1. Convincing piece on the existential threat the @gop poses to American democracy. In hindsight, it's been a long time coming. newrepublic.com/article/148142…
2. One could argue that the current @gop's messaging draws on three, longstanding, anti-democratic threads in American political culture: radical anti-statism, conspiracy theory nihilism, and white identity politics.
3. All three of these threads encourage the @gop rank-and-file to embrace a "slippery slope" or "end of Western Civilization" narrative regarding the stakes of American politics.
4. Whether it be Hayek's "Road to serfdom" (anti-statism), the One World Government or "New World Order" (conspiracy theories), or the destruction of "Western Civilization" or "our heritage and values" (white identity politics), the @gop has ginned up support w/ existential fear.
5. As I've argued here, the amped up rhetoric of slippery slope arguments is inherently anti-democratic: medium.com/@sethcotlar/wh…
6. In the 1950s (when America was great?) both Republicans and Democrats accepted the basic terms of the anti-Communist New Deal order...the state had a key role to play in the American economy and society, but not TOO MUCH of a role.
7. The debate was over what counts as "too much." Remember, it was Eisenhower that sent troops to Little Rock in 1957 to integrate a school. And remember, JFK was as much of an anti-Communist Cold Warrior as any Republican.
8. The big break came in 1964 with Goldwater, the self-avowed "extremist" who sought to drive the moderates out of the @gop.
9. Goldwater's most avid supporters were John Birch conspiracy theorists, corporate anti-statists, and Southerners switching from D to R because of their opposition to the Civil Rights Act (i.e. white identity politics).
10. This Goldwater-ite, extremist DNA took a while to work its way into the center of the @gop, and it took on new forms as the years progressed.
11. Nixon embraced the white identity politics with the Southern Strategy and the "silent majority" talk, but he moderated the anti-statism (he created the EPA and OSHA, after all), and met with the Communists in China.
12. This is why Reagan's takeover of the @gop and the Presidency in 1980 now stands out as a key moment. His entire brand was anti-statism: "Government is not the solution to our problems, government is the problem."
13. Two new apocalyptic constituencies came to play a bigger role in the @gop in the 1980s: the newly radicalized NRA and the evangelical moral majority.
14. In 1977 the @nra shifted from being about gun education to pushing a new and radical interpretation of the 2nd Amendment--the expanding government wants to take your guns to take your freedom, so we can broach no compromise on that issue w/o starting the slide to the gulag.
15. The evangelical moral majority had its own, Christian-inflected vision of apocalypse. These were voters and politicians who talked breezily of the "end times" and the need to prepare for them.
16. Needless to say, one's opponents in such an epic battle were not to be treated merely as "people who have different policy preferences than I do," but rather as "enemies of God." See James Watt. content.time.com/time/specials/…
17. From Goldwater to the present, a key thread of @gop messaging has been about identifying certain segments of the American population (feminists, civil rights activists, gun control proponents, gov't bureaucrats, union organizers) as existential "enemies of the people."
18. That thread has at times been more submerged or subdued, micro-targeted at certain audiences or dog whistled rather than spoken out loud. After all, the @gop has also long needed to draw on the votes of mainstream folks who mostly just want to pay lower taxes.
19. But Trump's nomination, to me, looked like the culmination of the Frankenstein monster that the @gop has been slowly incubating since 1964 and which the party's establishment thought they could keep in check.
21. @FoxNews, Infowars, and Breitbart speak of the "deep state" as if it is an unquestionably real thing. And Trump has appointed people to head federal agencies with the primary purpose of dismantling them entirely.
22. Meanwhile, 90% of the people who voted for Trump were white, and 55% of the people who voted for Hillary were white. The KKK and neo-Nazis are parading around wearing MAGA hats.
23. None of this behavior on the part of the Trump @gop should come as a surprise to anyone who's studied the America First movement, the John Birch Society, massive resistance to desegregation, or the Koch Brothers.
24. I think what's surprised most historians and political commentators is the extent to which the 21st Century @gop has become DEFINED by these radical threads, threads that have always been there, but seemed to be only a part of the story.
25. The John Birchers worked hard to get Goldwater elected, but he never did more than throw them an occasional rhetorical bone. He knew they were bonkers. Likewise, he knew white Southerners were voting for him because of racism, but he kept them at arms length.
26. Sure, Reagan appointed the nutty James Watt to head the EPA, but he seemed like an exception, not the rule. Sure, John Ashcroft anointed himself with oil in the Atty Gen's office, but Bush was "normal," right?
28. Let's face it, the modern @gop is now the party of Tucker Carlson, Tomi Lahren, Alex Jones, and Sean Hannity--conspiracy theorists all, white identity activists all, radical anti-statists all.
29. This is the current Twitter banner for the @gop. One way to read this is as being solely about the "blue wave" coming in 2018 and the need to mobilize against it. 
30. But "defying history" has been the @gop brand since Goldwater--defying the demographic diversification of the nation, defying the "slippery slope" to the gulag threatened by Dem social programs like Medicare, & defying the shadowy conspiracies that seek to control our future.
