It Keeps Getting Worse
The threat to American democracy posed by Donald Trump and the Republican Party has intensified in recent months.
One of the lasting impressions many Americans have of the Trump era is the sense, at any given time, that things cannot get any worse. Yet, they always do. I mention this because Politics and History has been on hiatus for the last few months, and while the national discourse and the fate of the American experiment in self-rule seemed precarious when I last posted, the sad truth is that matters are much worse today.
We live in a nation that is unraveling. The will of the majority is frustrated continually by gerrymandering, the outsized influence of conservative, low-population states in the U.S. Senate, and the filibuster, which makes legislative action on critical problems extraordinarily difficult, if not impossible. The policy preferences of a minority of Americans have been boosted recently by the rightward turn of the Supreme Court, which issued rulings at the end of the 2021-2022 term that ignored the views of a majority of Americans who favor abortion rights and restrictions on gun ownership.
And, then, there is the never-ending threat to democracy posed by a Republican Party in thrall to a disgraced, twice-impeached former president. President Joe Biden was only half right when he called out “extreme” Republicans: “It’s not just Trump, it’s the entire philosophy that underpins the — I’m going to say something, it’s like semi-fascism.” Republicans expressed outrage at Biden’s assessment, but Biden was actually being too kind. After all, there is no such thing as semi-fascism; there is only fascism, and large swaths of the Republican Party willingly are following Trump as he emulates the founder of fascism, Benito Mussolini.
One clear indication of the Republican tilt toward fascism is the love affair between the American right and Viktor Orbán, Hungary’s autocratic ruler. Orbán voices the antisemitic and nationalistic tropes common to European fascism. By the imposition of a series of measures limiting press freedom and enshrining minority rule, he is slowly turning Hungary into a nation that rejects liberalism, pluralism, and democracy. The American right sees Orbán’s Hungary as a template for guaranteeing its supremacy, which is something it cannot accomplish through free and fair elections.
Americans committed to democratic values have been loath to call out the extremists on the right. Many have counseled against using the “F” word, treating with kid gloves the attacks on American constitutionalism and the rule of law by Trump and his allies. But, facts are facts, and while the Republican Party may not meet the full definition of a “fascist” political organization — at least not yet — it clearly no longer falls within the parameters of a normal American political party, one that operates within our constitutional system, legislates through compromise, and accepts electoral results. Instead, the modern Republican Party embraces authoritarianism and violence as a political tool while paying homage to the personality cult surrounding Trump.
The former president, of course, has no ideology. Trump is all that matters to Trump, and his fragile ego and narcissism demands he insist at every opportunity that he won an election he obviously lost — by seven million votes. Trump probably could not give a working definition of fascism, but as for the bulk of the Republican Party, fascism is a valid descriptor. Republicans appear willing to follow a would-be strongman who is a racist and who is poised to lead the nation into an authoritarian nightmare. To get a sense of what that nightmare might look like watch this video of a recent march in Indianapolis by members of a white nationalist hate group called the Patriot Front. The marchers all are dressed alike, blue shirts, matching caps and khaki pants, reminiscent of Hitler’s brownshirts or Mussolini’s blackshirts.
Democracy is under attack, which we have known for several years. Even so, it was important that President Biden said so loudly and publicly last week from a rostrum in front of Philadelphia’s Independence Hall. It was a speech no American president should have to make, but which this one was duty bound to give. The optics may have been a bit strange, and Biden should not have wandered into a defense of Democratic policies. Also, Biden, being Biden, bent over backwards to be kind, saying that there are Republicans with whom he could work. Who? More than can be counted on the fingers of one hand?
The core of the speech, however, was pitch-perfect. Biden named names: “Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic.” He rightfully noted that MAGA Republicans do not honor the Constitution, do not heed the rule of law, do not recognize the will of the majority, and refuse to accept the results of free elections. “I will not stand by and watch elections in this country stolen by people who simply refuse to accept that they lost,” he added.
Which is why the coming midterm elections are so critical. In a number of crucial states — battleground states — election deniers are on the ballot, candidates who not only continue to spin lies about the 2020 election but who would enact measures that would guarantee that only certain votes are cast and counted. In Arizona, the Republican candidate for governor denies the 2020 results, as does the party’s senatorial candidate. The Republican candidate for secretary of state, Arizona’s chief elections officer who oversees elections, is an election denier. The party’s candidate for Michigan governor asserts that Trump won in 2020, as do candidates for high state office in Pennsylvania and Ohio.
The list is depressingly long. If these candidates win in states where elections are closely contested, they will rewrite the rules to guarantee that minorities and progressives are impeded from voting and insure that white conservative voters have easy access to the ballot box. If that happens, Trump — or a more frightening version of Trump (Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, perhaps) — will be inaugurated as president in January 2025. And, then, those blue-shirted thugs marching in Indianapolis will be coming for you and me.
Posted September 6, 2022