Remember how Joe Biden and others promised us that once Donald Trump was removed from the White House the country and its politics would snap back to the era of bipartisanship and compromise last seen in the 1980s? Ha. What has actually happened since President Trump left the White House on January 20 is that the country has sunk further into tribalism, sectarianism, open hostility, and dysfunction.
Even more than before January 20, too many behaviors on both sides of the political spectrum are now driven by very strong loyalty to political tribes, and by antipathy and hatred for the other side. Americans are coalescing around their mutual resentments and fears. Every group feels threatened. And the threat they perceive is not some foreign threat, but the threat posed by the other American tribe.
Our politics have become sectarian — much like the politics of Ireland and the Middle East. Partisanship has for many people become a “mega-identity” leading to a clash between white, Christian conservatives and liberal, multiracial secularists. Compromise is impossible as the two parties see each other as enemies.
In the Republican primaries before the 2016 election, Republican voters rejected conservative-policy candidates like Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush, and Ted Cruz, and voted for the candidate who stoked sectarian animosity — Donald Trump. This radical right became emboldened during the Trump presidency. They no longer care about governing and policy. Their only concern is their own cultural standing — in a country moving in many ways away from the cultural supremacy they once enjoyed. This wing of the G.O.P. seems to be abandoning any faith in liberal democracy and embracing authoritarianism.
The Republican Party has become a minority that can’t tolerate being ruled by its enemy. Republicans can’t accept losing elections — like the 2020 presidential election — and being ruled by what they see as a hostile and alien rival — the Democrats. They fear losing their majority white status and becoming a minority in this country. Electoral defeat feels like an existential threat to them.
As this radical right movement became emboldened by Donald Trump’s election and during his four years in the White House, Republican leaders, taking their cues from Trump, became encouraged to violate rules and norms in pursuit of raw political power. Their maneuvering for more political power is succeeding at both the state and federal levels. The partisan gerrymandering and extreme voter suppression which began quietly in 2010 are now out in the open, and even more extreme as Republicans following Trump’s lead no longer feel the need to hide their anti-democratic motives and actions. Numerous Republican state legislatures are passing laws making it harder to vote, and redrawing political district lines to dilute Democratic votes. And in more than 20 states, Trump allies hostile to democracy are running for secretary of state in 2022 so that they will be in a position to administer, oversee, and control a key element of our democracy in 2024 and beyond — our elections. In 2024, our state elections will in many instances be run by people hostile to democracy, and willing to manufacture results contrary to the will of the majority of voters.
The central question in American politics has become whether our democracy can survive when one of the two governing political parties is seeking to unravel the critical elements of our constitutional structure that make democracy work — confidence in the results of elections, the losers accepting their loss, and adherence to the rule of law. With the Republican party refusing to accept the outcome of the 2020 presidential election as valid, and refusing to accept Trump’s loss, the party is sliding toward authoritarianism.
Republicans are increasingly choosing to win elections and cling to power by subverting democracy rather than saving a system in which they might lose to those they fear. They are increasingly willing to marshal the political will to do whatever is necessary to obtain and retain political power.
Denying the legitimacy of the 2020 election has become a prerequisite for being elected as a Republican in 2022. Anyone willing to tell the truth about Joe Biden’s win will be filtered from the party. In the Republican Party, being willing to help steal an election is literally a job requirement. A party like this will be willing to lie about who wins the 2024 election and others after it. One of our two parties has taken the position that no election it loses is legitimate. And this helps justify Republican efforts to change election rules and promote voter suppression. We are headed for a more extreme minority rule than we currently have if Republican voter suppression enables them in 2022 and 2024 to retake the senate, the house, and the White House with 42 percent of the vote.
Don’t for a second think that Liz Cheney was removed from Republican leadership in the House of Representatives because she didn’t support Donald Trump and his policies. She was removed because she opposed overthrowing our democratic system. That is today disqualifying in her party.
