Clyde of Georgia in their open disdain for democracy, the rule of law, and those who protected it on January 6. 2/
But let’s remember that calling the insurrection a "normal tourist visit," as Clyde famously did, or acting the way he did towards a man who risked his own life to defend American democracy, does not get you in trouble within the Republican Party. 3/
As a matter of fact, the GOP is happy to accommodate people like Clyde, or the 147 Republicans who voted to overturn the election even after the insurrection, or extremists like Marjorie Taylor Greene – or, of course, the insurrectionist-in-chief Donald Trump. 4/
Why is that? Because most GOP elected officials – and at least about half of Republican voters – share the underlying ideology that animates people like Clyde, and actively support the political project of installing conservative minority rule. 5/
The underlying ideology states that only Republicans represent the will of "real" (read: white Christian patriarchal) America, while Democrats are pursuing an "Un-American" political project fueled by a coalition of people who don’t deserve their place in the body politic. 6/
In this worldview, Democrats are not just political opponents, but a radical, Socialist, Un-American political force, trying to turn what is supposed to be a white Christian nation into a land of multiracial pluralism. 7/
Therefore, according to this widely shared Republican ideology, Democratic governance is fundamentally illegitimate – and it must be prevented and obstructed by whatever means necessary. 8/
That is the tale Republican officials and conservative intellectuals have been telling, and it’s been the core message of the rightwing media machine. That’s why the base is primed to believe Trump’s #BigLie and ready to abolish democracy in order to prevent Democratic rule. 9/
Here’s a (much) longer version of this argument, with plenty of receipts: 10/
This is the "larger truth" that @ThePlumLineGS mentions. The specifics of this or that radical claim – voter fraud? Fake Chinese ballots? The Insurrection never happened; or it did, but Antifa is to blame? – almost don’t matter, as long as they adhere to this larger truth. 11/
The inherent contradictions between the many far-right conspiracies are irrelevant. As long as it denounces Democrats as the enemy of the true "will of the people," it’s not a lie; as long as it’s based on the idea that only Republican rule is legitimate, it’s the "truth." 12/
What makes the current moment so acutely dangerous is that reactionaries who define "real America" as a nation dominated by white Christians feel their backs against the wall and are convinced that all measures are justified to defeat an illegitimate opponent. 13/
Upholding democracy is not important: If democracy interferes with white Christian dominance, it has to go. 14/
The insurrectionists? Many Republicans are certainly somewhat uncomfortable with what happened on January 6. But in the grand scheme of things, the people who stormed the Capitol had a point, as many conservatives like to argue, and were generally on the right side. 15/
Insurrection or not, in this worldview, someone definitely has to stand up against this Godless, Un-American liberal menace. Because conservatives feel like their side has been losing for too long, and defeat is not an option in a fight of good vs evil. 16/
If you are operating from this "basic place," as @ThePlumLineGS puts it, then it makes sense to denounce officer Fanone. The fact that he is a cop remains relevant only as long as he is acting to uphold the “right” kind of law and order: traditional conservative rule. 17/
If you believe, however, as many Republicans do, that on January 6 Congress voted to install an illegitimate president, after a fraudulent election, then what officer Fanone was doing that day was enabling a dangerous, Un-American faction to rule. 18/
Worse yet, Fanone has been actively speaking out against the insurrectionists and their enablers in Congress, against Donald Trump and the Republicans who still support him. He’s become the enemy, or, at the very least: a problem for the conservative political project. 19/
As individuals, the Andrew Clydes of this world won’t bring democracy down. But the party that elevates them might. The fate of American democracy depends on whether or not we acknowledge this larger truth: that the GOP is a threat to democracy and the rule of law. /end
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There are interesting parallels between the reaction of American conservatives to #Juneteenth becoming a federal holiday and the way West German conservatives despised the idea of celebrating May 8 as a “Day of Liberation” through much of the post-war period. Some thoughts: 1/
May 8, 1945 was, of course, the day Nazi Germany unconditionally surrendered to the Allies. It is widely celebrated in many countries, including the U.S., where it is known as VE Day: Victory in Europe Day. 2/
It was celebrated in one of the two post-war Germanies: The German Democratic Republic, which was part of the Eastern Bloc and defined its identity in discontinuity with Prussian and Nazi history, and explicitly (though inadequately) as a society of anti-fascists. 3/
This is as grotesque and inflammatory a lie as any Trump has ever told.
And in today’s GOP, that’s totally fine. Truth, decency, norms: None of that matters. Who cares if the “Libs” are guilty of this particular crime - they’re an “Un-American” menace, and so anything goes.
Let’s be clear how deranged and dangerous this is. This is one of the leaders of a major party accusing the political opponent of deliberately allowing the killing of newborns, and women and medical personnel who are dealing with incredibly hard decisions of murder.
As with many of these bizarre rightwing lies and demonizations: Imagine having your mind poisoned by this stuff day in and day out, until you start to believe it’s an accurate characterization of the political opponent - or at the very least *could* be true of the enemy.
And if Germany’s “conservative” party were to enact such a Holocaust ban as part of a general attempt to restrict critical debate and punish dissenters, U.S. journalists and observers would not hesitate to warn of this anti-democratic, far-right, authoritarian faction.
I find such hypothetical analogies very instructive. Because of the Holocaust’s prominent place in the American national imaginary, they sharpen the awareness for how a society chooses to address the mass crimes it committed in the past, and their lasting legacies in the present.
I know Bryan Stevenson, the founder of @eji_org, often talks about discussing the death penalty with a German audience, and how outrageous it would be for the post-1945 German state to keep executing people, and for Germany to execute a disproportionately high number of Jews.
Yes! And this isn’t just opportunism or cynicism. The underlying ideology is that Democratic governance is per se illegitimate, that Democrats are pursuing an “Un-American” political project fueled by a coalition of people who don’t deserve their place in the body politic.
Of course McConnell is a shameless opportunist and unabashed cynic. But ideology circumscribes and defines the realm of opportunity. For all those supporting McConnell and his party, this kind of “hardball” is a viable option because they see it as a strategy in a noble war.
The context-free focus on opportunism and lust for power is inadequate analytically, if we want to understand what animates the Right; and it is problematic politically: It obscures the fundamentally anti-democratic (small d!) tendencies among conservatives.
By the way, I’m as tired of thinking about the Senator from West Virginia as everybody else is. It’s not exactly the sign of a healthy democratic system that no one seems to have a clue how to get a member of America’s sole pro-democracy party to actually defend democracy. 2/
Unfortunately, in the system that we have, Joe Manchin’s motivations matter a great deal, and it is important to explore his view of the world. Broadly speaking, there seem to be two schools of thought out there: Political opportunism vs reactionary convictions. 3/
These are excellent suggestions. But if @perrybaconjr is right - and I’m afraid he almost certainly is - that we need all of these things to happen in order to save American democracy, the situation is grim indeed.
What @perrybaconjr is outlining here is absolutely how we would expect a functioning democratic system to react. Unfortunately, however, a functioning democratic system is not what America is.
The final point @perrybaconjr brings up - mobilizing a pro-democracy movement - strikes me as particularly urgent. As it’s becoming obvious that the slide towards authoritarianism is unlikely to be halted from within the political institutions, such mobilization will be crucial.