An urgent reminder by @perrybaconjr: America’s slide into authoritarianism is continuing – it has actually accelerated in 2021. We are running out of time to stop it, and just hoping for the best won’t be enough.
I’ll add a few more thoughts on the political situation: 1/
I’ll add a few more thoughts on the political situation: 1/
https://twitter.com/perrybaconjr/status/1466203594034757634
Voting Trump out was never going to be enough. When Joe Biden took office, it was clear that unless the system was fundamentally democratized, we would soon reach the point where it would become impossible to stop America’s slide into authoritarianism through elections. 2/
2021 is almost over – and the system has not been democratized in the slightest. On the contrary, wherever Republicans are in charge, they are fully committed to erecting stable one-party-rule systems. 3/
Wisconsin has been the best example for years: Whatever you want to call the political situation there, a functioning democracy it ain’t. Any reasonable definition of “democracy” requires fair and competitive elections, and I don’t think that’s the case in Wisconsin. 4/
In 2018, Republicans got 45 percent of the popular vote in Wisconsin - which translated to 63 out of 99 state assembly seats. Democrats got the majority of the popular vote - and only 36 out of 99 seats. From a democratic standpoint, that seems… problematic. 5/
Wisconsin is the present-day blueprint. A system that looks like a democracy on the surface - after all, there are elections, and parties! - but is something very different in practice: stable one-party rule that you can uphold without getting close to a majority of the vote. 6/
Wisconsin is also a crucial reminder that Republican attempts to establish one-party minority rule on the state level long predate Trump. The GOP has been on an anti-democratic trajectory for a long time. Trump isn’t the cause, he’s a symptom. 7/
The playbook is the same wherever Republicans are in charge: voter suppression laws, gerrymandering - and if all that is not enough, facilitating future election subversion by purging election commissions while also criminalizing protest. It’s not subtle. 8/
On the national level, Democrats might still have a decent chance to win the popular vote by enough that it actually translates into an electoral college majority – or rather: would translate into an electoral college majority if Republicans actually were to certify the win… 9/
But if you combine the current system’s anti-majoritarian distortions with the GOP’s many aggressive anti-democratic initiatives, Republicans are basically guaranteed enough power to obstruct and make functional Democratic governance impossible. 10/
The country is turning into a dysfunctional pseudo-democratic system at the national level and on the state level will be divided into democracy in about half the states, and stable one-party rule in the other half. 11/
My impression is that this still sounds far-fetched and “alarmist” to many people in the democratic / liberal camp – that too many people are still clinging to what is basically an “It cannot happen here” perspective on American politics. 12/
I counter that this would in many ways constitute a return to what was the norm in American history until the 1960s: An authoritarian one-party system in many states that entrenches white Christian patriarchal rule while also shaping / obstructing national policy. 13/
If anything, I think @perrybaconjr’s perspective might understate the danger. Because while it’s crucial to remember that the GOP has been on this anti-democratic path since well before Trump, we’re also witnessing a significant radicalization of these long-standing trends. 14/
Trump’s narrow defeat was not just perceived as a confirmation / justification to *not moderate* - it really has strengthened the siege mentality on the Right, the perception among conservatives that they have their backs against the wall. 15/
The rejection of, and disdain for, democracy on the Right – very much including supposedly “respectable” outlets like the National Review, for instance - is so open, so blatant, so aggressive; it really has reached a new level. 16/
We see this most clearly in what pro-Trumpian rightwing intellectuals have been saying since the election: They are more determined than ever to entrench white Christian domination, as quickly as possible, by whatever means necessary. 17/
This, by Claremont scholar Glenn Ellmers, is just one – but a striking and significant – example, openly declaring everyone who voted for Joe Biden, over half of the electorate, “Un-American” and not worthy of inclusion in the body politic. 18/ 
What else is going on over at the Claremont Institute? Well, here, for instance, Michael Anton – he of “Flight 93” fame – and his guest talk about how it might just be time to turn America into a monarchy: for an American Caesar to come in and put the country back on track. 19/
