Thread by @donmoyn

I wrote about the effort to both-sides current threats to American democracy, focusing on Ross Douthat's claim that liberal belief in expertise is akin to right-wing populism. 1/
donmoynihan.substack.com/p/at-least-its…

Douthat's core argument is summarized below: right-wing populism is democratic in ways that liberalism is not. This is, I think both wrong and misleading. It understands the anti-democratic nature of populism and the value of expertise to successful democratic societies. 2/

Douthat picks three examples of how expertise is at odds with democracy, all of which fail in some fundamental way. First, libs want you to listen to Anthony Fauci and public health guidelines. Well...3/ donmoynihan.substack.com/p/at-least-its…

Second: school officials are ignoring parents. Here Douthat restates the messaging of a large-scale right-wing effort to assert control over schools, often by ignoring the claims of minority students and free speech/due process rights of education officials. Not v. democratic! 4/

Finally and weirdly, Douthat raises Ireland running multiple referenda on a key EU treaty (first voting no, then yes) as proof of expert dominance of a democracy. But a) EU membership has been historically popular in Ireland, leaving b/c of a single referenda would upend that..5/

b) referenda often have weird dynamics. The Irish govt got reassurances on abortion/military neutrality issues that drove the no vote, which is how democracy is supposed to work. A second landslide referenda w higher turnout based on better info seems democratic! 6/

Again, we have a direct counterfactual, right next door to Ireland, of a populist referenda on the EU. From an Irish point of view, Brexit turned out to be a disaster for the UK (and Ireland) and helped increase support for the EU. 7/ donmoynihan.substack.com/p/at-least-its…

Sometimes it's not that complicated: the people threatening democracy are the ones who say free and fair elections are illegitimate, attempted a coup, and are seeking to control the machinery of elections so they can succeed next time. It's not Anthony Fauci or schoolteachers. 8/

As populism has become more extreme among its supporters, the GOP response has been to normalize rather than reject it. The party and the movement seems unable to fix itself. 9/ nytimes.com/2022/02/04/us/…