Don't forget about the big dark money aiding and abetting (and directing) those fearful Republicans, and they'll be playing hardball long after Trump departs.
67
The authors may want to revisit Harry Trumans win in Kansas in 1948 and JFK's win in Illinois in 1960, or for that matter the collective history of Presidential elections, before they talk about dirty politics. It's more accurate to ask why do all politicians play dirty.
17
Republicans as presently constituted (i.e., far-right extreme conservatives) are playing dirty because (A) they are seeking to install a permanent, unassailable, white male oligarchy and (B) they know that they are in the minority and American voters taken as a whole would broadly reject their goal if allowed to express themselves in a true democracy. Therefore, the conservatives must suppress democratic expression and ensure ongoing minority rule. They have also openly acknowledged that misdirection, deceit, and dissembling are necessary techniques in their pursuit of control of the political, legal, and economic spheres.
Judge for yourself the extent to which they are succeeding. But if you don't see that that's what's going on, you're not paying attention.
Think I'm making this up? Read the thoroughly researched history of the radical right's decades-long push to take control of this country: _Democracy in Chains_, by Nancy MacLean.
47
The Vietnam War draft dodger and the Republican Party adamantly refuse to recognize and accept the irrefutable, incontrovertible fact that the racial and ethic demographics evidence the changing of America. That change signals positive, progressive, and liberal change, and for the better. The GOP will not surrender and will not go away without offering stiff resistance! So be it. The party of Lincoln is about to experience the hard cold fact of life that denigrating, maligning, and destroying individuals of colour will not go without suffering significantly tremendous electoral retribution. White skin privilege, especially for those less than college educated, blue collar workers, will not save them from the political oblivion that awaits them. The GOP recruiting racial and ethnic minorities, such as the failed Republican candidate for Congress in California, Cambodian origin Heng, and the officially anointed Black Republican to challenge the Michigan Senate Democrat Peters in 2020, is just a clever ploy to attract persons of colour to support the Republican Party. After all, why not have these racial and ethnic minorities do their less than honourable work? Race matters.
27
Both major parties are not without their histories of "dirty tricks", stolen elections, vote manipulation, corruption of the political process by money, and the like, but these facts are not good reasons for giving up on a legitimate political system. All over America on the local, state, and federal levels, elections are carried out freely and fairly often with the mostly volunteer labor of concerned citizens. I hate the kind of cynicism that says all politics is corrupt as an excuse of not being involved or striving for better. Fulfill your duties as citizens.
18
The Editors are accurate but there is far more to add. This is a very dangerous period in our history.
The 1983 American Heritage Dictionary defines fascism as: "A system of government that exercises a dictatorship of the extreme right, typically through the merging of state and business leadership, together with belligerent nationalism." That is today's Republican Party.
The GOP lost its way as a cohesive credible political force focused on financial conservatism. Republicans have grabbed power at the local and state level through the flow of massive amounts of dark corporate money supporting the expansion of the extreme right through gerrymandering and voter suppression. They have been aided and abetted by the Big Lie Fox/Breitbart/hate radio propaganda machines. The Republican Party is now owned and controlled by billionaire far right wing donors.
Patriotism, the needs of the people, national security are all irrelevant to today's GOP. Trump is merely a symbol of Republican corruption. Get out the vote and vote them all out for the sake of our children and grandchildren.
47
To be honest, I think you are being entirely too kind in your assessment of the Republicans. And you fail to address the fact that those Southern Democrats are now mostly Republicans. So they didn’t “see the light”, they just went to the party which would accommodate their disdain for democracy.
43
If there's any doubt the authors are right, consider the deafening silence on the GOP side as it becomes clear that Trump is blackmailing foreign governments into helping him defeat Joe Biden.
You hear any criticism? They love it. That tells you all you need to know.
69
"...they are driven by fear". No, they are driven by greed and an overblown sense of righteousness and entitlement. Power corrupts and distorts the mind.
This article says to me that, I hate to say it, but we need more rules/laws in our constitution, so it isn't so dependent on someone's goodwill. That goodwill is long gone in America, at least in the Republican party, which is rotten to the core.
29
I blame Newt Gingrich, Frank Luntz, Fox News, and a general age of hyperbole for the breakdown in civil discourse and fair play. Gingrich and Luntz changed the Republican Party messaging about Democrats, emphasizing words like "sick," "corrupt," "traitors," "elitist," etc. Fox and Rush and Beck and the rest ran with this theme, and constantly use language like "destroy the country," "socialist," and on and on about any change to domestic or foreign policy. They have made every issue into a death struggle for Western civilization. But the Republican Party is about to go into the wilderness through a big portion of the nation, as it already has on the West Coast and the Northeast.
28
"The only way out of this situation is for the Republican Party to become more diverse."
I strongly disagree. The only way out of this situation is for the Republican party to transit history's trash chute, and serious, rational adults to debate in the Independent and Democratic arenas.
Ignored in this piece is the chicanery and bad faith which, along with the Republican candidate's Governor/brother in Florida, coupled with a compliant Supreme Court, installed George W. Bush as president in 2001.
Republicans have elevated winning over the Constitution and the ideals of what America should be striving toward. Republicans should be called out for what they have blatantly revealed themselves to be: The Enemy Within.
35
Well it may have once been the Democratic Party that bent the rules in those years after the Civil War but it was a party that represented the same states who are now in the Republican Party and still believe that white men were destined to rule. I think these two insightful authors are not being quite strong enough in their indictment of what could happen if we allow the Executive to mess with the checks and balances built into our Constitution, to grab power by pretending that Congress is a joke, by disrespecting Congressional representatives, turning our elected politicians into toadies or objects of ridicule, and by stuffing the Federal courts and the Supreme Court. It seems to me we have already reached critical mass. Our democracy may only be temporarily dead, but we have no system of life support for an entire government. When does brain death occur?
20
The Republican Party serves only the very wealthy, who have successfully gobbled up a hugely disproportionate share of national income and wealth. The middle class have caught on to the scam. The white working classes have not - they’re too distracted by racism, gay people and abortion.
This is the theme that Democrats should embrace. If you’re in the bottom 99%, you are too poor to buy in to the GOP.
22
The republicans play dirty because the democrats, many of whom are DINO'S (democrats in name only) allow them to. Both are in the pockets of wall street and other corporate entities.
7
As a so-called white Evangelical, let me assure you that at no time have the majority of Americans ever been Christians. Sure, even 80% now may claim to believe in God, but those who can articulate and hold faithfully to the basics of the Christian faith (including the deity of Christ and His substitutionary atonement of sin on the cross) have long been closer to a quarter of the population. Only non-believers think that most Americans are or were Christian.
6
Not exactly true. We have been forced to play dirty pool, by the dirtier Dems. The Clintons in my opinion started the ball rolling.
It is the media highlighting everything the Republicans do, whether appropriate or not. They spin everything as if it is a dire flauting of normal behavior. The headline writers create false characterization of everything the Repubs do. They hate the Republicans. When the media destroys the country and our economy who will pay their over inflated salaries and cushy benefits.
6
Details
Right of the bat Levitsky and Ziblatt demonstrate the kind of thinking that allows the Republicans to play dirty and win. They say that McConnell's theft of the Garland Supreme court nomination was "technically Constitutional." No such thing. Article II Section 2 clearly states "He (the President) shall have the power to nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint...... Judges of Supreme Court." It clearly states the Senate and not the Senate Majority leader. Never before or since the Constitution was ratified has there ever been an interpretation of this clause that gives a "pocket veto" to the Senate Majority Leader. If this action by McConnell is "constitutional" than McConnell or any Majority Leader could pocket veto any Justice, Ambassador, or Cabinet nominee without the Advice and Consent of the Senate. McConnell had absolutely no legal basis or legal precedent for pulling this stunt, and neither did he have any historical precedent. He not only deprived the President of appointing a Supreme Court Justice but deprived the full Senate of fulfilling their constitutional duty to Advise and Consent. The Obama administration should have sued McConnell for this unprecedented violation of the Constitution.. What would have been if he had been sued? He had none. That McConnell wasn't sued for this criminal action and got away with it will go down as one of the great mysteries of our history.
29
And let us not forget the efforts to steal four Presidential Elections: Nixon and the secret communications with South Viet Nam NOT to negotiate/stall in 1968 "to get a better deal" from Tricky Dick; Nixon with Watergate; Reagan and the Iran/Contra "hold onto the hostages" deal to defeat Jimmy Carter; and then the Hanging Chads fiasco and Florida re-count that gave us W in 2000. The corruption and "win-at-all-costs" play book has been in use for a while now to maintain power.
21
When Trump is no longer president, three things will happen.
—Trump and his entire family will all be indicted by NY State for tax fraud
—People who worked in the White House or Trump administration will all write books about what was really happening
—Historians will start to investigate and write their own devastating accounts of the worst president in American history.
Time will delegate the Trumps and their coterie to infamy.
23
Dirty play by Republican officeholders, today, is just more easily observable. It has been the very foundation of that party for decades. It starts with the party’s relationship with its base being a hoax. Leadership is not committed to its working and middle class voters; it operates antithetically to their interests. Voters must therefore be recruited through gross deception.
Republican politicians who thrive in that culture are extremely cynical and careerist. They dissembled to get elected, thereby thwarting the objectives of democratic elections. Once elected, when their power is threatened by other democratic norms, why should those norms matter to them?
7
It seems logical to conclude then that republicans believe that only they deserve to win, and if they sense losing then they will rather kill democracy. If they can't have it, then no one can.
Question is, if this is sustainable given republicans will not adapt and so far they are getting away with playing dirty. Can they keep ruining democratic institutions and still hold on to political power indefinitely by playing dirty?
5
The thing that bugs me is the double standard. Democrats must, and nowadays do, abide by the spirit and letter of the law. Republicans, led by a lawless President, are free to do whatever they want with impunity. But the minute the Democrats step one foot out of line, the Republicans (who have stepped miles out of line) stomp on the Democrat with both feet. Either the laws apply to none, or they apply to all. I vote for "all."
14
Republicans are playing smash mouth, no holds barred, lawless politics while Democrats keep hoping for a badminton game. Nancy Pelosi wants to spread out the picnic blanket hoping that in time the public will just reject such despicable behavior while the Republicans are reaching in the baskets and throwing the food at everyone. Until Democrats decide its time to stand up and defend the Republic and play serious hardball we'll stand by and watch the Republicans burn everything to the ground in their attempt to exercise absolute power and control.
10
The Republicans don't play dirty, they are NOW playing by the same rules the democrats have been playing by for years.
9
It's little wonder Christian whites feel under siege as they approach minority status . Donald Trump's latest appeals are more nakedly racist but the politics of white resentment have been promoted on the right by talk radio, Fox News and the GOP for years.
Individually, we might call the fear associated with that loss of privilege white fragility; en masse it's horrifying, the stuff of sectarian strife. As the official policy of the President of the United States, it's disgraceful.
Imagining an entire political machine devoted to it makes me sick.
9
"they [Republicans] must suffer an electoral thrashing so severe that they are compelled to do so"
I will do everything in my power to help with this trashing in 2020. Will you join me?
Volunteer. Donate. And VOTE!
13
The relationship between the two political parties can be understood in terms of a game theoretic model called the iterated prisoner's dilemma. It has been much studied, and there appears to be a winning strategy for the best extended overall result called "tit for tat," first described, I believe, by Anatol Rapoport. Initially you should cooperate with the other party (first iteration). If the other party continues to cooperate, so should you in return (second iteration). But if at any point the other party stabs you in the back, you then should do the same when you have the chance. In other words, you do what the other party did on his previous move, whatever that is. It is argued that this strategy is the most rational, as it produces the best overall result over time. So if the Democrats want to act rationally, when they return to power they should do to the Republicans what the Republicans have been doing to them. Not as revenge, but to produce the best result for everyone.
9
Dialog and reform is possible we recognize that both parties play dirty. I am better than you approach will die in the partisan cacophony.
They play dirty because there is no one able to stop them.
3
The old saying I believe is 'Democrats want to have pillow fights while Republicans go for the head wound"
7
Then when for crying out loud are we going to take the gloves off. You can't play nice with hyenas.
7
The Democrats stand for illegal immigrants over American citizens. Voting for them is a vote against our own self interests.
4
It may be that they play dirty because they believe playing by the rules is for losers.
As for Trump himself, he realizes that he cannot afford to lose. The legal battles that awaits him after he's ousted will likely to land him in jail and destroy his business empire. Maybe if he can put enough Kavanaughs and Gorsuches on the bench, he can get himself appointed president for life.
6
I am so glad I don’t live from a place of lack, a fear based life.
Sure, from one perspective, Republicans appear to be motivated by fear, of losing their grip on power, but what motivated that unbridled lust for power in the first place? Greed, pure unadulterated greed, which has been the underlying uniting force lifting Republicans since the time of the Newt. With their power, they can effectively loot this nation's treasures, in the form of unsustainable tax breaks, that responsible Democrats have in recent decades felt responsible for countering, opening themselves to the Republican insults of "tax and spend Democrats." Since the once Grand Old Party of the GOP transformed into what is now the POG, or Party of Greed, they have used any tool at their disposal to maintain that life-sucking grip on our society. Chief among these has been their growing use of lies, following their fearsome leader's Twitter trends, whether it's promising trickle-down growth through tax cuts, to telling their opponents there would be no votes on 9/11. So now, this Party of Greed has unflinchingly transformed into the Party of Lies, and they must be called out on this by name whenever possible. Never underestimate the power of a name, as these POLs have always known!
9
I'm fine with total death of Republican party and then a two party system of moderate and socialist Democrats.
13
Instead of showing up at Trump golf course, next year, perhaps the other members of the G7 hold a G6, instead.
7
I wish that the democrats would take a few lessons from them.
6
Yet these people always win power? They just keep people dumber than dirt and then control and use them to wield power.
7
So are all you folks who couldn't bring yourself to vote for Hillary upset about this? If so, guess who brought this about.
10
Wrong, evil, cruelty and unfairness are the tools for winning! Republicans prove there are no limits to tricking naive, emotional fools like the American public.
4
GREAT GRAPHIC....just saying.
5
One thing to remember: many whites who called themselves Christians, especially in the Jim Crow south, had as much connection to real Christianity as a cow has to a bicycle. They are now reaping what their vile and cruel hypocrisy produced. A Baptist minister giving an invocation at a KKK rally?.....give me a break. Many conservative white Christians today retain vestiges of this old hypocrisy and so you have this deeply entwined Christian/Conservative/Political complex that shreds integrity and fairness to retain power. Mitch McConnell, Brian Kemp, North Carolina Republican legislators, etc etc etc. We’re supposed to live in a real democracy, not a “fake news” political theocracy.
9
Republicans play dirty because it pays off big and bigger
3
It's the only way they can win.It is hard to promote a hidden platform that shows the GOP only cares about money and having white males in power ergo instead of publicly voicing their awful platform, they must work hidden i.e.cheat.
4
I remember the confirmation hearings for Robert Bork.
I remember the confirmation hearings for Clarence Thomas.
I watched the confirmation hearings for Brett Kavanaugh.
I remember the railroading of Alaska Senator Ted Stevens.
I remember Al Franken stealing his senate seat.
I watched Barack Obama weaponize the IRS.
This is just off the top of my head. And the NY Times wants to lecture me about Republicans playing dirty?
I think not.
7
Republican propaganda 'talking points', combined with the inherit authoritarianism of fundamental evangelicals; and you get resentful zealots on a mission to save Christmas.
In the 1930s, the evangelicals forced Prohibition on this Country.
Today, those same white southern evangelical zealots are forcing a Prohibition on Truth.
Evolution is a fact. Abortion is a Constitutional Right. God is okay with sex and/or sexuality. And the Bible was not written by God.
Sorry evangelicals, but God didn't give us the Gift of Reasoned Thought, as a cruel joke.
Deliberate ignorance, even in the name of Faith, is just Stupidity.
3
The author sounds like a kid on my son's soccer team. Every time we lose, he accuses the other team of cheating.
The truth is both sides engage in hardball tactics, questionable ethics, and extreme rhetoric. Comparing Republicans to proto-Nazis and Jim Crow racists, for example.
4
Thanks for the morning mirth. And the authors need to remove the massive mote from their eye. What obscene moral blindness.
As an independent critical thinker living in a Progressive enclave, I’ve long grown accustomed to the rabid intolerance, totalitarian flirtations, and win-at-all costs ethos of Democrats.
While one could cite countless recent episodes of Democratic Party malfeasance ( the Clintons spring to mind, a rich encyclopedia of criminality) a current glaring example is the violent tactics of the ironically-named ANTIFA thugs,
a page taken straight from Hitler and Mussolin’s playbooks, which the Democrats refuse to condemn, to their eternal shame.
6
Yeah. GOPs and Donald are clones of Roy Cohn. They invoke mob rule.
2
I believe this: One fine day, to have cast a vote for trump, to have identified oneself as a republican, to have denied climate change will be as onerous as having self-identified as a Nazi after WW II.
9
They have played dirty at least since Nixon.
Gloried in being obnoxious as well.
5
The Republicans don't "play dirty". They're nothing but criminal co-conspirators with the felonious president.
7
Nobody ever said that Americans are too smart to be stupid. They are very, very stubbornly stupid. Hey, "keep watching the squirrel" while everything is ripped out from under you by Republican tricksters!
6
Everything the Nazis did was legal, too.
4
Interesting article and the facts are that the worthless ignorant white GOP have been in control for decades. They only believe in money and white superiority. Bernie in 2016 stated that the democrats need to run for every political positions to win. to ensure that the GOP could not win a seat anywhere.
We are tired of the in plain sight racism, anti democracy and the fact that these white men are traitors to America and all that we stand for and it isn't just white wall street.
The GOP inability to be American will further destroy the country and the con man that is Trump is a man slave to Putin and that is all he is. His religious minions are nothing but Nazis and Russians.
So before you troll me, the facts are the facts and some people know how to read, think and know whiteness of racism when we see it.
So troll and say that it is not true, you can't because the white house has blood on their hands for all of the women and men who gave their lives for this country for our freedom.
How ironic that a draft dodger would attempt to destroy democracy Time for the people and the democratic politicians to save the country because we are not going to be enslaved by the GOP.
6
Republicans will NEVER adapt. Why should they? Their lawless behavior has won them control of the Presidency, the Supreme Court, the Senate, and most governor's offices. All while being the MINORITY party in terms of number of votes cast.
These angry, old, rich, white men will drive this country right over a cliff, and smile while they're doing it. As far as they are concerned, the world ends when they die. So why not abuse the political power they have? "'Tis better to rule in hell than to serve in heaven."
That's why we need a blue tsunami in the 2020 elections. We need to sweep EVERY Republican from office, from town councilman all the way up to the Presidency. Let younger folks form a new, more rational party to counter-balance the Democrats. And I say this as a life-long Democrat. GET OUT AND VOTE--otherwise, you have no right to...ahem...complain.
8
"Dirty" not a bug but a feature, not a flaw but a principle - to win at all costs, democracy be damned.
5
A thorough-going, useful analysis. However,... the having and losing of power is not the full dynamic. I suspect that the fear that inspired the Jim Crow solidifying of white power was also a deeper awareness of ill-gotten gains. The money the Southerners (and Northerners) made through slavery was never legitimately only theirs; it belonged to the African Americans who worked those lands. As a woman, I’m aware of the thread of guilt that runs through men in nearly all relations with women; those who sense something amiss, but have not broken through into an awareness of women’s equality, become the worst bullies. Economically, too, in the workplace, we’ve become ever more authoritarian as labor power is broken. The Hebrew word ‘tsedakah’ implies a righting of imbalance; it is different than ‘charity’ which maintains a hierarchical relationship. If we have equality as an ideal, it is incumbent on educators and media (this newspaper’s great 1619 Project!) to see through authoritarianism in its myriad forms, e.g. today’s march for climate justice, so that guilt and lack of self-awareness don’t fuel the institutional failures so well described here.
