Thread by @tzimmer_history

Is 2024 really “the most important election” ever?

I’ll say this: For the foreseeable future, the fate of democracy is on the ballot in every single election.

And those who seek to subvert and abolish democracy might only have to win once to get what they want.

Thread: 1/

The question that defines the political conflict in this country is this: Should America continue the path towards the kind of egalitarian multiracial, pluralistic democracy it has often promised, but actually never has been yet - or abandon that experiment altogether? 2/

In a functioning, stable democracy, the stakes shouldn’t be that high. Elections should be competitions between political factions who disagree with each other, but accept the legitimacy of their opponents and are committed to upholding the democratic system. 3/

In America, that’s evidently not the situation. It has become dogma on the Right to see Democrats as the “enemy within,” a fundamentally illegitimate, “Un-American” faction out to destroy the nation, an enemy that must not be allowed to govern. 4/

We like to pretend we are having policy debates over taxes, health care, or “the economy.” But right now, these debates are almost always defined by the underlying struggle over whether or not America should ever become an egalitarian multiracial, pluralistic democracy. 5/

We like to pretend that the parties ultimately agree on the end goal for America, that they only differ on the best path to get there. That’s simply not true. The political struggle is defined by two fundamentally incompatible visions of what America is and should be. 6/

This is not an entirely new situation. There has never been a consensus around the question of democracy. America: Defined by the idea of egalitarian democracy – or imagined as a land of and for white (wealthy) Christians, never allowing democracy to undermine that order? 7/

Democracy has always been a contested issue. The struggle over democracy has been the norm in U.S. history, as the question of who should get to actually participate – and participate as equal - in the democratic process has always been the defining fault line. 8/

But the fact that this struggle now overlaps so clearly with party lines is indeed the result of a rather recent reconfiguration of the major parties, a process of party realignment or partisan sorting for which the 1960s civil rights breakthroughs were a major catalyst. 9/

The establishment of the civil rights order in the 1960s sped up a process by which those opposed to egalitarian, multiracial, pluralistic democracy ultimately united in the Republican Party. Their voices have dominated the GOP since at least the 1970s. 10/

While Democrats came to (mostly) embrace the idea of extending the democratic promise, conservatives were willing to tolerate democracy only as long as it wouldn’t undermine established hierarchies – the supposedly “natural” order of white Christian patriarchal dominance. 11/

Today, the struggle over democracy maps onto the conflict between the parties. That’s the fundamental reality of U.S. politics: Democracy itself has become a partisan issue. As of right now, the Democratic party is the country’s sole (small-d) democratic party. 12/

The fundamental question before the American people is whether or not the Republican Party’s aggressive turn against the democratic experiment and open embrace of anti-democratic extremism in the pursuit of power is an electorally viable strategy? 13/

The fundamental question is: Will the party that remains largely united behind the man who spearheaded a coup attempt and plans to dismantle democracy have to pay a severe price - or be able to consolidate power? 14/

There is a large cadre of pundits out there entirely devoted to fighting back against what they deride as liberal/leftwing “alarmism.” It is all hyperbole, they say, because the Republican Party isn’t that bad, or because maybe it is, but the mythical guardrails are working. 15/

It should be clear by now that these self-proclaimed arbiters of reason will not change their tune, regardless of how straightforward the evidence in front of them, no matter how many times Republicans yell “We really don’t like democracy! We want to get rid of it!” 16/

The Right’s slide into authoritarianism is accelerating. If the country is to ever realize its promise of egalitarian multiracial pluralism, those who prefer democracy need to defend it - even though it’s currently deeply flawed and nowhere near what it often claims to be. /end