The Right has decided that Democrats are not just political opponents, but an illegitimate, Un-American faction, pursuing a radically Un-American project of multiracial pluralism, turning “real” (read: white Christian patriarchal) America into something it must never become. 20/
This has basically become the mainstream position within the Republican Party. The attempts to erect stable one-party rule on the state level are a manifestation of, and well in line with, this ideology and political diagnosis. 21/
I think most Republicans who are engaged in this authoritarian onslaught on democracy are convinced to be fighting a noble war to preserve “real” (white Christian patriarchal) America. They are true believers – which makes the situation more, not less dangerous. 22/
We must face the fact that the radicalization of the Republican Party has outpaced what even most critical observers imagined, and we need to grapple with what that should mean for our expectations going forward and start thinking about real worst-case scenarios. 23/
That doesn’t mean these worst-case scenarios are guaranteed to become reality. The silver lining is that the political order the Right prefers no longer has majority support - which is exactly why conservatives are exploring avenues to erect authoritarian minority rule. 24/
That’s the paradox at the heart of the political situation right now: Yes, democracy is in grave danger – but not because it’s weakened recently, but because it’s actually gotten stronger, or to be more precise: closer to the promise of multiracial, pluralistic democracy. 25/
The reactionary counter-mobilization from the Right is not coming from a place of strength – conservatives are radicalizing because they feel their backs against the wall, convinced to be confronted with near-overwhelming forces of liberalism, leftism, wokeism. 26/
This is the dominant theme on the antiliberal Right: Ellmers, for instance, wants to redraw the boundaries of citizenship and exclude half of the population from the body politic precisely because he acknowledges that his “real America” has only minority support. 27/
The same type of “persecuted minority” sense of (self-) victimization is animating much of what is happening among religious conservatives. Some, like Rod Dreher, have therefore decided to retreat from America, that land of God-less liberal excess, altogether. 28/
More widespread, however, is a more aggressive vision: Sohrab Ahmari, for instance, likes to talk about the “Highest Good” and the necessary reordering of the public square to achieve it – by whatever means, against majority will. 29/
What religious conservatives like Ahmari, Harvard law professor Adrian Vermeule, or former attorney general William Barr propagate is a deeply anti-democratic, authoritarian idea of forcefully transforming the polity – something that is hard not to describe as a theocracy. 30/
Let’s not forget that conservatives are reacting to something real: America has indeed become less white, less Christian, more liberal, more diverse, more pluralistic - they are not just imagining the “threat” to their version of “real America.” 31/
The problem is that even in well-functioning representative systems, power relations will lag behind cultural change; and the American system is actually deliberately set up in a way that disconnects these changing demographic and cultural realities from political power. 32/
What we are experiencing, then, might be described as a moment of transition – from a nation of and for white Christians, first and foremost, to one that is defined by multiracial pluralism; from herrenvolk democracy to a functioning multiracial, pluralistic democracy. 33/
In U.S. history, the price for this kind of racial, cultural, and social change – or progress – has always been political instability, because demands for racial equality and social justice are inherently destabilizing to a social order that’s always had white men at the top. 34/
This, unfortunately, leads a lot of people who may not necessarily have strong ideological ties to the Right, or may not think of themselves as “conservative,” to nevertheless lend credence and legitimacy to the reactionary political project – in the name of “stability.” 35/
However this struggle is going to play out in the long run, America is looking at a very unstable, acutely dangerous immediate and medium-term future even as a realistic best-case scenario. And that scenario doesn’t seem awfully plausible, to be honest. 36/
Could it happen here? It’s happening right now. The future of democracy in America hangs in the balance, and an indispensable precondition of possibly saving it - of eventually achieving multiracial, pluralistic democracy - is that we all acknowledge these are the stakes. /end
https://twitter.com/perrybaconjr/status/1466203594034757634
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