14
The authors opinion that McConnell's theft was technically legal is way off base. Article II Section 2 of the Constitution authorizes the President to appoint certatain officials considering Supreme Court Justices with the Advise and Consent of the Senate. Clearly the whole Senate and not the Senate Majority leader is referenced in this passage . By excercising an extra judicial pocket veto McConnell prevented the full Senate from advising and consenting. If you think what McConnell did was "technically constituional" than any Senate Majority Leader has the power to pocket not any Supreme Court Justice but any Cabinet nominee. This is a dangerous and unprecedeted and Obama should have sued to prevent it. What would have been MacConnell's defence if he was sued on constitutional principles? The ridiculous historic precedent sham that he tried to sell, latter admitting it was just a political ploy. I want a President that would stand against this nonsense and use every legal remedy to stop such actions.
18
This article could just as easily be written changing the parties. Its politics as we now know it.
4
If you have to rig things to win elections, you need to re-examine your ideology.
If you won’t listen to those who disagree with you (or even let them speak on your campus), your ideology will become aloof.
Neither is good for democracy.
5
Republican cheating started to get serious with Whitewater--an investigation that went on far longer than the Mueller investigation and came up with nothing besides a stained blue dress, followed by a ridiculous impeachment trial. But the epitome of Republican cheating is probably Bush v Gore, when the SCOTUS took over a matter of which it had no constitutional authority; as the current Court has stated in the NC voting case, elections are a state matter.
The Republicans would do well to understand that when people feel that the system is rigged, the will and rights of the majority are being thwarted, and they have no recourse at the ballot box, the only recourse left is the streets. Nor will things settle down when Trump is voted out; we can count on Republicans in the Senate and in state legislatures and governors' offices to continue their desperate fight.
11
So simple, and yet so impossible.
Ask any Republican (which I used to be) to replace "Trump" with "Obama" in the headlines or on Fox news.
Would they still be 100% behind the president and everything he's doing? (Or, for those with a conscience, would they still continue to look the other way?)
Or would they be calling for impeachment, or worse?
You'll never get an honest answer from any of them.
11
As a Democrat, I am experiencing the same fears. Trump's environmental degradations threaten the planet, and I'm terrified of the consequences of him winning in 2020. When both parties feel existentially threatened, we're in for a fraught and dangerous election.
7
We are each viewing the end game and responding as our character dictates. Those without ethics will always find each other, and now they have gathered in the Republican party. This will be a challenge for all of us, because there is no reason to think they will ever again allow government to function democratically. Even now there is little promise the next election will mean anything to them.
Not that this is the real worry. We have all helped to break the world, and it's beyond our power to fix it. Certainly some will struggle, never accept this reality, and continue to hold up signs of hope. Others will welcome it. But the planet we have flayed will not heal itself in our lifetimes.
4
It's about much more than winning elections -- it's about a syndicate of business interests driving foreign and domestic policy for the narrow interests of an increasingly powerful and emboldened band of plutocrats in oil, finance, tech, etc.
From United Fruit to Iran-Contra to "supply side" economics, to stacking the courts and legalizing the process via rulings like citizen's united, the patron saints of "free markets" want anything but. The tragedy is how many who will be hurt by it keep falling for the con under the guise of democracy.
It's an old story, but the checks and balances under the current regime appear to be failing.
10
David Frum said the same thing a lot more concisely several years ago. The GOP has long since given up all pretence that they care about democracy, and made clear that their only concern is power.
10
I wonder if Professor Elting Morison would have considered 'Why Republicans Play Dirty' an important topic. Seems to me that the important topic is 'Why did so many millions of intelligent, thoughtful people vote to support Republicans in the 2016 election?'
And there were many such millions - college graduates, well off, and generally old enough to remember affordable university, affordable homes, and affordable families.
5
The Republican panic of which you speak began with the election of Barak Obama. The GOP looked in the mirror and discovered that a face like Obama’s was not looking back. And at that moment they decided that it was better to destroy the country than to lose another election. (Don’t forget that the USA was headed straight for a depression when Obama took office, and that the GOP did everything it could to prevent Obama from ending the economic crisis. So it is too generous to say “Republican leaders are not driven by an intrinsic or ideological contempt for democracy.” To be willing to destroy a democracy’s institutions and to economically cripple that nation in order to stay in office is the very definition of contempt for democracy.
24
But ask yourself, which party wants to install term limits, which party wants to take big money out of politics. The party that tries to limit corruption in our politics are the Democrats and the party that fights it tooth and nail are the Republicans. The defining feature of the modern Republican Party is corruption.
14
Bob Altemeyer, the Canadian professor who is the foremost expert in the study of authoritarianism wrote years ago that the Republican Party was becoming more authoritarian. I believe Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, and Newt Gingrich, among others, have created the environment for authoritarianism to thrive.
17
The GOP continues to contribute to the demise of our democracy. We should not be surprised if and when anarchy results after a rigged election. However, those who will lose power may be more interested ensuring the resulting anarchy which gives them a reason to play unfair. However, as with most things, there will be unintended consequences as we live in a world governed by morality. Wrong, evil, and unfairness will never win. It’s not a long-term strategy and unsustainable. Sadly, the GOP, although it may be trying and intending to survive, appears to be sealing its doom. Certainly, there is nothing new under the sun. We have seen this happen in history many, many times.
8
@Truth Today Why will there be ensuing anarchy?
1
Several good points here. Add this: the late 20th century Republican party was captured by Southern conservatives who simply did not believe that any but the white Protestant elect should be allowed any say whatsoever in the governing of the United States. Only the self-evidently moral rich whites should rule. Naturally most Americans would disagree. Goldwater gave this movement momentum. Nixon didn't believe the theory but it was useful politically (the Southern strategy). Reagan did believe and he moved the theory to the mainstream, dressed up in disguise, of course, by an actor. Watergate and HW's loss to Clinton had to be avenged, and so we got Newt, and nothing has been civil in politics since. He is the embodiment of win at all costs, and left a lasting legacy that Trump in his cunning hopped on. Koch and the like provide the money. There is nothing in Republicanism that a majority of Americans support. The Republicans know it so they created culture wars going back to Reagan to hide their true intentions. They now have the Supreme Court to gut the Voting Rights Act and allow unfettered campaign money, from corporations, who, you know are people, too.... They have Fox News as their propaganda wing. They have the two Senators from any state no matter how small to disenfranchise large states in the Senate. And, they have the Electoral College which has twice, with W and Trump, defeated the popular vote. We have minority rule and the end of democracy.
19
As a number of readers have commented, things are well past "playing hardball," and have veered into outright criminality, and no one, or at least not enough people, seem to really mind much. Perhaps we look at the example set by our own president as the new standard of what is now acceptable, or even normal.
10
Democracy in America is under serious threat. One person one vote is the definition of democracy. Eliminate the Electoral college, replace the senate to be based on votes not states, ensure no gerrymandering or voter suppression.
9
An aspect of this movement to win irrespective of principle and precedent not addressed in the article is the potential for contagion. In a hyper-partisan environment, it is difficult to imagine the Democrats adopting an idealistic stance on politics and policy. Not that elements of crude partisanship haven't always existed, but a much greater degree of propriety had kept the winning-at-all-costs mentality at bay to a significantly greater extent. It would be foolish to believe that Democrats, once in power (and they will be), won't resort to short cuts at the expense of democratic principles is naive, especially when they legitimately believe that the opposition has rolled back the clock on progressive policies. The legacy of Trump will be felt long after he's gone. He has reinforced Hobbesian instincts and provided license for those who will take the place of his administration. That's the real threat to liberal democracy in the U.S.
1
The modern Republican hardball solution began with the Republican Supreme court ruling to strike down a Florida recount in the 2000 Presidential Election, handing the Presidency to George W. Bush despite losing the popular vote.
Since crossing the line in 2000, Republicans have improved their techniques, as this article highlights, to thwart democracy. Of course, without resorting to such venal subterfuge, the Republican Party would have become extinct as a national party, only having any input because the Constitutional structure allows states, through the Senate and with a minority of voters, to stop majoritarian democracy.
5
The motivation is simple, they know that they can't win otherwise and that's unacceptable. And they're in charge simply because they've gerrymandered their way to power. Vote every one of them out of office. That's the only way to change the dynamics.
11
I hope you can hear the applause of my two hands clapping. The only thing I might add is Goldwater's Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice was a declaration of war on the first nation of the enlightenment after a convention dedicated to celebrating the Birmingham church bombing and the murder of three Civil Rights workers a convention that vowed to abolish the Civil Rights Act and put an end to the nation founded by its initial words of We hold these truths to be self evident.
5
Our federal government, if you look at it hard, is highly undemocratic. The senate doesn't represent people, it represents states. The concept of one man, one vote, although pushed very hard in some southern states after the civil rights laws were enacted, is not really a national commitment. Our form of government was a giant compromise created in the late 17 hundreds to create something that sort of looked like democracy, but it wasn't. There were all sorts of things like the 2/5 rule that were enacted to keep a bunch of white guys in power. The small states weren't going to risk their sovereignty to a bunch of large states the they had very little in common with. This led to a government that is ill suited to modern society. It is DOS if you think in computer terms. This structure as I said is highly undemocratic, and it also allows for some of the ills we see today. Gerrymandering is a natural consequence of the state oriented system which looks like "one man, one vote". Still you can create an effective weighting system for those votes, which keeps minority parties in power, and minority presidents elected. The Republicans long ago committed to a policy of appealing to white backlash, both about race and religion. The do feel afraid, and they do feel that they are justified because their end is just. It is easy to subvert if you are not actually trying to make positive things happen in the country.
6
I agree with Mr. Levitsky and Ziblatt that the current Republican Party can't sustain itself much longer. Even with their dirty tricks it's just a matter of time. In fact, I believe the Democrats probably missed a golden opportunity in 2008 to end their reign sooner.
One of the biggest mistakes President Obama made during the financial crises was not recognizing the danger of the Rural crises happening in America and what that would do to Democrats.
In the age of globalization, the one factory town in Rural America didn't stand a chance. Many of the factories either packed up and moved or simply automated. Mining towns also faced automation but also stiff competition from the rest of the world. Energy changes from environmental unfriendly coal to cheap natural gas also had devastating consequences for the local economy. The jobs just dried up. To add insult to injury, the family farm disappearing for decades and replaced with corporate farms were now importing more immigrants to work the fields and labor in the processing plants than ever before. Add the Opioids epidemic and you had the makings of a revolt from President Obama and the Democrats. The Democrats would lose more than a 1000 seats at the local, state, and federal level during Obama's tenure.
2016 Trump wins. Today, hoping to rescue Rural America, Trump's strategy is to turn back the clock. Unfortunately, that ship has sailed and his policies will do nothing in restoring the Rural economy.
7
@Progers9 The reign of the Republican party ended in California some time ago. Perhaps something can be learned from that?
1
The Vietnam War draft dodger and the Republican Party engage in a deliberately reckless, persistently destructive, and both amoral and immoral coordinated campaign of a constitutionally premised scorched earth policy. The significantly rapid demographically increase of racial, ethnic, and immigrant individuals constitute, from the myopic purview of the GOP and their less than educated, less than culturally aware, and disproportionately blue collar minions, a significantly terminal threat. Mr. Levitsky and Mr. Ziblatt compellingly and convincingly present the hard cold reasons for Republicans resorting to such extremism. An appropriate analog is the bully on the school yard who intimidates, threatens, pushes, maligns, and denigrates his victims, and by whatever means necessary, knowing that any potential adverse consequences are between slim and none. Republicans and the Vietnam War draft dodger refuse, and will not, steal away quietly into the night after a defeat. Tantamount to Stalin's purge of Red Army officers in the mid 1930s and the intentional use of the scorched earth policy intended to deny the German Wehrmacht of the natural resources, industrial infrastructure, and transportation apparatus, Republicans refuse to capitulate without a fight. Even if the fight is doomed. The recent actions of the GOP in many states - especially Southern states - limit right to vote, is out of the playbook of post Reconstruction. The GOP is involved in the Lost Cause. Race matters.
10
This piece makes several hopeful references to Republicans changing their ways -- or being booted from office if they don't. But what of a third possibility: that they keep doubling down on the current strategy, and somehow retain power? Does anyone really still believe DJT would never make a play to stay in office beyond his electorally mandated term? Or that a Supreme Court with at least one more conservative wouldn't back him? Or that the dirty electoral tricks in GOP-held states won't get worse? Hooray for the courts (SCOTUS excepted) for fighting back. But when I watch toothless Democratic non-responses to GOP henchmen such as we saw from the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, I despair anew. Please go out and vote next year, because by 2024 it may be harder to do so.
11
Yes. They know the only way to stay ahead of demographic trends is to ramp up yet more voter suppression. They have found a winning combination: feed xenophobia and racism to the base to win votes and pander to big business with ever more de-regulation and tax cuts to get campaign funding. If we fail to impeach, then (assuming voter suppression will succeed in delivering another electoral college victory to the GOP) everything that's been happening will be "vindicated." The only hope is massive Dem turnout. Anything short of that will be contested and sent up to the SCOTUS which will rule in Drumpf's favor. Then we are well and truly sunk.
4
This is an interesting article briefly put it has it when in a two party system the class and social basis of one party becomes imperiled democracy becomes threatened as the weak political party will use undemocratic means to preserve power. This raises the question as to why the political parties are so rigid or why new parties cannot arise without massive dislocation which has happened in fairly early U.S. history. Rather than passive reporting such considerations might lead to proposals for necessary reform.
2
Maintaining Republican power has evolved into a devastating blood sport, far more corrosive than the mere contact sport of political football typically played by both parties.
Now, Machiavellian, norm shattering, unprecedented, and pusillanimous political tactics are pervasively and routinely manufactured--Before, During, and After--elections under the meretricious guise of being legally sanctioned and necessary.
I see a straight line from Lee Atwater to Donald Trump.
10
"Republican leaders must either stand up to their base and broaden their appeal or they must suffer an electoral thrashing so severe that they are compelled to do so."
I'd like to believe the authors are right, but I have serious doubts. Not every Republican is an old white person past 70--there are a reasonable number of younger people. Republicans aren't simply going to die off, and I find it hard to imagine a substantive change in their ideology. They are too committed to the cause to give up, and while defeat might remove them from power for a period of time, it will only make them more committed and more dangerous. I look at the awful faces of people at the President's rallies, and I'm afraid I see a very bleak future.
6
The Electoral College is key to Republican hopes to control the Senate and/or the White House. Thomas Jefferson used “dangerous” to describe what he believed was the flaw in the U.S. Constitution—the Electoral College.
6
@Craig Gilborn I believe Jefferson perhaps had more imagination than the other founding fathers. As I understand it, the Electoral College as envisioned by them in the society they knew was not a particularly bad thing. Perhaps Jefferson had some inkling of the profound changes that could overtake the country as the centuries passed.
2
Unfortunately, the end game here could be a right wing coup. When people stop playing by the rules like the Republicans have clearly been doing for a few decades (think corporate disinformation campaigns on a raft of issues like climate science denial), it does not take much to putsch (pardon the pun) them over the edge.
Trump supporters already ideate about this.
7
I think it is highly questionable whether the Senate's refusal to grant a hearing to President Obama's Supreme Court nominee is constitutional. The Constitution provides that the Senate shall give "advice and consent" regarding such nominees. The Senate never did that in the case of Merrick Garland, and indeed was prevented from doing so by Mitch McConnell.
To suggest that the framers of the Constitution ever intended that a single senator would have the authority to block consideration of a president's Supreme Court nominees is simply an absurd suggestion.
The Constitution does not provide for the role of majority leader; the position did not exist prior to 1920. I believe the position itself, as currently implemented, is a broad violation of the very intent of the Constitution.
19
Thanks Mark. I've been commenting these same observations! Good to hear other voices.
9
@Mark Kessinger Mitch McConnell should have been jailed for what he did to President Obama, Judge Garland, and to the American people. Beyond offensive.
5
Brilliant article.
5
Because they have no morals and never have. It's all a farce with the conservatives.
8
This doesn't really address the heart of the Republican Party's agenda: they don't want democracy but want to impose their regressive values on society; they don't care what their constituents want. Polls indicate most Americans want Medicare for all, support abortion availability, want big money out of politics, want action on climate change, etc., etc.
The Republican Party at this point is a fascist organization, not playing by the rules of democracy because they don't want democracy.
17
Excellent article.
2
To win by manipulating the system unfairly is to damage democracy. The Republicans, I believe, are out of ideas and soon will be out of time. Their only idea seems to be hate any proposal any Democrat might present. They obstruct and gerrymander while waving our flag in our faces. And, in endless defense of a sad second amendment, they allow the wild proliferation of guns that are used to murder thousands of Americans annually.
I wonder what the political party that succeeds the Republicans will look like?
5
What this impotent Democratic House is teaching us is that we actually don't need a majority Democratic house or Democratic senate. We just need a Democratic President that is super aggressive.
Not only is this Democratic house impotent in the face of a not-so- bright president, it is humorously unable to exercise any authority over common citizens that it would like to hear testimony from.
Pelosi is so intent on keeping her majority in the house that she has shown the voters that having a majority in the house is meaningless. The anger, frustration, and embarrassment that is building against these worthless, timid Democrats will soon rival the rage felt toward this blatantly criminal president.
As it turns out, all we really need is a president that is willing to move heaven and earth to get his way, and we are 95% of the way there.
If this congress does not get much more aggressive, and soon, I will not even bother looking down the ballot when I vote in 2020.
If this congress does not de-fund the White House in the face of a "credible and urgent" threat to our national security, I will not be voting for my Democratic congressman (Steve Cohen) next year.
2
We know that Republicans fight dirty. We know that they stole the supreme court seat. We know they are white nationalists. We know that they have been packing the courts. We know that the senate is now controlled by Kentucky.
We have analyzed this to death. The question becomes, if control of the government was attained by fraud, if we have allowed a hostile foreign power to take control of the white house, if we know that this government does not represent the will of the people and instead caters to a distinct reactionary minority, at what point do we come to the conclusion that this government is illegitimate?
The United States is defined by the constitution, and it was on that basis that the states agreed to unify New York and California by themselves make up 24% of the US GDP, yet are relegated to subservience by the will of backwater holes like Kentucky. If this election is again stolen from us, and Trump loses the popular vote but is propped up by the archaic electoral college, we need to start seriously considering what we are going to do. Yes Republicans cheat and fight dirty, but we just roll over and let them. We need to fight back, Jerry Nadler and Nancy Pelosi.
15
The GOP owes much of its power to its single issue voters - evangelicals, anti gay rights activists, pro life proponents , second amendment diehards etc
This along with the archaic electoral college system keeps these crooks in power
5
We are in a time of transition. The sentiment used to be conservative. Even Clinton and Obama could be described as pseudo-Republicans. But sentiment is changing and the old guard is nervous. I see strong similarities in the way the DNC marginalized Sanders and the way many Republicans operate.
3
Because they're dirty players at their core. They do not care about democracy or the American people.
9
To compound their electoral problems, Republicans slavishly cater government policy to the whims of their wealthy patrons, and to the detriment of most everyone else. To keep their base in line, they are forced to highlight conservative social goals, whispered and often overt racism (pushing away up and coming demographic groups,) and above all, lies to hide their true governing intentions. This model is clearly not sustainable, and leads unsurprisingly to attempts to win at any cost. Our country would be much stronger with two serious political parties. Unfortunately that won't happen until Republicans truly embrace policies with broad-based appeal, rather than constantly search for new ways to lie that they are doing so.
2
Win at all costs. Even treason is justified in their minds.
8
Contempt. That is the word that best describes the Trump/ Republican view of the American citizenry. They cannot stomach the People. Trump is the first President in my lifetime that has routinely bad-mouthed, insulted, harassed and viciously attacked average, private citizens because of perceived slights. This, in turn, has given Republican Congressmen and Republican state governors, conservative judges and sheriffs the freedom to do likewise.
