1. I’ve spent the last decade studying authoritarianism and the breakdown of democracy—and I have bad news: the Republican party’s turn to authoritarianism is here to stay. The party of Reagan and Romney is dead. The party of Trump will last. Here’s why: washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
2. When a despotic leader emerges in a democracy and captures a party, the party has two choices: push back hard and prioritize democracy, or re-make the party in the image of the would-be authoritarian. The GOP clearly chose the latter.
3. For the last several years, I’ve struggled to answer a simple question: what realistic option would it take to put the authoritarian genie back in the bottle? And the conclusion I’ve come to is that all the possible ways to do that are currently highly implausible.
4. For example, a massive voter rebuke would help. But the GOP has aggressively gerrymandered and doubled down on voter suppression and replacing election officials. So even if a majority of voters reject Republicans, they’ll still likely win more seats.
5. Media polarization cuts off another avenue. Republicans care most about their base, and their base watches media outlets that cheer authoritarianism rather than condemning it. With OAN and Newsmax going more extreme, Fox News is dragged further to the authoritarian right.
6. A national crisis can sometimes jolt political parties. But we’ve just had January 6th and 750,000 Americans have died in a once-in-a-century pandemic. And the GOP got more, not less authoritarian this year. So that’s not likely to rescue us either.
7. Ultimately, all the incentives are for zealots like MTG and Boebert to get more authoritarian, while pro-democracy moderates face a simple choice: embrace anti-democracy Trumpism or face a primary wipeout.
8. The point is this: Democrats need to protect democracy, reform institutions to make them more robust, and understand that for the foreseeable future, their political rivals are authoritarian. They must therefore act accordingly.
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