Thread by @tzimmer_history

The Republican Party is embracing authoritarianism. There can be no “politics as usual.”

Why do so many Democratic leaders ignore the nature of the political conflict and still expect an imminent return to “normalcy”?

My new column for @GuardianUS:

https://twitter.com/gdnusopinion/status/1496080463181410307

President Joe Biden likes to celebrate his friendship with Mitch McConnell, which is weirdly at odds with the political situation – but captures the stark asymmetry in the way the two sides treat each other quite precisely.

Republicans are engaged in an authoritarian assault on the political system, embrace extremists who fantasize about committing acts of violence against Democrats, and plan on finding a reason, any reason, to impeach Joe Biden as soon as they get the chance.

Biden, on the other hand, has been mostly reluctant to make the fight against the GOP’s assault on democracy the center piece of his agenda; Democratic leadership has proved mostly unwilling to focus the public’s attention on the Republican Party’s authoritarian turn.

How can we explain that many Democrats act as if politics as usual is still an option and a return to “normalcy” imminent, even as Republicans could not be clearer about the fact that they consider Democratic governance fundamentally illegitimate?

One important explanatory factor is age: Many Democratic leaders came up in a very different political environment, when there was indeed a great deal of bipartisan cooperation in Congress – and they are longing for a return to the days of amity across party lines.

Crucially, this inability to grapple in earnest with the post-Obama reality in which Democratic politicians are almost universally considered members of an “Un-American” faction by most Republicans has deeper ideological roots.

Some establishment Democrats seem to feel a kinship with their Republican opponents grounded in a worldview of white elite centrism and status-quo ideology – they seem to believe that it is high time to push back against the “radical” forces of “leftism” and “wokeism.”

The constant attempts to normalize a radicalizing Republican Party also have a lot to do with two foundational myths that have always shaped the collective imaginary: the myth of American exceptionalism and the myth of white innocence.

Much of the Democratic elite still subscribes to an exceptionalist understanding that America is fundamentally good and inexorably on its way to overcoming whatever vestigial problems there might still be.

It builds on a mythical tale of America’s past, describing democracy as old, consolidated, and exceptionally stable, ignoring the fact that multiracial democracy started not even 60s years ago. Acknowledging what the GOP has become goes against the pillars of that worldview.

Finally, the American political discourse is still shaped by the paradigm of white innocence. Economic anxiety, anti-elite backlash, or just liberals being mean – whatever animates white people’s extremism, it must not be racism and they cannot be blamed for their actions.

The idea of white innocence also clouds the perspective on Republican elites: Since they cannot possibly be animated by reactionary white nationalism, they must be motivated by more benign forces – maybe they are just cowards, or they’re being seduced by the mean demagogue.

“I actually like Mitch McConnell,” Biden said during a press conference a few weeks ago, providing a window into what he sees in Republicans: No matter what they do, underneath they’re good guys, they’ll snap out of it. Any minute now, promise.

It’s the manifestation of a specific worldview that makes it nearly impossible to acknowledge the depths of GOP radicalization. The survival of American democracy might depend on whether or not Democrats can accept that there can be no more politics as usual.

More here:

https://twitter.com/GdnUSopinion/status/1496080463181410307