While it may be true that Democrats have launched their share of dirty tricks on the Republican party, Republicans are now regularly attacking ordinary, individual citizens with a sick delight, turning every one of us into a potential enemy of the state.
10
well, let's be honest here: it's not equal opportunity. Trump, and the Republicans, go after people of color more frequently, more viciously, and more chillingly, as this article points out. Voter suppression, a la the Jim Crow south? Disgusting and terrifying. Vote them out now, on every ticket and in every race. It's called "natural and logical consequences".
2
Another problem they have is that they have completely demolished their own party doctrine in the past years. Once upon a time, they were all about fiscal prudence and personal freedoms. Their recent tax "reforms" and social prudery have turned the party into something that would be unrecognizable to any Republican President prior to George W.
6
Or they can rule forever as an autocracy.
4
Of course Republican leaders are driven by an ideological contempt for democracy. As Levitsky and Ziblatt themselves point out: it is only because of their commitment to white supremacy that Republicans have any reason to fear our multicultural democracy. But it’s not like white supremacists can be good democrats in a white majority society and only become bad democrats in a minority majority society. White supremacy is intrinsically contemptuous of any form of racial equality, including equality before the law. So even when white supremacists can be sure that they’ll win every election, they are never tolerant of actual democracy.
6
"White Christians are losing more than an electoral majority; their once-dominant status in American society is eroding." And nothing is accelerating this loss of status faster than their unconscionable support of Trump.
11
The Democrats have become complicit in the attack on democracy. They point to the Republicans and whine, then lay down like doormats. 'Were not going to stand for this...' is sounding like 'Our thoughts and prayers are with you...' Where is Nancy Pelosi? Doesn't she realize that if the Democrats win the election, it will be declared invalid due to Russian interference, and Putin will be onboard to admit it. The end is near.
2
It's really very simple. Hard conservative commentators and "news" services use this as their playbook:
http://www.mnei.nl/schopenhauer/38-stratagems.htm
The philosopher Schopenhauer wrote it as a dark joke, because these strategies are the opposite of informed, deliberative discussions: lie, insult, distract, and lie, lie, lie again. And so you'll win your argument.
It worked beautifully for 2016. I wish the media would start calling out these liars and point out this poisonous source for their playbook.
7
@former therapist
Schopenhauer was prescient and relevant on so many levels and issues, especially the psychological and sociological: just like his greatest influencer's Kant and Plato. I admire not only his clever, original, and penetrating thinking, but his clear writing style which uses ample humor. I've observed many articles recently that rightly credit him.
Thanks for your link.
2
Do 130 indictments and convictions hint at that somebody is playing dirty? That from the Reagan administration -- how is it even possible to rack that up? And Reagan has statues built to himself and a library -- he's their patron saint. Enter Trump, is he shooting for the record? Under the cloak of "fake news", he's rampaging o'er the land like a Cossack Warlord in an expensive suit. He's captured the Justice Department and made it his own. The conflicts of interest are what he's in it for just pretending that he alone created the jobs. Referring to representing the American people as "a problem" is the first clue for declaring that America belongs to their oligarchs and lobbyists, that's what they hang around for, the next time they can get close to the treasury to rifle it in their interest. Its legalized money laundering. Its happened time and again …"there they go again". The Supply Side strategy with us benefitting as a mere by product ought to be replaced with Demand Side; that'd at least demonstrate honest intentions. I don't believe its partisan to find that they're on the wrong side of most every issue. I'm telling you, they're even in favor of pollution, with leadened drinking water as a kicker. Here's to the extinction of those who don't represent us - the Republican Syndicate.
3
The question becomes, will trump, the GOP and the minority base peacefully cede power when he loses in 2020? It may be too late to save this democracy.
5
Look, neither side plays fair. This article is full of a propoganda technique called card stacking, only pulling out the arguments that help their side. Which, the artic has every right to be published, and it is an opinion article, but in order to be completely fair, the article should have been more about the culture of dirty politics in both sides, and how to catch and understand those. And, because both sides play dirty, I don't really hold it against either, because both believe they're trying to cheat a little to achieve a greater good. Yes, I have a political opinion, but I don't hate the other side for trying to win. I just agree with the side that agrees with my beliefs, and try to give leverage to that side, even if it's just a vote.
4
True, but what about the sustained attack on the Supreme Court and Kavanaugh in particular. The Dems are acting like the southern segregationists of the 1950s.
5
I will never forget the interview with one of the Republican players in Wisconsin who were trying to strip the incoming Democrats of power. The man actually sounded ingenuous - he was flabbergasted that anyone could expect his party to just let the newcomers 'undo' what they had 'accomplished.'
These people have marinated so long in their victim complex that they are living in a different reality. They believe that they have an inherent right to power in our country and have convinced themselves that its their civic duty to do anything to maintain their control.
As demographics have worked against their Fox News Party, they have resorted to ever more dire power grabs. This has been happening for the past few decades, as the Republican base dies off or peels away because of their extreme views and behavior.
They have been losing for a while now. They hold power only because of extreme extra-democratic ploys.
They can't do this forever, though. They country will outlast them. Young people are not by and large captured by their rotten-to-the-core media machine. The irrational propaganda doesn't work with a large majority of our population now.
What I am worried most about is what kind of monster they will morph into when they have to face the fact that they are obsolete.
11
“Why is the Republican Party playing dirty? Republican leaders are not driven by an intrinsic or ideological contempt for democracy.”
Are you so sure? Doesn’t the win-at-all-costs effort to preserve the power and privilege of the 1%ers and a rural white minority at the expense of democracy seem to display exactly such a contempt?
4
who cares 'why' ?
dishonesty, greed, cowardice ... etc
We need, at minimum, the following changes:
- a 3rd, even 4th party
- award electoral votes for presidential elections in direct proportion to poplar vote.
- create logical, geometrically/numerically defined voting districts.
- remove most of the lobbyists from government except actual 'experts' when technical info is required for legislation.
- public funding of elections.
- universal standards for number of polling places, hours of operation, number of voting machines / paper ballots, etc.
- election day a national holiday.
5
@CD Problem with 3 or 4 parties is that without ranked choice voting, or some similar system, we're toast. We're not a parliamentary system like Great Britain.
1
One point you forgot to make: they use lies and misdirection because they can't win a debate with logic.
8
Why do Republicans play dirty?
Because they can, and get away with it.
But the worst thing about is it that most Americans haven't been able to put the pieces together, because they have no clue about how the U.S. government works -- otherwise, why else would they vote into office someone as inept as Donald Trump while granting Republicans control over the Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches?
Is it any surprise that our Democracy resembles little more than some garden variety dictatorship?
And yet they call this making America great again.
AMERICANS. Wake-up.
6
Yes MAGA is working:
Making America Go. Away
In 2020, The Democratic Candidate will have to use the line that the great imposter said to a "christain" group in 2016 (subbing in their own name): "If we don't win this election," the Democratic Candidate added,"you'll never see another Democrat."
It is strange that a few R's commented that "DEMS do that too!". Yes, but to the degree of viciousness and frequency of the GOP? No, facts, data exist in the real world such as the 10 worst cases of election district distortion? 8 of 10, yep, GOP.
The GOP has been on the offense - for decades. DEMS on defense, primarily like the NFL "prevent defense" which didn't and is a proven way to lose. Along with our knife, in this fight we will need use weapons that confuse, demoralize (ok, some don't have morals already), create factions among the GOP, and whatever has been your own personal game: AMERICANS must act, give, and sacrifice as if there is no tomorrow, this time we will to be calculating, rigid, and unyielding.
1
I'm nearly 80. In my entire life, I've never known any republican to be honorable. Lying, conniving, cheating, all seem to be a way of life with them. When I was young, I did see President Eisenhower as different from them, but even then, I had a feeling of revulsion every time I saw/heard Nixon. That feeling proved to be correct many years later. It would be an interesting scientific experiment to see if they are genetically different from democratic people.
9
A very important issue this article does not address -- though it is necessarily implicit in the examples cited -- is that those who end up playing unrestrained constitutional hardball, beforehand have been antidemocratic in spirit, and profoundly dishonest in their engaging with democracy. In our country, think of George W Bush and his gang (there are myriad examples, like the Attorneys General purge, "privatizing" social security, lying the country into the Iraq war...), go back to Gingrich shutting down the government, or the forerunners of the modern Republicans, the Southern Democrats who were rabid defenders of slavery long before the Civil War, let alone Reconstruction.
It is not just revealed fear of losing power that is a signature of a political faction's bottomless assault on democracy: there are clear tells beforehand of what is coming. Being antidemocratic is in the blood of these people, there to be seen in plain sight all along.
400
"Liberal democracy has historically required at least two competing parties committed to playing the democratic game, including one that typically represents conservative interests."
Maybe so. But unfortunately, many of the leading conservatives who have fled the Republican party are still holding on to ridiculous right-wing ideas.
They haven't given up on trickle-down economics, patriarchy, privatization, the miracle of the unregulated, union-free marketplace, or any of their other favorite retrograde ideas.
Even while wandering around in political exile, they have no time for political self-reflection.
If Trumpism is defeated and they regain control of their party, they will still do more on behalf of plutocrats than they will ever do for the rest of us.
9
"Republicans must broaden their appeal." How often have we heard this since 2008? But how, exactly, are they to do this? Embrace the fight against climate change? Support reproductive freedom for women? Abandon supply-side economics and use progressive tax structures to reduce inequality? Advocate for more powerful unions? It's not a matter of better marketing. The problem is that the Republican Party has painted itself into a corner: in order to win elections while catering entirely to the plutocracy, it has had to embrace socially hard-line positions to attract voters who would not otherwise support its economic agenda. Those voters are no longer enough. If the Republicans wanted to go back to a sort of Eisenhower-Nixon version of economic conservatism while embracing a more inclusive social program, they would almost immediately alienate all of their supporters (ironically, I suspect that such a program would attract a lot of support once the dust settled). They'll just keep playing dirtier and dirtier and hope they can keep ahead of the referees.
7
We need to consider the possibility that they will refuse to relinquish power even after losing elections. What will we do as a nation the first shots the armed rebellion from the right begins?
3
The problem with having a party that represents "conservative interests" is that these interests will only be appealing to a distinct minority. So I think the authors are wrong to assert that a liberal democracy "needs" a party that represents conservative interests. It's like the German conservatives of the 19th century who realized that if the working class votes, the aristocracy is gone. In fact, the aristocracy should be gone.
Conservatives will always be bucking the tide of history (as Buckley memorably phrased it - to "stand athwart history") so they will always wither. They simply have run out of decent ideas for society. Furthermore, our planet is imperiled and the conservatives don't care.
Here's a partial list of their ideas. Tell me if any sound good:
Climate change? It's just weather.
No regulations? Let the unintended consequences fall where they may.
Low taxes? Private wealth and public squalor as JK Galbraith memorably put it.
Guns for everyone? Forget about feeling safe in a public space.
The list doesn't get any better....
3
Thanks for this article, it's been very clear to me that the Republican party today is interested in democracy for "Republicans like us only, others who are different or don't agree with us don't get to participate in our democracy". The authors provide plenty of evidence for this. The analogy to the Jim Crow south is apt, and Mitch McConnell and his friends will take their place in American history as the heirs of Jefferson Davis and the Confederacy; and hopefully meet the same fate.
5
The authors refer several times to Republicans as 'white Christian.' The GOP is surely white but it is NOT Christian. Christians don't turn their backs on refugees, or lock children in cages and separate them from their parents; Christians don't favor the powerful over the poor and marginalized. There should be quotations around the term "Christian" when it comes to Republicans' attempts to portray themselves as the party of religion.
14
@Mark I rather like the term "Xtian". Certainly, they are not Christ-like.
1
From the article: "The only way out of this situation is for the Republican Party to become more diverse."
But why would anyone who is not White, male, and Protestant want to join the GOP in order to contribute to that diversity?
That's the question.
9
If Donald Trump wins in 2020 and appoints at least 2 more Supreme Court justices, in addition to hundreds more lower level Federal judges, American democracy is doomed.
Register to vote today. And use that vote wisely. No more hapless and hopeless third party ballots. No more sitting elections out because your perfect candidate isn't running.
Vote. Because if you don't, you may never again get the opportunity.
14
"Republican leaders must either stand up to their base and broaden their appeal or they must suffer an electoral thrashing so severe that they are compelled to do so."
California is the leading example. After years of demonizing immigrants (chiefly from Latin America), the intransigently white, Christian Republican Party has nearly disappeared in this state.
Texas is not far behind.
8
Republicans don't seem to understand that their dirty tricks and strategies are undermining our democracy. From the NC debacle last year to gerrymandering to McConnell sitting on hundreds of House-passed bills to his willingness to do an about-face on appointing judges, there is a total lack of integrity. Meanwhile, the base says "what about....?" Well, the people they name are not in power, so they really don't matter much right now. Trump and McConnell and their ilk do matter.
Yes, both parties have done some reprehensible things in the past, but we live in the present, not in the distant past. The desire for Republican power should not trump the strength of our country.
4
They understand it. And they don’t care.
6
Their fear is real. The Republicans can't win if they don't cheat.
13
In 1860 and 1861, the South no doubt argued, "You used to have slaves, too." I see that argument in the comments section. (Respectfully, I'm not suggesting or implying that the evil of slavery is comparable to the issue today; only used for historical context and weight). You are missing the point, as many have pointed out. In the end, we are at an important point in our political history, and I'm sad to say that as much as Lincoln was the great man, we need a US Grant to aggressively battle the Republicans and demolish them. That is hard to say as I have Republicans in my family, but as a political machine, only aggressive politics will root out the cancer of their illegal moves. As for the authors' point about Judge Garland, no, the US Constitution required a hearing on him once nominated. The Republicans could, and would have, voted him down, but that's the point. They no longer want to play the game, even when they can win. They want rules only for themselves. So the authors of this article have that wrong. It's an important distinction.
9
They are right. They will lose everything. But it isn't because of the rules. It's because they have no good ideas that appeal to voters. It's not complicated.
10
What seems to have been lost here is that the Republicans are not "conservative". They do not have a political viewpoint. They want one thing - to keep and consolidate power. Just like race, religion, class, and all the rest, political perspective is a diversion.
10
"Republican leaders are not driven by an intrinsic or ideological contempt for democracy."
True, but only in a narrow sense. Republicans have no regard for democracy, except insofar as it can be exploited, utterly and cynically as this article spells out, to keep power for themselves -- and that right there means they have contempt for democracy.
About 100 million Americans either don't get or are OK with that.
A country that elects a Trump as president is already in trouble. A country that protects and coddles such a president is in crisis. The Senate, because of Republicans, and the DOJ are protecting and coddling Trump. We are in crisis. Within fourteen months we will learn if it is even possible for us to save ourselves.
13
An excellent and extremely timely article.
I completely agree that the GOP thrives on FEAR.
But there are 2 other kinds of fear the authors do not mention which also account for the GOPs success and tactics.
One is the FEAR that Americans will realize the GOP is on the wrong side of every issue, that their positions from gun control to abortion to climate change is fundamentally at odds with everything this country is supposed to be about.
But the biggest FEAR driving the the GOPs seizure of power in America is the FEAR of the ultra rich that their obscene wealth will be eroded by regulations that protect those who were not fortunate to have been born into wealth (most all of the super rich GOP donors inherited great fortunes).
Read Jane Mayer’s “Dark Money”, if you want to know the truth about how this relatively small group of individuals bought the American government.
Under the false guise of “Libertarian” principals the GOP has not diminished the power and reach of the Government but transformed it into a kleptocracy where corporations and politicians rob the rest of us blind.
10
There are still enough pockets of white supremacy that the facts from this article haven't sunk in with ordinary Republicans in those places. Plus they think of people like me as "Demoncrats" so it's an existential matter for them.
5
The Republicans play dirty 50 different ways in the 50 states.
7
"So like the old Southern Democrats, modern-day Republicans..."
No, The old Southern Democrats ARE the modern-day Republicans! It all starts with the integration of the US Military by Harry Truman on July 26, 1948 and then the Dixiecrat convention of August 14, 1948 who went yammering on about the threat that the Democrats like Harry Truman posed to States Rights. These same Southern Democrats will become Republicans between Nixon and Reagan.
This is really the story of how one particular group of Americans, namely White Male (Mostly) Protestants have spent nearly a century and a half actively trying to deny the enfranchisement of one other group of Americans, namely those with African roots.
At the level of the longue duree, this is yet another chapter in the emergence and full expression of universal suffrage. With a little bit of luck, the Republicans are doomed to failure.
10
Wisconsin's recent history is also a microcosm of the GOP's dirty play during the eight year reign of the Koch Brother owned Scott Walker along with WEDC - (Wisconsin Economic Development Council). The game of divide and conquer - claimed Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barret "was incubated here" with Act 10 - destroying unions for teachers and public workers. They scapegoated one's working neighbor in the wake of the 2008 economic crash from corrupt GOP policies under George Bush. That was the start of this "dirt." Thank you for naming it. Our need as a nation is to name it and to rise above it starting with climate change, truthfulness in foreign diplomacy, healthcare, gun control, and wages. All of these - requiring new leadership.
10
The rest of the world views Citizens United exactly as the behavior in the manner of Turkey or Hungary.
Making 'bribery' legal does not make it right, just or the behavior of a democracy - any more than manipulating the Supreme Court or gerrymandering districts.
None of the actions taken by the totalitarian regimes of Europe in the 1930s were illegal - but they were certainly reprehensible.
10
Interesting and true, but only part of the story. The Republican party understood decades ago they were a shrinking party and they devised a cynical and effective plan to hold on to power. They focused on local and state contests, running quietly radical candidates at local non-partisan posts and groomed them to run for state legislature, where they have gerrymandered the districts in a desperate bid to retain power. But the party is dying, and they are becoming desperate (see support of Trump et. al.). Good riddance.
14
Too many Republican Christians are terrified by social and demographic changes they see as burying their way of life, and they’re comfortable enough with authoritarian power structures to prefer one vs. allowing true democracy to overwhelm them.
While their reaction is somewhat understandable, it’s existentially dangerous to our great democratic experiment.
15
How do you govern those who are lawless? It’s like playing tennis with someone who insists on using a chainsaw to return a serve.
The question is, why and when did the republicans lose faith in our country?
279
They did not lose faith. Their definition of country has always been about them, not everyone.
85
@Bitter Mouse
How do you let the lawless govern?
The GOP didn't lose faith in our government. They lost the presidency to a black man. And it scared the bejesus out of them.
57
@Bitter Mouse
I have a slightly better analogy.
The democrats are like contestants in a bike race that had their chains removed from their sprockets just before the start of the race, and instead of fixing their chain, they just pedal harder even though it gets them no where.
Maybe The NYT should sponsor a "pathetic democrats analogy" contest to shame them into more aggressive action.
13
Whether it’s really fear that motivates, it has become a powerful marketing tool for the GOP.
Fear that immigrants will take over our country. Fear that we will be living under Sharia law. Fear that our guns will be taken away. Fear that the Ds will give everything away for free and bankrupt the country. And on and on.
Why? Because it works. Because it’s easy to sign up, send money, and cast your vote to someone who claims they will “protect you” and what’s comfortable and easy by destroying all those threats to life in the bubble.
Burst the bubble... VOTE! More importantly get your friends and neighbors to VOTE!
9
The Republicans play dirty because they are outnumbered. So then they resort to gerrymandering, look for ways to keep ethnic groups from voting, propagandize the news, pretend they're religious, use fear to influence the masses, the list goes on...
9
In my political lifetime (I first voted in 1965.) Democrats, the liberals/progressives, not the southerners, have viewed politics as a collegial exercise with an expected rational and reasonable debate and discussion between rational and reasonable people.
