Thread by @tzimmer_history

Why do so many Republicans consider Joe Biden’s presidency illegitimate?

Conservatives don’t necessarily think the 2020 election was stolen. But they believe democracy itself has betrayed America, by allowing the “wrong” people to take charge.

My new column for @GuardianUS:

https://twitter.com/gdnusopinion/status/1505899042487746566

If we are trying to understand what is animating the Right’s rapidly accelerating radicalization against democracy, binary assumptions of Republicans either being true believers or power-hungry cynics are not very helpful and actually obscure more than they illuminate.

What we really need to grapple with is why so many Republicans are convinced the outcome of the election was illegitimate *regardless* of whether or not there were specific procedural irregularities.

It is a core tenet of the Republican worldview to consider the Democratic Party as not simply a political opponent, but an enemy pursuing an “Un-American” project of turning what is supposed to be a white Christian patriarchal nation into a land of godless multiracial pluralism.

Even if they don’t subscribe to the more outlandish conspiracies propagated by the Trumpists, many Republicans agree that the Democratic Party is a fundamentally illegitimate political faction that must not be allowed to govern.

Republicans didn’t start from an assessment of how the 2020 election went down and came away from that exercise with sincerely held doubts. The rationalization works backwards: They looked at the outcome and decided it must not stand.

In other words, accusations of fraud gain plausibility among conservatives not because of empirical evidence, but because they adhere to the “higher truth” of who is and who is not legitimately representing – and therefore entitled to rule – “real” America.

It is worth paying attention to how reactionary intellectuals have been dealing with the 2020 election, as they tend to articulate the radicalizing authoritarian spirit that is threatening American democracy in strikingly stark terms.

In March 2021, the rightwing magazine American Mind published an essay by Claremont Institute affiliate Glenn Ellmers, entitled “’Conservatism’ is no Longer Enough.” It provides a particularly instructive window into the energies and anxieties that are animating conservatives.

Ellmers makes no claim that the 2020 election was “stolen,” he doesn’t allege manipulation, voter fraud, or conspiracy; he explicitly acknowledges that more people voted for Joe Biden than for Donald Trump. And yet, he maintains that the outcome must not be accepted.

According to Ellmers, Biden’s presidency represents an “Un-American” idea of multiracial pluralism – something that is fundamentally in conflict with what he refers to as “authentic America.”

In his view, everyone who voted for Joe Biden and his “progressive project of narcotizing the American people and turning us into a nation of slaves” is also “Un-American” and therefore not worthy of inclusion in the body politic.

Ellmers declares that “most people living in the United States – certainly more than half – are not Americans in any meaningful sense of the term.” Only “authentic Americans” allowed in Glenn Ellmers’ United States – a clearly racialized idea of “the people.”

Ellmers’ racist, anti-pluralistic vision is remarkably radical: He wants to redraw the boundaries of citizenship and exclude over half the population. If you support multiracial pluralism, you automatically forfeit the right to be considered a member of the American polity.

Ellmers is outraged precisely because he accepts the fact that a majority voted for Joe Biden, that “authentic Americans” have become the minority in a county which they are supposedly entitled to dominate.

This provides a striking window into the depth of despair, the pervasive siege mentality on the Right: What’s scandalous about the 2020 election, in this interpretation, is not that it was “stolen,” but that the “Un-American” forces straightforwardly won.

Reactionaries are disputing the legitimacy of the 2020 election not necessarily on the basis of claiming fraud and conspiracy – but because democracy itself subverted the will of “real America” by allowing the “wrong” people too much of an influence on the fate of the country.

Trump’s incessant lies represent a vulgar, clumsy, narcissistic strand of conspiratorial thinking. It is shared by some, opportunistically used by many – and widely accepted on the Right because it adheres to a “higher truth”: “We” are entitled to rule in America.

That’s what is behind the widespread support for, or willingness to accept, any kind of suspicion, regardless of whether or not there is any shred of empirical evidence. If an election doesn’t result in “Us” being in power, it must be illegitimate, as we are “real America.”

Whether or not Republicans “actually believe” conspiracy theories about the 2020 election: most of them are absolutely convinced the result was illegitimate – and they are all too willing to use allegations of fraud if it helps prevent future “illegitimate” outcomes.

It is precisely the mix of deeply held ideological convictions of what “real” (read: white Christian patriarchal) America is and who gets to rule here and the cynical opportunism with which these beliefs are enforced that makes the assault on democracy so dangerous.

More here:

https://twitter.com/gdnusopinion/status/1505899042487746566