Republicans, on the other hand, have long viewed and practiced politics as a winner-take-all, take-no-prisoners, scorched earth political/ideological version of war. There is a sole victor with unconditional surrender and disregard for the defeated.
That modern politics has devolved to politics reminiscent of the 19th century should not be unexpected, or a surprise, as one of the major political parties has also returned to 19th century for its principles and policies.
12
Having grown up under both Republican and Democratic politicians that played dirty, they were not “Republicans” or “Democrats;” they were the individuals who happened to be in power at that moment in time. The party label is irrelevant. The destruction of democratic norms in this country and globally is less about a particular ideology afraid of losing elections that it is about the 1% afraid of losing their economic dominance.
4
This insightful commentary could go even further about the political crises of this corrupt and mendacious GOP. The real problem is the very passive and tepid response by the Democratic party leadership who seems to be hoping that Trump and his minions will just fade away. At the same time, it is easy to get progressives up in arms over differences in the various health care plans being touted, will march and protest over any perceived identity issue slight, but fail to push back on these Republican power grabs.
Sadly, we may find, that when we get hold of the presidency, everything else has been stolen and that real power and influence lies in the hands of the increasingly fascist GOP.
11
That's the problem with a two sided democracy, as popular opinion teeters it turns the lease favorable into an animal. If we had more parties or even none at all, this wouldn't be a problem.
2
The Dems are faced with this choice: wait for the demographics to shift even more in their favor, or start playing constitutional hardball themselves. I am not in favor of waiting.
13
"Republican leaders must either stand up to their base and broaden their appeal or they must suffer an electoral thrashing so severe that they are compelled to do so." That first one ain't gonna happen, so let's get on with the second.
12
I’ve been around long enough to remember democrats not playing fair, too.
Yes, the current regime is nasty and what McConnell did to Garland was terrible but the democrats hands are not clean.
55
@Larry Olsen This goes way beyond Merrick Garland. So your prescription is what, that Republicans should just keep doing what they’re doing?
157
@Larry Olsen
The cynicism that the Republicans foster toward government is a win for them. "Dems do it too" helps Republicans, not Democrats, and hurts the whole country. It's simply not equivalent. Democrats, however corrupt, are trying to run a government in good faith; even if that idea is their image or spin, it's better. Republicans are trying to grab power and use government for that. It's fundamentally different.
229
@Larry Olsen Can you cite specific examples that even come close to comparing to what the Republicans are doing to ensure minority rule (their clinging to power at all costs)? "Both-sides-ism" and "What-about-ism" are attempts to let the Republicans off the hook for the authoritarianism and undermining of our Constitution. The mainstream media engages too often in that blaming of both sides. That makes the public throw up their hands in disgust and simply hate "government" in general. When people hate government and "both sides," that further advantages the Republicans and the wealthy and powerful plutocrats they are protecting.
272
This should be mandatory reading.
Well done, indeed.
6
Talk about idiotic thinking! If they destroy democracy they win...what, exactly? A civil war? Riots in the streets? Well there's a real nitwit philosophy. Win at all cost, even if it means you "win" the biggest losses in history; the losses of a civil society and constitutional freedoms. Have these people ever read a history book? Dems should change their party leadership real quick, because stupid can win when stupider does nothing. And the current Democratic Party leadership is not up to the responsibilities it owes the country.
6
No, they have not read a history book, or any book. Only propaganda on Facebook sent around by like minded people.
3
Yes. Playing dirty. Definitely.
But Its not merely playing dirty.
Many of these people, including Individual One himself, are CRIMINALS.
Plain.
Simple.
12
Republicans can't get more diverse when their ideology is white patriarchy. This patriarchy is the ends of the ideology. It is not a byproduct of it, or a means of achieving some other ends. And I am mindful that there are Republican women, but they subscribe to this ideology in full.
12
Weel, the incentive is that they get away with it.
Expect the trump presidency to be their template going forward.
7
Well said.
2
In other words, Republicans are all in favor of democracy unless it makes them lose. One could also say, less charitably but just as accurately, that Republicans are opposed to democracy unless it lets them win.
9
Republicans simply have to change their policies to appeal to a broader range of voters. An obvious way to win elections is to propose to do stuff that the majority want.
The majority support Roe v Wade.
The majority support some form of universal health care.
The majority support responsible gun laws.
The GOP need to come up with some winning ideas.
4
They play dirty because our lawless nation allows it! Checks and balances, really?
5
@Andrei Schor: State governments are the constituency of "state's rights". They send drones to Washington to avoid being held to equal protection of the law.
1
Republicans are no longer a party. They're a gang.
12
As David St. Hubbins observed in This Is Spinal Tap, "There's a fine line between stupid and clever."
These Republicans seem to think they're so clever, but...
6
The GOP and it’s ilk have descended into criminality and are comfortable in the mire of illegality. They are no longer Interested in democracy but only in padding their bank accounts. The president is only a symptom of the depravity of our political spectrum and has been the icing on the cake for Republicans. They are “eating the cake” with glee.
Vote them out.
8
The takeaway here is more disturbing than Levitsky and Ziblatt allow. The evolution of the Republican Party into an authoritarian institution determined to install one-party rule didn’t happen yesterday. If historians and political scientists were noticing as far back as the 1980s a drift towards fascism by the Republicans, why didn’t the Democrats notice? Why did they do nothing while authoritarians took over the government? Why didn’t Barack Obama create his own constitutional crisis by swearing in Merrick Garland, putting him on the Court, and letting Congress fight him on it? After all, the Constitution says advise and consent. It doesn’t give any rules about advising and consenting. Was he afraid of delegitimizing the Court? Well, it’s happened anyway.
Where was Chuck Schumer while the republic was dying? Why didn’t Democrats notice? Because they’re encased in a Beltway bubble that allows them to see only from the heights of their own privilege; they were blind to what the fascists were doing. And today, do they finally understand what they’re up against? It won’t be only the Republicans answering to history. After the fall of the republic the Democrats will need to answer, too.
443
The democrats are under the delusion that the republicans are still following the rules which they are not. And therefore will follow rules blindly even as republican rule breaking drowns America.
52
@ADN Democrats seem to want to follow the rules, generally AND the people are in general able to sort out issues on their own and take independent decisions. Republicans are in general [as a voting block] toe-the-line directed by HQ. Talking points are used by Repigs much more than by Dems.
Basically - I like to challenge the notion that the founding fathers were geniuses who created a system for all-time. They were not, and they did not. Unfortunately the 'life liberty and pursuit of happiness' has confused people to the point that the system has become 'messed up'.
21
@ADN
Three reasons:
1. Democrats believe their own happy-talk. Americans will come to their senses, any minute now.
2. They are terrified of hurting anyone's feelings, including the feelings of fascists.
3. They equate losing with virtue.
27
"Until Republicans learn to compete fairly in a diverse society, our democratic institutions will be imperiled."
Between what the author presented here and recent developments in medical science, this last sentence becomes a bit circular.
Studies of the human brain, made much more precise with the advent of MRI technology with findings then filtered through the application of fields such as cognitive science tell us that much of what causes an innocent little baby to grow up to become a Republican is more nature than nurture.
Another problem for some is getting them to believe this science once they reach the age of suffrage.
We don't have time to listen to those who would suggest that 'more studies are needed' (see Exxon-Mobil/R.J. Reynolds). Nor do I have an answer for how we might go about enforcing some 'anti-fear' rule. But Congress could get about enforcing some of the rules of our republic.
That might put the fear of God in 'em (see Mitch McConnell's rapid retreat on protecting our elections in the face of our newly minted Ukraine scandal).
3
Sadly, the Republican Party has become the party of tricksters and crooks who are happy to destroy our democracy (and our planet!) to stay in power for a few more years -- until we, the people, are fed up and boot them out of office. Let's make sure this will happen November 3, 2020.
3
"They fear that if they stick to the rules, they will lose everything."
Is it fear? Or greed?
3
Thanks very much for putting this together. Looking back through these things, and recent thoughts about democracy is doomed because it's hard, and the countries that have collapsed, I suppose it's possible here too.
One other thought, GET MONEY OUT OF OUR POLITICS!
5
The column states, "Republicans have won the popular vote in presidential elections just once in the last 30 years."
One point to add: The only time a Republican won the popular vote in those 30 years was the 2004 election. This was shortly after the 9/11 attack and a result of the patriotic feelings of many to support the commander-in-chief during a crisis.
9
@Scott Kentros in Austin, TX: Fat lot of good supporting Bush to back the UN inspections of Iraq did for Hillary Clinton.
I don't know why anyone cedes anything to these liars.
4
The authors left out the darker edges of this trend: Republican flirtations with violent rightist groups.
In Oregon, Republican state legislators fled the capital earlier this year to avoid losing a vote on a climate change bill. Armed groups in Oregon and Idaho immediately offered to "protect" the absent lawmakers, and Oregon police recommended the capitol be shut down due to the threat of rightist violence. The Idaho group warned of a civil war... all because of a potentially losing vote on a cap-and-trade bill. It's not clear whether the legislators and armed rightists worked together, but I don't believe any Republicans tried to distance themselves from the violent talk either.
A variety of Republican politicians have dallied with the Proud Boys and used them as "security" at political events. The Proud Boys were allowed to speak at the Metropolitan Republican Club in NYC, and we all know how that ended.
And it has clearly been established that white supremacist groups like the Rise Above Movement, Traditionalist Worker Party, Identity Europa, and KKK love Trump, and see themselves as doing his bidding (or possibly vice versa).
Are interactions between official Republican bodies and individuals and the radical violent fringe isolated? Or are they the most extreme end on the continuum of the Republican power grab? It seems these groups would jump at the chance to fight for right-wing politicians. The question is whether the politicians can resist asking them to do so.
13
@Jeremy: The Republican Party collects single-issue voters, and it doesn't care what their issue is.
5
@Steve Bolger
Something that Democrats, liberals, and progressives just can't seem to get through their heads is the fact that a lot of working people, not just Republicans, vote for conservative candidates because:
1) They resent the fact that so many people have their hand out to the government, and it obliges them by giving them an easier financial existence than WORKING people...enough with the handouts, get to work!
2) They don't want to turn our country into another Latin American country (are there any of those that function anywhere near as well as we do?).
3) They want our government to control our borders, helping us to control our population. Overpopulation is at the core of so many of our problems, including poverty and climate change.
4) We need fair trade deals, even if it means paying a short-term cost. Is it fair to have a 65% tax on American wheat going to China, when they can import to the U.S. without any tax? How about a 28% import tax on American vehicles going to Germany, but only 1.4% on German vehicles coming to the U.S.? We have been subsidizing the world economy since WWII...time for that to end.
5) LGBTQN citizens already have the same rights as everyone else. Just be quiet and live your lives, like everyone else. It is possible to have logical reasons for opposing homosexuality, etc.
The Democrats address none of these issues.
2
6. Only watch Fox News
1
"Why is the Republican Party playing dirty? Republican leaders are not driven by an intrinsic or ideological contempt for democracy. They are driven by fear."
If Republicans are afraid of losing to greater numbers, their fear is just as much idealogical as it is anything else. And it's the greater number of potential voters who don't 'look like' the average GOP voter that frightens them the most. And that mistrust is what builds in GOP leaders the willingness to exclude such voters from their appeal. That mistrust is itself a reflection of not trying to determine what these 'others' want or need or have to say.
That social distance is built into the contemporary DNA of thinking strategically. Thinking that way is not, as the article notes, 'intrinsic'. It is, however, reflexive and categorical. It belies an underlying doubt that their 'brand' can succeed in a society where everyone has a vote but only one. If you are not willing to enter the contest of ideas in the market place or elections, your mistrust is not just pure fear of the unknown. It is fundamental doubt about the very nature of a democratic and pluralistic society.
3
@Kp,: The Republicans know that what they preach is nonsense.
5
Republicans are right that they will lose everything, in terms of identity, if they play by the rules. Demography may not be destiny but it's pretty darn close. If the Republicans begin to diversify, they as much as admit that their identity is swiftly on the way to the scrap heap. The only question is whether the death blow comes in the next election or one in the near future. For the sake of democratic government, it can't happen too soon.
7
Republicans are right that they will lose everything, in terms of identity, if they play by the rules. Demography may not be destiny but it's pretty darn close. If the Republicans begin to diversify, they as much as admit that their identity is swiftly on the way to the scrap heap. The only question is whether the death blow comes in the next election or one in the near future. For the sake of democratic government, it can't happen too soon.
2
"Why Republicans Play Dirty"
Because it works.
"They fear that if they stick to the rules, they will lose everything."
Of course they will.
4
Republican legislators in North Carolina hold a snap veto override by tricking Dems into being elsewhere and Republican legislators in Oregon literally flee the legislature to deny the Democrats a quorum and then brazenly threaten to shoot any law enforcement officer dispatched to retrieve them. Why do Republicans play dirty? Because they are dirty. Not only do their ends not justify their means, their ends aren't justifiable.
9
Republicans play dirty? Don't get me wrong, politics, in general, is dirty. But how about how the Democrats are playing dirty. Trying to undermine a legitimately elected US president as well as a legitimately apportioned us supreme Court judge. Making baseless and completely unfounded accusations to try and prevent them from doing their jobs.
1
you are assuming "legitametly" elected. only the illegal, immoral bases of those elections are being attacked.
1
@Shane
As is typical of today's Republican voter you sling vague general accusations with no evidence. What baseless accusations against Trump have been made? Even more importantly your post is nothing more than whataboutism. This is a tactic always employed by those who have no substantive response to a claim or accusation. Your response ultimately is little more than an acknowledgement of the accuracy of the original article.
7
Republicans play dirty not out of fear, but out of greed. Most Republican members of Congress have accepted $millions from the Russians, and that information is well documented. Read Prof. Ruth May, a named professor of Russian and Ukranian economics, in the Dallas News, where she gives the name of the Republican member of Congress plus the known amount they accepted from Russian donors.
Evidently 99% of the money donated by the Russians to members of Congress went to Republicans. The flagrant defiance of the GOP towards previous standards of decency and honesty regarding donations to campaigns fled the room during the 2016 presidential campaign.
Now all Americans are reaping the consequences of the total corruption of our president and of our Republican members of Congress.
4
“While technically constitutional, the act — in effect, stealing a Court seat — hadn’t been tried since the 19th century.”
McConnell’s action is not constitutional—not even technically. Article 2, Section II states: “…and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, [The President] shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court…”
“With the advice and consent,” doesn’t translate into an option to flip the POTUS the bird and not even discuss the idea. The Senate wasn’t even permitted to provide advice and consent. The Senate never got a voice. Mitch McConnell used a procedural tactic to rob the Senate of its explicit powers. Obama didn’t press the issue because he didn’t want to look partisan—the same reason he didn’t bring up Russian meddling. Where did that get us? Now that the GOP controls the executive, what are the odds the executive branch of the federal government will press the matter?
10
Recruiting a liar in an attempt to undermine the appointment of a supreme court justice, is not playing dirty?
6
And yet. Republicans control the Presidency, one house of Congress, and for at least the next twenty years, the Supreme Court. This leaves one half of one branch of government controlled by Democrats. The Republicans aren't going away any time soon.
Democratic Party voters have to stop making excuses ("I'm not inspired by so & so", "The mean Republicans tell me I have to get an ID", etc.) and vote every time in every election.
2
Thats what voter suppression and refusing to sit SCOTUS nominees is all about.
6
This dying GOP white elephant prefers to take the nation to oblivion also, than to see their wealth and power distributed more equally among Americans.
7
Obama “playing dirty” decimated the Democratic Party.
They have yet to recover.
3
Both Trump and McConnell must be defeated in 2020. Contribute, volunteer and VOTE, Dems, Inies and Progs.
6
@Sydney
Excuse me, I meant Indies...
Democracy is not getting everything your own way. The Democrats, liberals, and progressives are just throwing a tantrum because they aren't. It's pathetic.
5
Conservatives are massacring Americans in their temples, churches, schools and workplaces even after they’ve “won” a presidential election with 2,900,000 fewer votes. What do you call that?
2
Isn't this the same article NYT published 29 years ago, today!? https://www.nytimes.com/1990/09/20/opinion/the-politics-of-slash-and-burn.html
1
Nasty, nasty people.
2
There is no equivalency between the two political parties in the United States. The Republican Party is in a deep state of moral decay, and it is obvious to anybody who is honest about it.
12
There biggest fear, which has been simmering for decades and is now beginning to boil, is the loss of white male power and control. The demographics and political trends of all measure are not in their favor and they will literally stop at nothing to hold on to power. Nothing. We are in the early black stages of their last stand.
7
"Why is the Republican Party playing dirty? Republican leaders are not driven by an intrinsic or ideological contempt for democracy. They are driven by fear."
Wrong! They are driven by those they work for, oligarchs. The Republican party has no interest in anything else, the Roberts Court cemented the power of oligarchs with the overreaching Citizens-United decision, allowing oligarchs to purchase whatever government they want. They have no loyalty to either party or country as they have the ability to move anywhere.
7
The real answer for the Republican dilemma was, move leftward. Just a little bit. If keeping ideological purity means losing a bunch of elections, obviously a majority of people in the USA have come to dislike that ideology. Grow with the times. Half of Americans who are more conservative than the other half. Represent the sane portion of that half, not the ones who blow up federal buildings. Get elected more often. Solved.
62
@Andrew Their dilemma started when they embraced the moral majority. I will never again vote Republican while they cater to the religious right.
I will continue to be fisacally center-right and center left on cultural issues. That, I believe, is where the majority of over 40 Americans fall.
23
@Andrew
"If conservatives become convinced that they can not win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. The will reject democracy.”
― David Frum, Trumpocracy: The Corruption of the American Republic
30
@Andrew the last guy to blow up a federal building was Timothy McVeigh. I don’t think he was a Democrat.
13
It's amazing how this article could be so on point about the vast lengths the GOP will go to in order to deny democracy to the American people, yet still fall well short of an actual solution. There is no reason to wait on the GOP to trip and lose badly, especially when they will inevitably just double down on fascism. It is long past time to fundamentally restructure the pathway to earning and keeping political power in this nation, and to render parties functionally useless in their entirety. The GOP is far too captured by kleptocratic wealth, and their brand is anathema to too many people for them to ever recover, but our forced two-party system will always provide them with 50% of the nation's political legitimacy through sheer institutional momentum. The only way to break this power is to change our election system to ranked-choice style voting, in which we eliminate primaries in order to encourage as many candidates onto the ballot as possible. As long as First Past The Post elections are allowed to continue, the GOP will continue to try to win with the smallest pluralities of citizens possible.
9
To Levitsky and Ziblatt.
America is becoming a failed democracy on many counts. When are you going to talk about campaign finance and trace cause and effect?
What is our biggest campaign expense needing wealthy mega donor financing? Paid campaign ads on the media, that swamp and manipulate our voters in protracted campaigns. These ads also bring big profits to our news media. Not good.
Wikipedia --Campaign Advertising:
"Many countries restrict the use of media to broadcast political messaging. In the European Union, many countries do not permit paid-for TV or radio advertising for fear that wealthy groups will gain control of airtime, making fair play impossible and distorting the political debate in the process."
Imagine that! Our Supreme Court would call that 'big govt' interfering in freedom of speech per 1st Amendment to Constitution---as the court said in 2010 in Citizens United.
Most voters and many politicians now want to overturn CU to save our democracy. It's ignored in our media, yet affects everything--health care, gun laws, taxes, green energy, etc.
We need street protests nation wide, in whatever color vest we choose, to free our political system from dominance by corporations and their quest for profits. So Americans can get the basic rights and protections from their elected govt, that is the whole purpose of voting.
We stand in long lines to vote, but for choices we're offered in candidates and policies limited by wealthy donors.
4
It seems clear that only a huuuge defeat for the Republicans will change the party. They've already taken the side of authoritarianism, cemented with Trump's ascendacy, with very very few exceptions. 2020 is the year and getting out the vote and making sure they are all counted is the way to do it. The American people are better than this, they just need to show up and be counted.
3
@ Dr. John
"Did dirty play cause the Democrats to lose 1100 seats at the state and national level between 2009 and 2014?"
Yes, you have cited one of the prime examples of clever politics by (principally) the Koch brothers. They put 10's or 100's of millions into sleepy little state races before 2010, so at the redistricting mandated by the 2010 census, the state houses would be packed with Republicans. Armed with weapons-grade software that could adjust precinct lines almost to the individual house level, they drew some of the most gerrymandered maps ever.
The result: in states like PA and NC, the overall popular vote went to Dems, but Republicans were severely over-represented in the state houses (10/13 in NC, similar in PA).
You have hoisted yourself on your own petard.
6
Just over half of the eligible voters (58%) voted in 2016. It is more than just the faults of the Democratic and Republican parties that are hurting the US. It is that 42% of the voters couldn't be bothered. That is an enormous problem and I've not seen any plans to address it.
4
This essay on the dirty playbook of today's GOP gets so many things right that it is a shame the Times labels it an "opinion" piece.
It is a stark and timely reminder that we now live in a critical moment, one where the future of our democracy will be decided.
7
These are fearful, narrow-minded people, who foolishly believed, (despite centuries of evidence to the contrary), that the world and time would stand still for them.
Therefore desperate measures to try to hold back the transition of time are warranted for them.
Still I have to wonder why would anyone want to do this? What are Conservatives offering us that would make people flock to their banner?
Why would anyone want to be a part of the sadistic cruelty toward those they fear?
This fear of “the other” is a ruse to get elected. After all if Republicans ran on what they actually do once they’re in power such as slashing taxes for the rich, funneling the people’s money to their corporate friends, cutting protections for working people, refusing to invest in public works and infrastructure, privatizing public entities for corporations to make money..., if they actually used their true platform when running for office, who would vote for them?
So they have to cheat, rev up people’s fears to gain office and then proceed to do all of the above to the people who voted for them.
5
Everybody worships something and Republicans worship power. Their worship is an addiction as bad or worse than our countries opioid crisis. Because they're addicted to power they will always feel fearful so need even more power to keep their
fear and addiction at bay. Like addicts, they will stop at nothing to satisfy their addiction even betray family and country. It's no longer what's best for the people, it's all about satisfying their addiction.
5
Prior to the midterms Trump said that he would look closely at the results because Russia wanted the democrats to win. That statement was the first time the chill I felt turned to fear for your 2020 elections. He flipped the narrative because ‘no one has been tougher on Russian’ than Trump, and now Russia loves the
the left wingers, uh huh. It is blatantly obvious he will say and do anything to stay in power and with backing of the party he now owns your election had better be a landslide of epic proportions.
7
This made me laugh: "...And when one party engages in constitutional hardball, its rivals often feel compelled to respond in a tit-for-tat fashion, triggering an escalating conflict that is difficult to undo..."
What made me laugh is the fact that it is not true. Democrats do not engage in constitutional hardball. They do not have the nerve to do such things. Instead, they are milquetoasts who let the Republican Party stomp all over them and treat them like trash. Our elected Democrats running the House are flat-out cowards who adamantly refuse to do their job and impeach Trump. This is especially true of Speaker Pelosi, and this is why the Democrats are going to lose and lose BIG on election day. People do not vote for losers - they vote for people who get the job done.
3
The biggest threat to USA is not China, or Russia, or Islamic terrorism - it is the modern, authoritarian Republican party. It has to end soon. We, the people who have not drank the Fox News Kool-Aid, have to end the GOP cult at the polls in 2020.
7
The examples of overreach by the GOP amount to cries of a sore loser. It would have been foolhardy for the Republican Senate to confirm Obama’s Supreme Court nominee when the Presidential election was a few months away. In both North Carolina and Wisconsin the Republican legislative majorities did their job and passed legislation in 2016 and 2018. Last week, Democrats in North Carolina failed to show up when the legislature was is session and lost a vote on the budget. Boo hoo they didn’t know a vote might be held.
The suggestion that President Trump’s declaration of emergency with respect to funds to build wall along the southern border was a well-known alternative to the failure of congress to fund the wall in the regular budget. If Mr. Trump failed to use all of his power and discretion, he would be less of a President than his supporters believe him to be.
In fact, Mr. Trump has demonstrated that he is a moderate using the minimum of coercion necessary to make his point or achieve his ends. Often it takes no more than a Tweet. Sometimes bad or counterproductive regulations need to be rewritten and sometimes new deals need to be reached and old ones need to be ended. That is leadership, not overreach.
2
@Eugene Patrick Devany What “they didn’t know” was Republicans lied to them when the said there wouldn’t be a legislative session. As usual, Republicans needed to cheat to win.
And a “failure to fund the wall” was because it’s a horrible idea and a huge waste of money. Representative democracy does not mean “give POTUS whatever he/she wants”.
Trump’s UNPRECEDENTED use of emergency declarations is a double-edged sword, but I look forward to your support when a Democratic POTUS uses this power to attack climate change, voter suppression, bans on abortion and abortion funding, Government subsidies for health insurance, reduction of military spending, and immigration reform.
8
I’ve been reading your responses for years. You’ve become increasingly shrill as you embrace your inner authoritarian.
2
Why did Chump need to pilfer the military’s budget? He told us Mexico would pay for the wall. It makes no sense...unless Chump lied then cheated!
7
The philosophies of "take the high road" and even "if you can't fight clean, fight dirty" will always be playing catch up to the philosophy of "Always fight dirty and unethically".
“The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.” – John Kenneth Galbraith
6
Remarkable electoral gyrations so that Republicans can keep shoveling money to the wealthy. And to think a few mere policy changes might actually make them competitive without all the cheating. But, of course, to see that is beyond their flinty little eyes.
7
Our system of government depends precariously on the electorate's being smart enough to give power only to people of good will. Now that we've fatally lost that safeguard, what do we have left?
4
Why is the primary response to this, "But the Democrats [did something similar/are just as bad/fill in the 'what about' here]"? Why is dangerous and immoral behavior only countered with the "I know you are but what am I" type of childish response? Rhetorical questions to be sure but also frightening to see how we quickly turn on one another rather than understanding what is truly threatening our democracy and taking steps to protect our country from enemies, domestic and foreign.
5
All politicians play dirty games. But what the GOP is doing as a group is much worse. They played dirty games for the 8 years Obama was in office. They are now countenancing behavior that they would have impeached Obama for. They have no problem with Trump putting completely unqualified people in charge of things. (And if any one thinks Ivanka and Jared are qualified for anything I'd advise them to think again.) The GOP is not the party of working Americans. It's not the party of Lincoln either. It's the party of corrupt politicians who love the taste and smell of power and who don't want to work or play well with others to ensure that everyone has a chance to have a decent life.
8
The new name for the GOP is the Corrupt-Licans.
2
It’s because Democrats, by and large, are wimpy, spineless, feckless, appeasers. Pelosi and Schumer are in complete denial, still, against all evidence, convinced that if the play nicely with Mitch McConnell, he will be nice in return. Hopefully, an ascendency of Sanders, Warren, and OAC will end this. If not, the Democrats will continue to be Neville Chamberlain at Munich.
1
Your timeline is all wrong. The Republicans have always been the party of money: the Great Depression should have been the end of them except for Ike. Eisenhower's election to president allowed them to climb out of the dumpster of history. With Nixon as his VP, Ike sold his soul to the GOP to be president.
2
What we see here is rather than adapt to evolving demographics, Republicans choose to double down. Break a leg.
Did dirty play cause the Democrats to lose 1100 seats at the state and national level between 2009 and 2014?
Republicans need to learn that if they DON'T follow the rules, they will lose everything. Democrats need to hold them accountable. We are just as culpable if we let all of these transgressions slide.
347
@Chris What rules are the Republicans not following? The Dems are the ones changing the rules and not following even the ones they changed.
1
@Lawrence The golden rule.
21
@Chris
Obama was elected in large part on a wave of disgust with the Bush Administration.
Torture, illegal wars, illegal wiretapping, the list goes on and on.... but we 'moved on'. Why NOT hold people accountable?
The 'Occupy' movement was a nationwide statement that 'Things are WRONG, we need change' - that disorganized movement (by a large cross section of Americans) was crushed as if it was an existential threat to the US.
Republicans have been blatantly breaking the rules for some time. Nixon, Iran-CONTRA, and so much more.....
But then the Democrats have their own sins.
7
Ben Franklin said it best. We have a democracy - if we can keep it.
3
Survival of the fittest is often interpreted as survival of the fiercest in the jungle. However, it’s classical meaning is survival of those most able (or willing) to adapt to changes that occur in their environment. Change is perhaps the only constant that exists in our world. Everything is in a state of transformation, from the earth that is our home, to the social structures we create. Conservatives and the Republican Party may successfully resist the flow of change for a time. They may break the laws of the nation, but they cannot break the laws of nature forever. A time will come when they too must adapt or join the dinosaurs.
4
You left out one major driver: Trump.
The GOP knows he's a complete disaster. Whether they knew this in 2016 or not doesn't really matter anymore, because they've certainly known for a while now and they keep doing anything they can to keep him in office. Why? Because the moment he's gone or gets busted they will be held accountable for their enablement, and that combined with the other factors mentioned in this article all but guarantees the death of the GOP in national elections.
5
The Democratic strategy of moving to the middle pushed the Republican's to the far left.
Democrats acceptance of the wisdom of neoliberalism, popular in universities, started under President Carter with the deregulation of the airlines. Then President Clinton's strategy of triangulation won him the presidency.
Clinton presided over the deregulation of the financial and telecommunications industries, the promotion of free trade with the signing of NAFTA, and the major scale back of welfare programs. ( Even his proposed national health insurance program was based on the capitalistic structure of consumer choice of competing health plans.) Obama's programs, including Obamacare, followed suit.
All these policy changes would have been favored by Republicans in previous decades, with Democrats favoring more direct Government regulation of the economy and strengthening the safety net.
Unlike today, the past the Republican strategy at least often acknowledged the same major societal problems as the Democrats. It was Nixon who established the EPA. He also proposed a basic income for all citizens -- a proposal of Democratic presidential candidate Yang.
The Democrats can bring back a two party system with healthier working relationships, that can address our problems by supporting a frankly progressive platform. That will enable the Republicans, to do some triangulation of their own, and move back toward the center.
(Preventing future demagogues is a separate challenge.)
2
There is no 'science' in politics
There are way too many variables and unknowns to craft the double-blind experimental controlled tests that provide predictable and repeatable results that are the essence of science.
Political science is no more science than are economics or history or journalism or law or theology..
Political science is gender, color aka race, ethnicity, national origin, faith, history, law and socioeconomics plus arithmetic.
Political scientists are akin to charlatans fortune tellers, oracles, soothsayers, pundits, preachers, journalists, historians and politicians.
1
@Blackmamba That's incorrect. People vote primarily based on how they feel, not what they think, regardless of what they say their reasons are. The strongest feeling in the body is fear, and that's exactly why politicians use scare tactics and why there's always a boogeyman somewhere. It's applied psychology. Political scientists are experts at creating fear, and there's definitely some science behind that.
@Blackmamba
The term political science was used before physics was called science. Newton did Natural Philosophy. Hobbes and the big brains of the American Revolution did political science. Look it up.
Science (from the Latin word scientia, meaning "knowledge") is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe.
They don't represent us and they're desperate. Name the issue, they're on the other side from the majority on it; guns, health care, environment, consumer protection, tax break equality, the list goes on. Their patron saint, Ronald Reagan whose proclamations I doubt they'll disagree with revealed as much when he said "government is the problem". They've had a hard time winning Presidential election by popular vote lately and have had to resort to the long way around to prevail. There's a list many of us know of the cheap tactics they need to stay in the game, it only begins with gerrymandering. Preventing votes from the left getting to polling places and ballot shenanigans is the short game. The long game is keeping immigrants minimized is the long game. Republicans aren't even a political party so much as a syndicate that exists for the next time they can close to the treasury to rifle it disproportionately for the Boomerang Effect it'll result in from wealthy donors. How many times does that particular strategy have to be repeated for it to sink in? One statistic I read was 80% of the tax break went to the top 1%. We had a cup of coffee over "Wealth Disparity" earlier, then it got lost in the tweet forest. They'll have to go otherwise calling America a democracy will be wishful thinking. They don't represent us ...not really.
1
Democrats and Liberals have very short memories.
Long before Trump, the Democratic Party was decimated historically at the state and national levels between 2009 and 2014. They lost a thousand seats, causing them to lose the House, the Senate and their control of the majority of State legislatures.
Trump didn’t cause this.
The Russians did not cause this.
And Republicans “playing dirty” did not cause this.
What caused this political catastrophe was the Obama Administration, Nancy and Harry shoving through Obamacare by using some extraordinary political methods and procedures. They “played dirty” — to the tremendous disdain of the majority of American voters at all levels.
After all that, they still decided to stick with Hillary in 2016 despite all her “playing dirty” - causing them to lose the White House and the Supreme Court.
Their inability to recover from the disaster they themselves caused now drives them to blame Republicans for “playing dirty”.
3
@Dr. John That's interesting, because I remember those times too, and most of that shift that I witnessed firsthand was from racism.
4
@Dr. John
Apparently, so do you. The Merrick Garland episode happened in 2016, and Mitch McConnell was solely responsible for it.
3
@Dr. John And of course, people were so dissatisfied with Obamacare that Democrats retook the House by a landslide in 2018.
3
Wow! This really explains why Democrats have had such a gracious and easy time accepting the results of the 2016 election...
3
@toddchow
And conducting surveillance of the Trump campaign even after he won.
2
@toddchow
No, it explains the Republican/Conservative pathological obsession with "win at all costs" and "the end justifies the means." Both are bad public policy
"Until Republicans learn to compete fairly in a diverse society, our democratic institutions will be imperiled." Terrible last sentence to this piece. How about "decide" instead of "learn." Nothing new to learn, Republicans know what they're doing.
Political scoundrels exist on both sides. We enable the dirty players by voting for them. It's on us. All of them, those good and those bad, reflect who we are.
Like dirty bathwater, it's hard to keep the filth in one spot.
This isn't so much about party labels, rather there is a large constituency in the US that feels threatened by racial equality. They have contaminated the body politic for centuries.
That constituency festered in the Democratic Party -- leading to the Civil War and Jim Crow. New immigrants fought against newly-freed black labor that depressed wages and trade unions denied black membership. Truman upset those whites with desegregation of the military (the Dixiecrat revolt) and LBJ showed them the door in the 60's. Many bolted to George Wallace in '68 and Nixon in '72, proudly joining the "Party of Lincoln" and in time perverting it into the cesspool it is today.
3
This really started with Nixon and the multiple crimes he committed while in office. Reagan continued it with Iran-Contra the most-indicted administration in history. It was Reagan who began the full-on politicization of the Supreme Court.
Next came Newt Gingrich, who, unable to defeat the enormously popular Bill Clinton, resorted to a transparently bogus impeachment effort, aided and abetted by the now-disgraced former Baylor president Ken Starr, and his alcoholic-rapist assistant, Brett Kavanaugh.
Then Reagan and Bush's judges, led by the nakedly corrupt Thomas and Scalia -- who repeated refused to recuse themselves despite conflicts of interest -- handed the Presidency to Bush Jr. in a historically partisan decision.
Bush lied to Congress about WMD and Cheney lied to the public, saying that Iraq was responsible for 9/11.
Then came McConnell and the stolen Court seat, followed by Trump and far too much corruption and crime to list here.
3
In other word's, America's greatest enemy is not Russia, China, 'socialism', communism, Islam, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan or some other invented right-wing bogeyman, but rather it's greatest enemy is the Republican party management, funded by right-wing oligarchs, who steal democracy and elections for a rigged political and larcenous living.
In other word's, modern Republicansim is stunningly similar to Kremlinism.
Decent Americans do not vote Republican.
D for democracy; R for Russian-Republicanism.
November 3 2020
8
This isn’t playing hardball.
This is directly attacking the network of understandings, notions of fair play, faiths in democracy, good will and decency, traditions, and so on that underpin the Constitution (and indeed any set of laws) and make the whole shebang work.
Or to put it another way, it’s an attack on the Englightenment, on scientific method, on humanism itself, on everything that has made Western Civ work for the last thousand years. Why would you tear all that down, while shrieking about how Western Civ’s under attack from savages?
Why? Well, the first reason’s dimwit practicality. These guys just wanna win, and they couldn’t care less what happens after that.
A second reason is that some of these clowns are religious fanatics: they want the Enlightenment gone, they want humanism gone, and they want this with all the fervor of your basic Wahabi jihadist.
A third reason: they’re a mirror of capitalism. It’s capitalism, Jake: our economic system found the Enlightenment and so on useful, now it’s an impediment, so wipe it away. It’s not even laissez-faire or the gig economy: it’s D&G’s pure breaks and flows, across a purified society of the spectacle. (If you know what that means, okay...if not, you wouldn’t agree anyway.)
What we see is a pack of mindless, greedy, lying jerks who’re at least medium racist. That’s the tip of the proverbial, sure.
7
This is repulsive. it's hard not to hate Republicans right now.
4
History rhymes ...
Cronies, tariffs and sex scandals: Warren Harding was a lot like a certain someone we know
https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-schiller-harding-trump-20180802-story.html
Bets article I've read in a while.
3
The noblest question in the world is, What good may I do it?
B. Franklin. This question is never asked, or answered, by Republican politicians of our era.
1
It’s time to end the grifting nature of career political life and demand TERM LIMITS!
TERM LIMITS! NOW!
2
@Daniel
I disagree--we need to throw the bums out with our votes.
2
We are a long way from change. I was in the reception room of an auto repair facility the other day. There were 5 people in the room, including me, all of whom I know despise Trump. The 6th person was a very popular local business man and hard core Republican. He proceeded to command the entire room with his ideological garbage while everyone remained silent or were forced to feign cordiality. To me, this epitomizes Republicans today. Yes, they are fearful, but they also lack any self-awareness or sensitivity. They assume everyone agrees with them, when practically no one does. They simply don’t care about other people, only themselves.
3
If you have to abandon ethics and decency to win. If you are so afraid that your message isn't going to appeal to enough people on its own merits that you have to resort to lying and cheating to win, then maybe your message just isn't worth much afterall.
Some of us are old enough to remember when Republicans were a conservative, but decent group. Sadly not any more.
3
"American democracy faces a Catch-22: Republicans won’t abandon their white identity bunker strategy until they lose, but at the same time that strategy has made them so averse to losing they are willing to bend the rules to avoid this fate."
That is the blandest, gentlest "critique" of what Republicans are doing I think I've yet to read. Really, the lies, deceit, breaking of laws and outright stripping minorities of their rights is watered down to Republicans "willing to bend the rules" to keep their grasp on power?
2
Republicans serve their corporate masters; their goals are solely financial. Our constitution is only a means to those money-based ends, it’s not something that holds any larger meaning.
In fact our nation holds no larger meaning either. They shrug when a foreign power influences our elections.
It’s truly depressing that they can do this through cultural, racist, and “legal” means.
233
@BT
You are right.
But Republicans do not worship wealth alone.
They also want to turn the clock back so women can be forced to bear children they do not want. For this they are willing to not only make abortion illegal but also to make contraception difficult to obtain.
They want to turn back the clock on labor too. No fixed working hours, promote gig economy, keep wages stagnant so people have to work more than one job to make ends meet and have no time for family or community. Corporations can have all the power they want with the Supreme Court siding with them all the way.
They want to dismantle public education so religious schools will again be the once imparting education with ideas that put Intelligent Design over evolution.
Republicans not only want to move the country backwards, they just might want to take it all the way back to the middle ages.
25
@BT
Don't forget that it was Bill Clinton who sold the Democratic Party to Wall St and Hollywood, while ignoring the unions, cops, teachers, firefighters and the working class.
9
The failure of the Republican party to follow through on their examination of the outcome of the 2012 election, when they claimed to be open to more diverse membership, pointed the way to what they have done in the years since. In my first elections in the late 70’s/early 80’s, I conscientiously researched both parties’ nominees (although I never voted for a GOP presidential candidate.).
At this point, I cannot imagine voting for any Republican for national office, and I am wary of any nominee of the party because it has become so extreme and racist. With exceptions (McCain, Romney, Jindal), you can generally know people by the company they keep.
1
The author’s point about having both conservative and liberal views competing in the marketplace of ideas is well reasoned. The problem is that the center-right, particularly those in the media, has decided that rather than address the lack of center-right voices in the Republican Party, they will instead undermine the mainstream center-left of Democratic Party and sow intra-Democrat discord in an effort to install center-right politicians as Democrats. (See: Brooks, Stephens, et al).
This is why we have to endure nonsensical yet pundit sanctioned debates like whether Elizabeth Warren is a radical leftist when her policy ideas are well within the mainstream of most Democrats and of those left of center, and in many cases a majority of all Americans even with conservatives included.
4
I view the current "split" in the Democratic Party not so much as a problem, but rather as a prelude to the near future reduction of the Republican Party to the status of minor party like the Greens or the Libertarians.
Americans will only ever support two large parties. In the future these may will be the progressive Democrats and the centrist Democrats.
And the sooner the better.
5
There is a potential next level of this with the electoral college. Suppose Trump loses the electoral college and the popular vote (again) and the response is to use the power of the DOJ and Executive branch to intimidate/threaten the democratic electors to change their vote to Trump or face imprisonment of themselves or a loved one. Through these threats enough electors change their vote and through the electoral college, Trump is re-elected. Who would stop this?
1
The article fails to mention the Koch brothers and other far right Republican billionaires who have purchased the modern Republican Party, and made it an instrument of their will, which is anti-democratic to its core.
12
I don't see how refusing to fulfill the Senate's constitutional obligation of advise and consent on SCOTUS is "technically constitutional". Especially for "strict constructionists"/"originalists", there is nothing in that clause of the constitution that suggests advise and consent is "optional", at the discretion of the Senate. This was an unconstitutional act.
4
As a CA resident I've watched the GOP decline and while I welcomed it I am wondering what happens now. Jerry Brown was an excellent governor and functioned much like a moderate counterweight to the more progressive side, Gavin Newsom I believe is more progressive and while I tend to agree with more progressive policies I wonder how long CA can function as a one party state with no counterweight. Will the Democratic Party fracture, will the GOP somehow find enough moderate voices to function? Will a one party state continue to function?
5
@Duncan Agreed. Some of the contradictions in Democratic policy are so outrageous and injurious in this state. We open up the jails and set the prisoners free (Proposition 47, 2014) and then wonder why there's a homeless crisis. We encourage immigration (about eight million in CA born out of country), make construction more difficult through CEQA, and then wonder why housing is so expensive. Don't get me wrong, I'm a lifelong Democrat, but the cracks are showing, and I wonder as you do where we are going without an effective counterbalance.
1
Yeah, because housing the homeless in jails makes any sense at all, morally or practically
1
Alas, politics ain't beanbag.
We Dems tried to play by the rules for the most part and got burned for so doing.
I do not advocate jumping in the slime with modern Repubs, but our eyes need opening, as this article does, and we need to fight back intelligently and fairly, knowing our adversary will go to any length to win.
Too bad it has to be this way. A lot of us just trusted our elected officials to do the right thing, but, as Aristotle warned: Democracy requires constant vigilance. Men are not angels; they need supervision and regulation.
5
The bigger surprise is that North Carolina Democrats still play fair and believed Republicans.
And, that Joe Biden still thinks he can compromise with Republicans when and if he becomes president.
At some point Democrats have to take Republicans at face value and stop living in the land of “hope”, that went out with Obama.
While some hope is necessary for humanities mental health it can be disarming and naive when allowed to influence important decisions and lead a person and an entire country down a ruinous path.
Fight the good fight Democrats and never leave your guard down.
The constitutional Republicans of the old guard are no longer there, what is left is a party of scorched earth politics, so you can’t compromise until they have lost everything.
8
As a white male in my late 50's living in the South, I hear every day from otherwise sane people that "they're gonna take away our rights." I patiently tell them, "No, 'they' just want a seat at the table that we have controlled for years and years."
Fear of something different can be powerful. Politicians of both parties know that.
13
Republicans achieve that self-defeating and highly destructive goal by infusing aplenty of religion (read, Christian fundamentalism. more specifically evangelical) in both public policy and public education. In fact, it would not be wrong to say that overwhelming majority of Republican politicians are more than desperate to basically destroy public education through private/charter schools and home schooling, which are mostly religious in nature.
3
"Politicians who fail to win elections must be willing to accept defeat, go home, and get ready to play again the next day."
Or "call it a day" and choose to do something else in life other than electoral politics.
One of the pre-eminent examples of a meaningful post-presidency is Jimmy Carter. After being defeated for re-election in 1980, Carter went on to accomplish two hugely significant things. First, he led a global effort to eradicate guinea worm disease, thereby helping to save lives and alleviate unimaginable suffering in Africa. Second, he led monitoring in many countries, newly emerged from decades of dictatorship, that lacked strong institutions capable of guaranteeing free and fair elections.
Perhaps we are overdue for Carter's supervising elections in the United States, where a variety of voter suppression laws (including photoID requirements that are, for some, prohibitively expensive) and partisan gerrymandering have become commonplace tools-of-the-trade for Republicans' corrupt hold on political power.
9
Republicans don't have to accept their demographic fate. This may be anecdotal, but I have a good friend who is republican, yet refuses to vote for many of their candidates these days *because* of their current policy stances. He believes in free markets and less-is-more approach to government. He also wants to see something done about climate change and supports a push for renewable energy sources that would make the US energy independent. He wants to see fair, equitable immigration laws, not a 'moronic' dumping of 'billions of dollars in the desert' (his words, not mine). He supports gay rights and abortion rights and sees these as non-issues. He supports a highly regulated, market-based health insurance market and thinks we just need to improve Obamacare. He wants the federal government to brainstorm action on student debt and he believes the national budget should always be balanced.
The problem is, the Republican Party of Trump doesn't seem to support ANY of these policy stances, even the ones that traditionally were part of their repertoire. Republicans are their own worst enemy here. If they want young Republicans to stick with the party, they're going to need to change their act up in a hurry. My buddy has been voting Democrat, despite his reservations, because the Republicans give him no alternative. I don't think he's the only one either. This is the point where Republicans need to adapt, or become irrelevant when all their supporters die of old age.
8
This time around, things are different. It isn't just Republicans.
The country is going down, and you can feel it. In the crude lyrics of songs, in the mental health crisis, in the addiction industry. In the homeless camps, in "Breaking Bad," in Purdue Pharma, in Republicans abandoning their ideology to survive, in endless wars which cannot be won because no one knows what it means to win.
America was riding high for a few centuries based on artificially inexpensive labor (slavery and a desperate workforce of Europeasants), artificially low resource prices, especially oil before OPEC; well-crafted agreements such as the Marshall Plan, NAFTA, etc. that assured American economic hegemony; and of course our massive military. But that model has been in decline for decades, and we are flailing about searching for answers.
Some think the problem is racism, some sexism, some capitalism. Some think the problem is lack of religion. Some think it's ethnic diversity and immigration. Some overpopulation. Corruption. Money in politics. No one really knows, but we all see it going down. In this sense, there is something quite sad about our ignorant president trying to make America great again. Him?
In fact, it is simply our model of capitalist democracy that is going down. Like the German aristocrats and militarists, like the Ottomans before the First World War, like the Southern slave society, there is nothing to replace it.
O brave new world.
4
Fortunately the Democrats have not yet figured out that sacrificing ethics is the cheap, easy way for them to regain some majorities. There is still time for the public to come to understand where their best interests really are. We seem to be at a make or break point, in terms of whether the US can retain virtue (or at least the hallucination of such) or not.
2
Unfortunately the Republican Party is like a rabid dog. You are not going to negotiate with them, reason with them or be able to appease them. In the past, civil war was very likely. Now, I am hoping that the 2020 election literally drives them out of existence, but I am probably dreaming. Unfortunately, we are going to face some very unpleasant decisions in the next few years. And there are not any good answers. Prepare yourselves.
6
Like your analogy. Rapid dogs have to meet their end so spread of infection stops. Then their head gets cut off and sent to a lab for investigation and confirmation. Can’t come soon enough.
1
Ten years from now a freshly bifurcated Democratic party will make our political landscape look pretty much like 1980. So there really isn't a GOP any more.The majority of Americans are true-blue Liberals and Republicans who are disgusted by what Trump has done. So where will the Trumpists be? Who cares.
2
The US doesn't need the Republican Party although we do need two parties.
We absolutely can have a flourishing democracy with a Progressive Party and a Moderate Party created out of the Democratic Party.
I for one hope for and will continue to work for an utterly vanquished Republican Party in 2020. Good luck to American conservatives coming up with a new leadership and agenda.
4
Republicans are "in it to win it!" They're not fooling around. This has been clear for the last few decades. They believe themselves to be the rightful rulers of America and are willing to do what it takes to win. Democrats. Not so much. Democrats think their kumbaya approach will eventually win out. It hasn't. Republicans play dirty because it works. They are supposed to be the minority party but until Democrats took over the House last year Republicans controlled much of federal, state and local governments. Democrats need not play dirty put they do need to push back and don't back down!
3
They can only maintain power by breaking the rules. They lost the popular vote, they suppress voting, encourage gerrymandering , accept out side foreign lies , use FOX and others as their propaganda outlets, support the obvious lies and misinformation by Trump, anything to keep their jobs.
4
When Republicans can’t win via democracy, they will dump democracy before they dump their Republican views.
They are un-American to the core, and everyone knows it.
5
Tell us something we don't know.
These people are right. There is no place for the "modern" republikan in a productive and respectful society going forward. I get why they feel like they're in a death struggle.
But we don't need to further analyze or understand them. We need to vote in enough numbers to finish the job.
2
The GOP does not support democracy. They want a Republic as envisioned by the Founding Fathers: white Christian men of property govern the country. Women do not vote. African-Americans are only 3/5ths of a person - they have no vote, but partly count towards the distribution of seats in the House. Native Americans do not vote - and are systematically pushed off their land.
I still try to speak to Republicans, but they are filled with hate towards immigrants, non-Christians (especially Muslims, but also towards other religious communities) and often against the LGBTQ community.
Reading how the Wiemar Republic collapsed is something everyone should do.
6
Before Trump....
By 2015, Democrats had lost 13 senate seats, 69 house seats, 12 governorships, 30 state legislative chambers and over 900 state legislative seats from what they held in 2009.
They are still struggling to recover from those Obama-induced losses.
1
@Dr. John That's because the GOP made a pact with the devil and learned how to gerrymander every little place they could to keep white men in power. A, sadly, very effective plan.
2
This article is an understatement. If you really want to know how bad it has been read: 1) Democracy in Chains by Nancy MacLean and 2) Kochland by Christopher Leonard.
4
@Tom Cayton
I'd recommend adding Thomas Frank's _The Wrecking Crew — How Conservatives Rule_ and Rick Perlstein's _Nixonland — The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America_ (both published in 2008) to the reading list.
As Frank reports, the scorched-earth program of Republican Party politicking dates back further even Reagan & Norquist. And Perlstein covers the rise of the so-called "Southern Strategy" which reshaped the Republican Party in the aftermath of LBJ's civil rights & voting rights legislation.
4
Senator Graham projected it best during the Kavanaugh hearings when literally screamed “all you want is power!”
Indeed.
6
When propagandists communicate to their target audiences, they do so with articles like this.
The opposition won't read it anyway for the most part and those that do will write comments like this one.
Some fence-sitters may read it and it won't persuade them because it is an obviously one-sided and false narrative.
The party loyalists will take its content on faith and never question any assumptions or assertions.
Thus, the only value such a piece has is to ensure the loyalists have a constant stream of gruel to keep them where they are.
In that respect, a piece such as this is, truly, pointless.
1
You are right to an extent. When dealing with people like yourself that are so ideologically stunted that they idolize Ayn Rand in their moniker, this article won’t have much effect. Fortunately (whether you realize it or not), you are very far from having the slightest chance at being a majority. You can support the dirty tactics for a while, but you will eventually starve from a lack of substance.
2
It's easy to say the GOP has no values, ethics, morals etc., but the real point of their desperation is they have no future. The younger generations look at their scared geriatric hate-base of bigots, misogynists and Dominionists and say "not a chance.'
6
What's truly discouraging is the way Republicans rationalize their destruction of political and legal norms, the assumption that "everyone is doing it" so they are justified in whatever actions they take. The reality is that not everyone cheats, not all politicians lie, the media are not corrupt and voters are not stupid.
By untethering themselves from all moral boundaries and norms, the Republicans have destroyed their party and its legacy. They've become radicals, not conservatives, and only make their unelectability problem worse... No wonder that they seem to have given up on democracy altogether.
But if you can't win playing by the rules, maybe you shouldn't stay in the game. Or perhaps you should re-think your priorities.
3
he Republicans are a minority party that can only win by trickery. Remember Reagan’s secret deal with the Iranians in 1980 not to release hostages until he was elected?.. and the 2000 GW Bush election fraud in Florida aided and abetted by the Supreme Court?
In 2016 the ignorant, vulgar racist Trump lost the popular vote by 3 million. The Republican Party willingly accepted massive help from the Russians to reach their goals and had already put in place a systematic nationwide gerrymandering to facilitate voter suppression. To stir up their base, the Republicans launched a major wave of racism after the election of our first black president, Barack Obama. Republican Party leaders pledged to block every move Obama would ever make. They paved the way for Birther Trump.
The Republican Party has lost is way as a legitimate political force. The two-party system is failing along with our democracy.
4
The Republicans play dirty. The Democrats too play dirty.
But, luckily, the Media don't play dirty.
Well, actually, maybe they do - but since they're the ones doing it, they don't report on it. Therefore, it doesn't exist.
1
They are bandits, plain and simple.
3
Finally, someone has stated the truth about Republicans without resorting to “pretty much,” “somewhat,” “a little bit,” and “more-or-less.” The only good Republicans are dead Republicans, like Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt.
4
What is interesting is in Salt Lake City the last election found many many fraudulent ballots. They were from the parents of missionaries who sign their child's ballot. Where they prosecuted NO. It was published and they forgave them because they just thought it was okay. Now this is a very Republican state and the democrats have NO say but that county actually elected a democrat representative because the republican was so out of touch. But it was so close. But why weren't they punished? We had one town all vote twice. On mail in ballots and same day voting. There are only 600 registered residents. and a 800 votes were recorded. Now were they prosecuted. Nope they plead stupidity
5
“Why Republicans Play Dirty”. Because they can without retribution. The Democrats are cowards. They have never absorbed the lesson about fighting ‘fire with fire’.
2
What a lot of negativity towards the Republicans. Oh heck, I agree. Since they no longer believe in democracy, they deserve all the hate we can give. And if they can't get elected, too bad!
3
If your Democrats would give the Americana something to vote for like the Republicans do (as nasty as most their ideas are) then articles like this need not be written in liberal newspapers.
WOW! Does this mean you have forgotten about all the dirty tricks, lies and misconduct by Democrats. Look back, they are some of the nastiest and none are good for the people of America. Republican or Democrat, politicians play dirty and the party, left or right do not govern for the people of America. Term limits would go far to address this travesty and bring back the "For the People, By the People" this country was founded under.
28
@Tommy2 Kindly follow up with a listing of the Democrats' selfish use of power, compare the lists and analyze possible causes and effects. I understand part of your point, but you're thinking in black and white.
64
None of which you cite. False equivalence does not form a basis for a meaningful discussion of such great importance.
103
@Tommy2 Not really sure what you are talking about here. The authors went to great lengths to detail the decades of dirty tricks by Southern Democrats.
65
This is a very well stated opinion. Certainly, the Democrats are not perfect. If we want a more perfect government that responds to the will of the people, it needs to be selected by “the people.” We need to do with the overwhelming influence of money on government. We need to get rid of Citizens United. We need fair districts. We need universal suffrage without voter suppression.
To accomplish this join makeitfair.us. Look up the American anti-corruption act and support it. Help get money out of politics.
3
Thank you for an excellent piece, NYT. I would encourage the writers of this column to take their research one step further and trace the origins of the current Republican actions and mind set. The chronology of the party's evolution (devolution?) seems to parallel the rise of the hard right media (the morning and evening hosts on Fox, Breitbart, Rush Limbaugh and his ilk).
I suspect the more inflammatory the messages became from these outlets, the dirtier the Republicans played ("Pizzagate," the murder of Seth Rich, birtherism, Merrick Garland, the Sandy Hook slaughter portrayed as a hoax, etc.). With the far right GOP base seemingly believing anything emanating from these mouthpieces, the politicians found it was simply easier to placate that base rather than compromise or push back. To be chastised by Fox, ridiculed by Trump and then then face a primary challenger, GOP politicians chose to say no to everything or subvert rules and norms to remain in power. In other words, any means to justify the end.
When opinions from Hannity and Limbaugh are presented... and then believed... as facts, we're in perilous waters.
7
The Republicans see the writing on the wall. They understand that time, demographics, and their own anti-capitalist anti-empiricism are against them. Their attitudes are stranded assets, whether it's anti-renewable energy, anti-vaxxing, anti-climate change, anti-evolution, anti-gays, theological government, or any other losing investment. It's like having trunk-loads of Confederate cash: they're stuck with fervent beliefs that nobody will take, even among each other.
Trump rallies are exercises in the delusion that any of this merits a golden future. Trump sells them the lie that their worldview is right and deserves to endure, and for an evening they believe it, but they're proven wrong before the echoes die. They can't secede from reality.
When they lie and cheat as the authors describe here, the primary gratification is visceral. They'll certainly damage their own interests, even their own health and families, if it might "trigger the libs" and cause anguish to the people they detest.
The authors say, "Until Republicans learn to compete fairly in a diverse society, our democratic institutions will be imperiled." That's exactly the point now. They won't learn. They don't want fairness. They want to imperil what they hate. From here on, their most potent forms of political participation will be vandalism against institutions, interference with process, flouting fairness, and revenge including domestic terrorism.
7
I find that whenever Republicans have no cogent argument they use false equivalency as their defense. Sad.
5
President Trump said early on there would be so much winning we’d be bored.
Apparently enough of us are too bored to keep what is now a naked power grab from happening.
The GOP gets it - they unite to win. Those who don’t like this style of winning (or be associated with it or in office when things hit the fan) are announcing retirements.
Meanwhile, the Democratic Party engages in purity tests and circular firing squads, making it easier for the GOP.
191
@historyRepeated
"Uniting" is MUCH easier under an autocracy than democracy.
Imagine for a moment the debates representing a competitive power grab. What would be better?: Imagine the wannabe's deciding among themselves and getting behind a united ticket. What is the public doesn't like the choice?
I'm tired of people saying that Dems are as bad. That is black and white thinking. Black and white thinking blocks out so much of reality, first, and second, people who think in b&w are specifically fearful of unknowns. The ostrich gets shot in the end.
19
@historyRepeated
"Master of the Obvious" Pelosi says:
"So we just have to uphold the law."
Ya think, Nancy?
Could there be a more dithering useless
Speaker?
More of Pelosi's astute Whistleblower comments:
“Well, the law says that the DNI should send the information, shall, not should,
shall send that information to Congress," Pelosi told CNN.
So are you sure Nancy? Should or Shall?
And wait, here are even more Pelosi profundities:
"So the LAW is the LAW.
"So, we just have to uphold the law.”
What more can we say?
2
@historyRepeated
The power of the Republican Party comes from the unifying power of wealth and profit. That is their Life. It gets and keeps Republican's marching in step. And is as easy to see as the daily Wall Street Journal.
Democrats really do want Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. This is a much messier proposition, but an important one. I believe that the Democrats will find their way to a common vision and a leader committed to that vision. But it is a much harder and more gratifying process.
8
another key factor here - the influence of a corporate mindset regarding human relationships. How many companies act like a democracy? The republican leadership sees no more value in the average voters opinion than a CEO sees in the thoughts of the average worker. Yet we turn to business leaders like Trump and Bush and expect them to act differently than their day to day life trained them for decades.
3
Both sides think the other side plays dirty, and they do. It's a question of what, if anything will be done about it. I'm not optimistic!
@Chris
There is a clear difference of kind, and not merely degree, between the current manifestation of the two parties. That you refuse to see it is disappointing, as it's explained quite cogently in this essay. Please note that the Dems are not doing any of the sleazy things described.
2
Bill Maher has said that Trump is not going anywhere, regardless of the outcome of the election, and I think that prediction is less far-fetched with each passing day. Our democracy is in great peril. The authors of this op-ed hold out hope for an electoral "thrashing" of the Republicans next year. But if Trump loses narrowly, I believe neither he nor his party will accept the results. And the authors do not even mention Bush v. Gore, which was nearly 20 years ago and was a turning point. Things have continued to worsen in the 20 years since the Supreme Court stole the election with that appalling decision.
13
"The only way out of this situation is for the Republican Party to become more diverse." Republicans looked at that option after 2012 (the "autopsy') and rejected it. They have clearly committed to doing whatever it takes--democratic or undemocratic, legal or illegal, peaceful or violent--to stay in power. The only question is how far they can go before Democrats and the few remaining conservatives who still believe American democracy is worth preserving acknowledge that the threat they represent has become existential, and that playing by the rules doesn't work when only one side does it.
4
@Sea-attle: I do not believe we can expect to get Constitutional Amendments passed any more substantial than say one declaring “henceforth all puppies, kittens and babies shall be referred to as cute” in the foreseeable future for one simple reason. There will never be sufficient votes for them. Remember it takes a 2/3 vote in each chamber of Congress then 3/4 of the States must ratify the Amendment. It is difficult to believe , for example, there wouldn’t be 13 States that would not ratify popular election of the President. And as long as there’s a Conservative majority on SCOTUS, there’ll be no action on Gerrymandering (apparently they believe they cannot make satisfactory decisions on districting, though States like PA and VA seem to have done just that!)
2
But who is really pulling the puppet strings of our politicians? Corporate interests seem to corrupt even a culturally diverse party. "We elected you to protect our money, and we don't care how you do it."
1
Excellent article, I have for some time concluded the same thesis that Levitsky and Ziblatt so well argue. My next concern is that the Democrats got their issues and talking points in the 2018 election about spot on: protect health care, the environment worker's rights and minimum wage. Now I am dismayed how they have drifted into lala land with fantastical propositions on health care, immigration, education the environment and tax policies. Warren and Sanders are the worst. They keep giving the Republicans more and more ammunition with which to swamp every Democrat from the city council seat to the eventual presidential nominee. It's our election to loose. Quit loosing it.
2
Great piece. Scary, but great. I especially appreciated the references to 1930's Germany. Everything about the last few years has felt eerily like the run up to the end of Germany's democracy and WWII.
The grievance mindset. The angry scream for lost glory. The purposeful destruction of institutions. All too familiar.
14
"They fear that if they stick to the rules, they will lose everything."
And Republicans are right. In most states and communities, and overall nationwide, Republicans cannot win on a level playing field. This is because they represent the genuine interests of only a very small percentage of the electorate. This percentage is considerably smaller than most people presume -- I doubt that it is greater than 5%, and indeed it may be a considerably lower percentage even than that.
So they MUST cheat in order to be even remotely competitive. Their first line of cheating is to conceal or misrepresent their true purposes and the effects that their policies, if implemented, will have on people's lives. There is a shorter name for this: "Lying."
Their second line is fearmongering, the creation of bogeymen under the bed. Their current favorite is immigrants, who they paint as terrorists, thieves, rapists and whatnot.
Third is pandering to emotionality and prejudice to the exclusion of fact and reason, things like the faux-religiosity of the anti-abortion crowd and the bigotry of racism.
Fourth are setting impediments to the electoral expression of the people's will, with such things as onerous registration and ID requirements, inconvenient location and inadequate equipping of polling places, and purging voter rolls.
Fifth is outright cheating, as we saw in North Carolina's 9th district.
And the last is new -- foreign interference.
And that is how Republicans survive.
10
The error in this column is the assertion that Republicans (and conservatives generally) don't have an ideological hostility to democracy. They do. They have been willing to maintain the outward forms of democratic governance so long as those can be manipulated to ratify traditional structures of power, wealth, status, and privilege, but let democracy begin to threaten those hierarchies and they will subvert and even openly attack democracy. That's what is happening in the US now.
10
Not to worry; Pelosi says Trump will self impeach; the best approach is not to get the Republicans angry.
I think that's a rabbit technique; play dead, maybe the fox won't eat you.
3
Embarrassed for the Australian pm who tries to get in his one liner compliment while Trump is giving his stump speech.
This essay starts with a bang and ends with a whimper. The solution to this problem is for the Republican Party to die and for the violent and racist constituencies that it has elevated to be buried in obscurity. But the only way that is going to happen is for others, including the authors, to stop coddling them.
6
Yes, the GOP is the Rump Confederacy in thought, word and deed. Since Nixon's Southern Strategy, Ronald Reagan, and Lee Atwater. Trump is merely the nadir of the downward deviancy such policies have let loose.
4
"Scoundrels under the law of Torah." Doing wrong within the lines.
1
Oh, only Republicans play dirty. End of reading for this article.
2
@NYT reader: at this time, it certainly seems that it’s the not-so-G OP that’s too blame! Voter suppression-Red States, Gerrymandering-Red States. Merrill Garland- Republican McConnell.
Congressional Oversight Committees not checking into Administration- Republicans (Remember Nunes?).
In the old days the big city “machine” from Boss Tweed and Tammany Hall In NY through to Daley’s Chicago (mostly Democratic) acted equally corruptly, but that leadership has gone so it’s been left to Republican State and National pols. To pursue the anti-democratic tactics.
The base for these tactics was the South, so until the 60s it was Southern Democrats. But LBJ’s Civil Rights Acts caused these “honorable men” to depart en masse to the Republicans!
And how would you know it’s only Republicans blamed without reading the whole thing?
If you’re confident in the political future there’s no need for these tactics. Not saying that everything is kosher in Utah politics, but no need to even consider unethical tactics there, for example.
1
What would happen if — instead of getting hurt feelings, closing your mind, and posting a reply — you read the whole article, honestly compared the behavior of both parties, and thoughtfully compared their relative crimes against our democratic ideals? Do you think it’s impossible for a reasonably intelligent person to transcend “yeah-but-you-did” thinking?
Give me a break, Democrats are not mother Teresa either
3
@Al Mother Theresa took loads of dirty money from tyrants and dictators while withholding cheap painkillers from dying patients. She was no Mother Theresa, either. (Christopher Hitchens wrote it all down.)
There is a clear difference in kind, and not merely degree, between the two parties. Many are listed here. Please sharpen your critical reading/thinking skills.
3
No shades of grey? A political party is either Mother Teresa or the Devil?
No wonder we’re in the mess we’re in.
1
You know it's just not a "threat" to democratic stability, right? Our time as a stable democracy has already concluded - at least for now.
1
When you only represent the economic interests of a small minority, you cannot afford to have democracy break out. The Republican Party is a natural minority party; if everyone showed up and voted their self interest, they would not get 5% of the vote in any election. Of course, the party representing the economic elite has been scamming--or suppressing--ordinary citizen voters going back to the Federalists. If you are interested in the fate of democracy, let me recommend The Long Southern Strategy by Angie Maxwell and Todd Shields. It documents in detail how the Republican Party has southernized American politics since 1960 using race, misogyny, and fundamentalist religion while promoting a them vs. us approach to politics that this piece talks about.
2
"Until Republicans learn to compete fairly in a diverse society, our democratic institutions will be imperiled.".
Good grief, Republicans control virtually everything. Why on earth would they play fairly? The more important question is: what are Democrats going to DO to stop this disaster? I don't see them doing anything meaningful.
1
The authors point out that "A stunning 90 percent of House Republicans are white men" showing that preservation of patriarchal privilege is another important principle.
Though I have never found Republican females any less ferocious defenders of their own privilege than the males they would at least look more diversified.
2
The problem may lie deep in conservative ideology. A tendency to see the world as black vs. white, us vs. them, with no gray areas does not lend itself well to TOLERANCE OF THE OTHER. So they tell themselves that there can be no tolerance at all and therefore only 'freedom' for those in their tribe.
If the USA's democracy survives President Bankrupt the GOP will be discredited for generations, or possibly even dissolved.
2
A lot of sound points here but I think one key one is missing.
Right-wing politics in the USA and Britain is characterised by the enormous gap between the leaders - men of great wealth and their hired hands and the vast bulk of their voters. They have nothing in common but gender and race/nationality.
Progressives should have much more to offer to the vast majority of people who vote for Trump or our posh version in the UK. We will never change the attitudes of right-wing leaders and should not even try. We can offer most of their voters better jobs, health care and education for a start along with a cleaner and safer environment.
To do this you need to understand what attracts working or middle-class people to vote for right-wing economics sweetened with nationalism. In most cases, it is not bigotry or stupidity (Mrs. Clinton's "undesirables"?). It is vulnerability, which can be played on and manipulated if you have enough media power (no need to name names but are Facebook starting to get close to the Republicans?). That means that taking on the right requires unremitting confrontation with their leaders but understanding of many of their followers.
3
The ultimate “playing dirty” is using government powers, procedures and resources to conduct the surveillance of a Presidential campaign. And for that surveillance to continue after that candidate is elected is obscene and very likely illegal.
2
@Dr. John You’re really stuck on this Fox talking point. Investigating Trump campaign collusion with the Russians was mandatory. Their only mistake was not publicizing it before the election.
5
There’s never been any reason to spy on Trump, as he’s so forthcoming and public about his stupidity and incompetence. One of Trump’s talents is his effortless ability to implant laughable conspiracy theories into his addle-minded followers’ imaginations. It’s easier to forget you’re a jobless failure if you can obsess about “obscene surveillance.”
1
they are low lives - period - not just politically.
2
If Republicans do these things out of fear for themselves "and their constituency," how does this explain their denial of climate change? How does this explain their allowing the EPA to be infiltrated by the oil industry? It's not just fear of an existential threat to white men. It's the love of money.
1
"Liberal democracy has historically required at least two competing parties committed to playing the democratic game, including one that typically represents conservative interests."
Here in the US, we already have a party that typically represents conservative interests: the mainstream Democratic Party. And of course we have the oil billionaire-funded Far-Right slash-and-burn party. What we do not have is a functioning left-wing party.
3
The Republican Party, as an institution, is a danger to the rule of law and the integrity of our democracy.
The problem is not just Donald Trump, it’s Republicans conscious decision to collaborate with him.
The best hope of defending the country from Trump’s Republican enablers is to vote against Republicans at every opportunity, until the party either rights itself or implodes.
1
In order to pursue a true representative democracy, the two parties need to be broken up as the anachronistic duopoly they are. I have no idea how they can happen but new ideas need to flow from new entities. It could start with taking corporate money out of course but an environment that affords access to more ideas that would revitalize how Congress gets things done. Party machinery of both parties are destroying our discourse across American life. We need branded, nuanced, broader, diverse political representation that cuts across the political spectrum. Libertarians, socialists, a Trump party, center-left, center-right, farm/agricultural, Greens, UBI, etc.
You can take attitudes toward needing to win a bit further than was done in this article. The need to both win and uphold the structure of government tends to keep conflict in politics and general social acceptance of the result. The need to win even if it tears down structures of government tends to bring conflict into society as there is always a loser feeling victimized. Not leading toward a healthy future.
There hasn't been a Republican majority since Franklin Roosevelt was inaugurated, and today's GOP'ers know it. So today they find themselves routinely undermining our country's democratic norms and institutions. Trump is just their most effective wrecking ball yet. Despite the dangers inherent in one party rule, most current Republican office holders need to be replaced by moderate Democrats. I know, very un-woke of me, but our country depends on it.
This is not ok. They should lose everything when they risk ruining democracy.
I guess it's a matter of values. What's more important, their right to steal stuff from the public or the public's right to have a government that works for them?
The question should be, why do the Democrats let the Republicans roll over them, time and time again? The only answer I can come up with is that they are owned by the same corporations that own the GOP. They are paid to throw the fight.
3
The Republicans are playing the same dirty game here in FL. In the last election, the people of Florida voted by a wide margin for a constitutional amendment restoring voting rights to felons who had completed their sentences. The Republican legislature, fearing hundreds of thousands of new minority and low income voters being added to the roles, are attempting to prevent full implementation of the approved amendment by adding a requirement, not in the amendment text, that ex-felons must also have paid all fines and fees. In effect, they are adding a poll tax to the amendment, knowing that many ex-felons will find it difficult to pay and will, therefore, remain disenfranchised.
4
Republicans will not give up power. A national emergency will be declared prior to the 2020 elections due to "voter fraud and election meddling caused by the Demicratic party and the deep state". People will protest so martial law will be declared to secure national security. Prominent opposition leaders will be arrested, protesters will be killed. This will continue until the rest of us are scared into submission. The Republicans control the courts, the police, and the military. Congress is irrelevant. They can pass all the laws they want, but those laws will be struck down, tied up in appeals, or simply not enforced.
3
Republicans also tend to think of themselves as the party of morality (e.g., on abortion) and of patriotism (e.g., waving the flag). So they may feel that they have a right to ignore the rules.
6
At the outset, Levitsky and Ziblatt claim that hardball tactics are not ideological, but by the end of the essay, they suggest that a way forward would be to make the GOP more like the rest of America: more women and more people of color. The fact that Republicans have not done this points clearly to the fact that this *is* ideological, in the same way that post-bellum white supremacy and early 20th-century aristocratic movements were ideological. If the GOP brought in more women and POC, they would not be the same ideological party. And that is what this is all about.
5
All I can say is that in California, the GOP descended into a bunch of loopy, very shortsighted people. This really started happening after they became a permanent minority party. They became a magnet for bizarre people. (Jerry Brown used the phrase ‘magical thinking’ sometimes to refer to various ideas that floated around. The GOP has a lot of that.)
If anything, they just remind me of old people shouting at their television sets. It is unpleasant to watch.
Not that Democrats are the ultimate panacea, but at least they can look into the future, and they can call each other names.
California’s electoral districts are not gerrymandered too, which helps bring in a diversity of opinion, and the general election can be a face-off between two members of the same party. It is a moderating influence that might actually be a better way of perpetuating one party control. If you can’t gerrymander and the GOP voters are forced to vote for a democrat in the general election, you are forced to deliver your promises and you can’t enrage too many voters.
1
Democrats have a bad practice of bringing a knife to a gunfight. (A little plastic knife at that)
When Dem's retake the White House, and probably a majority in the Senate, in 2021 they need to be sure that Federal and State investigations into Trump, his family, and his associates go fully ahead. In the process uncovering the cover-ups committed by members of his cabinet and members of Congress. Take them down, exposing the lies daily.
Next, even before tackling healthcare and the environment, and while countermanding all Trump's rules with Executive Order, the Dem's should 1) Grant Statehood to DC and Puerto Rico. (4 reliably Democratic senators), 2) expand the Supreme Court, 3) change the apportionment rules of the House of Rep's to better align with population growth.
Ridding us of the electoral college and changing how Senators are apportioned would require Constitutional Amendments and are too big a lift, and could not be accomplished in 2-4 years. These three are things that can be done by legislative action. Then, in 2025, with a majority of States controlled by Democrats the Constitutional Amendments can be tackled.
Michelle Obama's sentiment that when they go low we go high needs to be put on the shelf. Great sentiment but will not get the job done.
Unfortunately the Dem's don't have the fortitude for it.
3
Why do they attack the person instead of policy? When they attack policy why does it always involve straw men and phrases that invoke emotion over ration though such as the word socialism?
Why are they more organized? They aren’t more organized what they have are massive money machines that allow them to constantly politic while the rest of us have to participate after work when we have time.
4
My sense is that Republican politicians have been gaming the system not just because of voter demographics, but because they no longer stand for anything people want to vote for. They used to be the voice of balanced budgets, a strong military, global U.S. leadership, family, religion, and individual responsibility. But in the last decade-plus all they've talked about are tax cuts (primarily for the donor class) and how worried everyone should be about Democrats. So Republican politicians, I have a suggestion for you: propose some ideas that actually benefit the average American... instead of benefitting only yourselves. Earn your votes.
11
@G Pecos
It's worse than a decade-plus problem.
An elderly friend of mine is very close with a woman in the Midwest who at one time was a very high-profile Republican state justice. I wanted her to answer a question, and he texted her for me. My question, "When was the last time the Republican Party passed legislation that unequivocally produced a net benefit for a majority of the US populace?"
Her answer: "Not since Eisenhower."
2
GOP, Grand OLD Party. True about being old and uninspired with nothing new to offer anyone except their greed and hubris.
So the only way that they can win anything is by cheating and misrepresentation!
9
This is not Dwight Eisenhower's Republican Party. They play dirty -- really dirty. The Democrats don't seem ready to deal with the new reality. Most recently, Corey Lewandowski spent five hours mocking and taunting the House Judiciary Committee. Was he held in contempt? Nope. Once again, the lesson seems to be that Republicans can misbehave with impunity.
13
"Republican leaders are not driven by an intrinsic or ideological contempt for democracy. They are driven by fear."
They are driven by a fear of democracy. Which is in itself, contempt for that democracy.
The republican party went all in trying to subvert, and make meaningless, the presidential elections of 1992, 1996, 2000, 2008. and 2012.
They committed some form of sedition when 22 of them met secretly in 2009 to vow not to give Obama, and by extension the American people, any wins or accomplishments.
The republican danger to our democracy is real, but the real threat comes from the dark money supplied by those billionaires who really DON'T believe in democracy.
They have been promoting an American fascism for over a half century that is designed to cement into the fabric of our Nation the economic, and status, inequality that we see today.
The average voter wants the fruits of a liberal society: Health care; worker's rights; a thriving economy; and the weekend. They don't really want to live in poverty; but, you know, abortion.
If republicans (can we please stop calling these people conservatives, they are not) are not so thoroughly vanquished in next year's election that they lose any real power, our democracy is over.
And when the jackbooted thugs from the dictator show up at Cliven Bundy's ranch, kick in the door, and remove all guns, they should not be surprised. Tyrants don't allow private gun ownership.
8
Given the GOP cares only about power and is willing, in fact eager, to subvert the system, why does anyone think that the vote in 2020 will be fair. The Republican leadership is anything but stupid. They know they don’t have the votes. But they are organized and determined. They are putting their people in place to rig the votes, they are right now designing their social media weapons of mass disruption. They are preparing to engage in fraud, tamper with voting machines, stuff ballot boxes, and commit mayhem just to watch Democrats wonder, wide eyed, at what is happening. Meanwhile the feckless leadership of the Democratic Party is dithering, still oblivious to the fact they are in a war and not a garden party.
8
@Victor James
Zero facts.
100% political propaganda.
They're a minority party, who can only win by cheating. That's why.
5
Trump did not win the 2016 election because of his great hair, his skills as an orator or as a debater; or because voters believed that he is a good family man, an honest man who pays his taxes, a dignified man, a compassionate man, a man who cares about people in trouble, a man who thinks well of women and minorities, a man who knows a lot about business, foreign affairs, economics, terrorism, education and the Second Amendment or because they believed that Mrs. Clinton was the devil.
They voted for him because he is a lout and a zany with big appetites, a mean man, a crude man, a humorless man, an ignorant man, an unethical man, a big crook who gets away with doing things that other people don’t get away with, who is notoriously effective at lying; and who as President would do some things that would end up helping them or at least hurting their perceived enemies among liberals, minorities and refugees from poor countries who they believe are intent on stealing their jobs.
Which is to say that they saw in him a man who satisfied all of their notions of what is good, true and beautiful in themselves.
9
Why? Because they can't win clean.
6
Republican policies only benefit the wealthy. To get people to vote they lie, cheat, drum up fake crisis and stoke the fans of racism. I told my children that I could roll with a lot, but if they tell me they voted republican I would know that I have completely failed as a parent.
5
North Carolina has two mottos on its license plates. The original motto is "First in Flight" referencing Kitty Hawk and the invention of the airplane. The new motto, brought by white Christians without any sense of irony is "First in Freedom." It references North Carolina adopting a Declaration of Independence from British rule before the more famous one written by Thomas Jefferson and adopted by all thirteen states.
To me it epitomizes what freedom means to white Christian Republicans in North Carolina. Freedom for us but not for you. This former slave owning state was not the first to abandon the practice of slavery, but still today you see Republicans strutting around with puffed out chests declaring they were "First in Freedom."
Freedom for us but not for you is not democracy.
8
"Why Republicans Play Dirty" AND SHAMELESSLY GET AWAY WITH IT!
It dates back to the Newt taking a contract out on America. "They are driven by fear"? NO! It is driven by entitled greed and feigned divine power and we're now experiencing the "ruinous consequences." The Newt and his ilk played the long game (Federalist Society, ALEC, etc) not necessarily a "seek to win at any cost today" which certainly applies today. Now they're so desperate they've recruited Russia to help.
And here's the rub: "Liberal democracy." They hate those two words. Like crooked corrupt capitalists, they hate competition!
They know they can't win without cheating, dark money and outright foreign assistance from our worst foes AND because they know they can get away with it.
Wait 'til trump loses in spite of massive cheating, during the lame Donald session - it'll make what happened to NC Gov. Cooper look like a picnic. The exponential growth of corruption will eclipse anything Mexican outgoing administrations ever did - grabbing everything they possibly can before leaving. With insider trading in mind, trump has threatened to trash everyone's 401k if they don't vote for him.
“If we don’t win this election, you’ll never see another Republican.” He's lying! They'll stay in power even if they do lose - His SCOTUS will rule it Constitutional.
"less egregious" than recruiting a foreign foe to disenfranchise voters?
The only way out is to be less radical, less fascist, less theocratic and dogmatic.
3
Republicans and conservatives spend their lives lives being dragged kicking and screaming in to the future. They resent and resist most of changes that require self-sacrifice for the greater good of society.
6
The cheating and dirty tricks hav done them well over the years. All good things come to an end. Maybe now their good time is over. We can only hope. And vote like our children’s lives depend on it because they do.
3
Republicans need good leaders - what they have is a pitiful excuse for leadership. Manipulative, underhanded, strident, angry and uncaring - they have the attitude of burn the whole thing down rather than share it.
1
One word: Kavanaugh.
Democrats play dirty, and this column ignores the hardcore actions of the party. And don't mention Merrick Garland. He didn't get the seat but was not shamelessly smeared.
2
You guys jumped the shark in para 1.
In 1991, then-Senate Judiciary Chairman, Joe Biden, articulated his plan to refuse to hold hearings for a SCOTUS nominee in an election year, should a vacancy occur.
In 2007--with 18 months remaining before the next presidential election--then Senate Judiciary Chairman, Chuck Schumer, reiterated the "Biden Rule."
The Democrats had made clear for 25 years that they would not allow a Republican President to seat a justice in an election year. So you all are furious that Mitch McConnell used their playbook.
Please, just stop it.
5
Gracious loosing is not in the republican lexicon. Trump has no concept of gracious. Agree republicans have become blind mice.
@Mother
When democrats loose an election they attempt a coup to remove the duly elected president with a Hilary Clinton paid for campaign smear. That is a poor looser.
1
The recent Horowitz report on Comey (ignored by the MSM) demonstrates who “played dirty”.
“Mr. Horowitz blew up the former FBI director’s claim that his actions had been necessary or justified.
Our concern,” Mr. Horowitz said, “was empowering the FBI director, or frankly any FBI employee or other law-enforcement official, with the authority to decide that they’re not going to follow established norms and procedures because in their view they’ve made a judgment that the individuals they are dealing with can’t be trusted.”
“Put another way, Mr. Comey wasn’t entitled to leak sensitive FBI information simply because he didn’t like Donald Trump.
Mr. Horowitz later repeated that such behavior was “completely inconsistent with department policy.” And he went out of his way to remind the committee that a 2018 inspector-general report had also “criticized [Mr. Comey] for usurping the authority of the attorney general to make prosecutorial decisions.”
1
" democracy requires parties know how to lose" ..like the Democrats losing in '16? We got 2 years of 'Russian collusion' with almost daily breaking news speculating on new angles of possible Trump wrong doing..led by Democrats..now more of same with a whistleblower leaking to a partisan newspaper. political deep state leaks are certainly unhealthy for the republic and democracy.
1
"The greatest threat to our democracy today is a Republican Party that plays dirty to win."
The greatest threat to our democracy today are Democrats who walk around wearing shirts that say "Please Kick Me!".
4
The coming reports from Horowitz and Durham on the surveillance of the Trump campaign - which continued after his election - may very clearly demonstrate who is “playing dirty”.
Where is the Dems Bob Gibson?
I am once again reminded of David Frum
"Maybe you do not care much about the future of the Republican Party. You should. Conservatives will always be with us. If conservatives become convinced that they can not win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. They will reject democracy."
David Frum
2
i understand what you are saying. do you have any idea whether trump voters understand it? as you have indicated many democracies failed are we also in the stage of demise - today or tomorrow? GOPs will control the senate where the fate of the existing democracy lies. if such limit of inactions goes out of bounds by GOP is there any fear of revolution as we have seen in the history?
"Republican leaders are not driven by an intrinsic or ideological contempt for democracy. They are driven by fear." They DO have contempt for democracy; it is visible every day in their actions and inactions. It is a contempt for anyone who is not a direct mirror of who Republicans are: white, male, Christian.
No one is "taking away" the country they knew. All Americans have a right here, including minorities of every type. Life is not static--things change. That is the nature of being alive.
One solution, to quote a political phrase from the past: "Off with their heads!" Adapt or perish.
1
@mother of two: They have contempt for the people, and thus do not trust democracy.
Seriously? Both parties are corrupt. The dems get the nod, they believe they are morally superior thus the “ends justify the means.”
The short answer: because they can.
1
This article is spot on. The GOP and their rule over government is authoritarian. Everyone should read "Conservatives without Conscience" by John Dean if you want to understand how the US got to this point and elected DJT.
He writes the following: "...our government has become largely authoritarian. It is run by an array of authoritarian personalities, leaders who display all of those traits: dominating, opposed to equality, desirous of personal power, amoral, intimidating, and bullying; some are hedonistic, most are vengeful, pitiless, exploitive, manipulative, dishonest, cheaters, prejudiced, mean-spirited, militant, nationalistic, and two faced."
This perfectly describes the Republican leadership and Trump. If we are to save our Democracy, we need to vote these people out in 2020.
737
@Dogs are the best Sadly, I think our country as we knew it is gone with those in power telling lies repeated by government run Fox etc. wrapping their untruths in the American flag and accusing those who disagree to be Radicals, Socialists, Communists, UnAmerican etc. And, if need be, they will finagle the election results and proclaim the winner as they want it.
21
@Dogs are the best They survive because there are a lot of people who want authoritarian leaders. All those qualities you listed are considered acceptable if their leaders are making decisions their followers feel comfortable with. Authoritarianism is a two-partner dance. You can't have authoritarian leaders without a lot of authoritarianism-loving followers, and this country is full of them. It is not a coincidence that so many of them are also fundamentalist religion followers. For some people, a firm hand taking charge makes them feel safe, and that is preferable to thinking for themselves. For those people, it really doesn't matter what behavior or values, or personality, the authoritarian leader demonstrates. That he is their leader is enough.
48
@Annie Towne
Annie, I wish I could give this comment 1,000 recommendations. Too many people don't understand the nature of authoritarianism and this is the root cause of what we see going on the GOP today.
For everyone else: Authoritarians statistically make up about 30-40% of the world populace. They have now filtered themselves entirely into the GOP in the USA, hence why GOP membership is ~33% of the electorate. GOP is an entire party of authoritarian followers. This is a dangerous situation when our electoral systems give this group a structural advantage.
35
Authority without responsibility is a recipe for tyranny.
Responsibility without authority is a recipe to drive people insane.
Most natural systems display equilibrium and a reversion to the mean. But our current political battles display a widening excursion with no apparent boundaries.
I pray for a corrective result in our 2020 election cycle lest we continue our slide into Republican authority ûber alles.
3
Republican dirty play was well underway before Trump. Recall, for example, Mitch McConnell's refusal to move forward on President Obama's Supreme Court nominee, Judge Merrick Garland. No one could have imagined such an act of sabotage of Presidential authority. It was unthinkable until there was reason enough to eviscerate a President whose place in the highest office was deemed an affront to the customary order of white supremacy. We were put on full notice when just prior to Barack Obama's inauguration, Sen. McConneell declared that "this would never happen again." His "this" needed no further defining.
7
The Republicans have clearly not been interested in democracy. They have systematically, methodically worked towards undermining the States and Federal institutions for decades. They began with the courts including the Supreme, Congress all culminating in an autocratic regime with Trump as it's face. Their silence regarding Trump extending his reign solidifies their distain for the Democratic process
1
I don’t affiliate with either party, and have always identified myself as a fiscally conservative liberal. I’ve voted for candidates from both parties according to their qualifications. I’ve finally reached a point where I will never vote Republican. If you’re a member of a party that continually acts in ways that are deceptive, underhanded and morally reprehensible, you can’t have my vote.
6
The Republican party also knows that they can't win elections fairly so they must resort to gerrymandering, lies and playing dirty. And since they've no interest in initiating legislation and policy to benefit Americans - rather than oligarchs - they need to distract us by orchestrating us to fight about immigration, abortion and guns. So far, it's working quite well.
2
The Republican party’s problem is that it suffers from a lack of imagination. It’s professed values of fiscal conservatism, a belief in free markets and a strong national defense have been perverted to the point that the party is intellectually irrelevant. None of these values is upheld in truth.
The Republican party is an empty shell filled with cynicism, lies and fear. If the Democrats do not take back control of the United States in 2020, and the Republican party is not ultimately replaced by a party with legitimate ideas and alternatives that place country over personal power, there will be no United States for future generations,
3
The Republicans, it must be said, are vigorously cutting their own throats. When a party strictly identifies itself with ideas and values that are frozen in time (white, Christian, male, isolationist, wealth-driven, climate deniers, in servitude to a Mitch McConnell figure, etc.), of course they fail to succeed as we move toward the future! What do they expect? I say let them proceed with their self-destruction - the majority of them are increasingly a drag on social progress.
2
I'm so angry about this. And frightened.
Historically, when people stop playing by the agreed upon rules of governance, you get civil war and revolution.
4
Great analysis; it certainly describes the actions of the Republican legislative majority in my fair state. Republicans risk a death spiral as ever more paranoid political appeals demonizing racial minorities and immigrants and disregarding women drive more voters away.
They can't close all the polling places.
1
Donald Trump, long the leader of his own private company, has always been an autocrat. Expecting him to change, merely because he was elected president, was unrealistic, and we are reaping a bitter harvest as a result.
As for Republicans, they have buckled under and abandoned any decency they might have had, for fear for losing their sinecures by alienating Trump's base.
This is what America has become. Are you worried yet?
2
Most republicans don't play dirty. They just take advantage of who the democrats put up to run.
Instead of countering the ego maniac demagogue Trump who skillfully demagogued issues like trade, war, immigration they nominated an identity obsessed, social engineer on social issues and a neo con on most other issues candidate like Hillary.
This is exactly what moderate middle America, especially in states like Mich., Pa, Wisc. who elects presidents in the electoral college did not want.
2
The question as to why Republicans play dirty is an easy one to answer: When you can't run on ideas, the only way to win is by playing dirty. Who actually believes that massive tax cuts for the wealthiest in this country, and deregulation, especially of the financial sector and environment would have wide currency with the electorate? Misinform; cheat; steal; disenfranchise. That's all they are about. Because it's all they can do to stay in power.
3
Those of us who lived through Watergate have known this for decades. Today its about whites holding on to power again an increasing mosaic of voters. Republican will gerrymander, suppress and litigate any vote they can. They will gin up fear over guns, abortion, religion and immigration.
The sad part so many of the electorate are under educated that they'll believe anything and that's just the way the Republicans want it.
But remember Nietzsche on monsters.
This is as clear-eyed an analysis of the terrible situation we are in as you are going to read. Nothing in it can be seriously disputed. However, I think that this sort of examination completely misses the sheer wickedness of what we are seeing. To treat the subversion of democracy merely as a misguided strategy, is to ignore just how profoundly cynical, selfish, and evil it is. The people who are doing it are doing it knowingly and with malign intent. We should be talking about that too.
3
The biggest problem facing the Republican Party (from the outside at least: I am no Republican) seems to be that they stand for nothing except the very exclusion this article refers to. The GOP stands for bigotry, for racism, for xenophobia of all kinds. Other things that used to be ascribed to the GOP - small government, states' rights, strong defense - have fallen by the wayside. Now they only push for these things when they serve the overarching goal of a white Protestant theocracy.
In short, if your only value is bigotry, what can you expect from your party?
1
The best explanation of why the right plays dirty. Conservatism at its core is a dead end. Thousands of years of human history have proven that nothing stays the same, and when the dust settles, the human condition has always improved. An ideology defined by one of its most prominent adherents as standing athwart history and yelling “Stop!” is nothing more than a losing bet.
2
What concerns me even more is the Dem's leadership willingness to openly lie and obfuscate regarding the appropriate response to these attacks on our Constitution aand rule of law. NP slow walking impeachment is the key example. Why is it that those with the authority to use the tools available to them to address the egregious behavior that has so destabilized our country, refuse to act in the best interest of this country and it's people? The people have clearly told our leadership that we are fed up with their abandonment to the point that millions support a man who is willing to ignore them and our laws. The people of this country have been manipulated, lied to and our will ignored to the nth degree and DT was the result. This is why EW and Bernie are so popular. "Good Ol' Joe" is just more of the same. If he is elected, nothing will change. Who are they protecting, really? Every day that goes by proves that it is not U.S. or the Constitution. They don't have to fight dirty. They just have to fight with every tool they have been given by our forefathers. VOTE I am convinced that if everyone does not, we are going to lose our Democracy. Maybe not in 2021 but 2024 is a real possibility. Look at the damage done in just under 3 years.... VOTE
1
“The only way out of this situation is for the Republican Party to become more diverse.“
No, the solution is for the Republican Party to go the way of Whigs. Let them cease to exist and maybe they can be replaced by a tradition, sane conservative party free of the stench of the Southern Strategy and all that followed, as well as the homophobia, misogyny, and bigotry that have defined it for the last several decades.
1
"The only way out..." is for the US to have more than 2 Parties.
@thezaz But if there were more than 2 political parties it would ruin the game of good cop/bad cop we are all subjected to.
This article says it all. The Republican Party has brought its AK-47 to the fight while the Democrats rely on their trusty musket. Speaker Pelosi are you listening?
We need to stop describing the Republican Party as part of a democracy or being American in nature. It is not. It has become clear that its sole mission is to retain power - even if it means destroying our country or the globe. Barr, Sessions, McConnell, Gingrich, Jordan, Medaows, Nunes, Graham.... are all willing to violate the rule of law to maintain power. Is it coincidence that each is older, male and white? I think not. These people are not Christian as they do NOTHING to help the poor. They are not fiscally conservative as they INCREASED our budge by one trillion. THey are not pro-national security as they allow Trump to ignore all safaguards as to the same, as evidenced by disclosures of top secret intel and allowing uncleared people such as Kushner to access the same. They are not rule of law as they do not hold anyone in the Trump admin accountable to the law. The party is a criminal enterprise and has abandoned America.
2
@Poor Richard
Richard should be hired as a regular contributing op-Ed columnist. He sums up perfectly what’s happening in our country. My only problem is that it doesn’t help that my Democratic Party has two leaders in Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer that are timid, ineffective, past their prime and unable to generate any enthusiasm. Does anyone even bother to listen to Chuck Schumer when he gives yet another whinny press conference?
Playing dirty in politics is as American as hotdogs. It has always been a part of our democracy in pursuit of life, liberty and political power. For Republicans, it is all they have since they decided against expanding their base. Without any strategic ideas to run behind, they are “forced” to rely on dirty tactics. McConnell is the grand master and Trump throws everything against the wall to see what will stick.
1
"Republican leaders must stand up to their base..." Really? Republican leaders conspire with their base. With glee. They aren't embarrassed by cheating; they are all proud of cheating. It is why I left the party. The rot runs through from top to bottom.
3
This goes a lot deeper than fear. It derives from a perception that there is only one, right way to be American, and that is the Conservative Republican Right way. Any deviation from their way is an affront to God and an existential threat to America and must be fought to the finish by any means necessary. It is the perfect storm of American simple-minded self-righteousness, fueled by the self-deluded victimhood of an hegemon that sees its power waning, and ignited by an Evangelical corruption of Christianity.
3
This is a thoughtful but naive analysis. Apparently, the authors must be Democrats ;) As we teach our children when they are bullied, if you push back, bullies back off. And if they don't back off, then you have to make sure they end up bloodied. I am surprised that the authors don't seem to notice the passivity of the Democrats, who find it more comfortable to concern themselves with safely squabbling among themselves over minor differences, enables the Republicans. If the Democrats were always spoiling for a fight, clean or dirty, and the Republicans knew that they would pay a price when they play these games, things would be quite different. However, as long as Democrats seem like chumps, they will get taken advantage of.
I disagree! The biggest threat to our democracy today is an electorate that has bailed on political participation; an electorate that is ignorant of what is going on in our country and around the world, and an electorate that insufficiently believes in what it takes to provide young people (their children md grandchildren) with a viable (democratic) future!
“We have seen the problem, and it is us! (not simply the Republicans)!
2
"The only way out of this situation is for the Republican Party to become more diverse." They know this. They rejected this. After the re-election of Barack Obama the Republican Party put out a report saying they needed to build among Hispanic voters. They went the opposite way. The party got hijacked by the white-only party pushers who thought they could win with a super white majority and they succeeded against a weak Democratic opponent. They've doubled down. There is no going back for the Republicans for the next several election cycles. The Democrats should be aware of this and begin to fight with everything they have. A cornered animal is dangerous. You go at it with everything.
1
I observe that Republicans don't feel their unfairness is heavily flawed such as putting children in cadges, or creating a class of poor people by pay certain people less. In ordinary language we call this a conscience; it is like the Biblical do unto others as you would have do unto you. From professing Christians no less. I actually think they enjoy cruelty to others.
1
My first reaction to this op-ed was, “Long, long overdue.” But after reading it, I am disappointed. Republicans have been tricking their way to the White House for a long time now. Not only through tricks at the level of actual voting, but in ghastly campaign tactics. Remember how Kerry was “swift-boated’?
I conclude:
If the Democratic Party weren’t so abysmally inept, the Republican Party would have perished a long time ago.
465
@violetsmart: The hapless Democratic Party doesn’t even control use of its brand.
8
@violetsmart . The party of self-doubt v the party of greed and bigotry and fascism. It is an conundrum.
10
@violetsmart If the Democratic Party weren’t so abysmally inept, the Republican Party would have perished a long time ago.
Such a great and true line.
22
Very astute article. Thank you.
1
Excellent article. Truth.
2
Real winners—people who can look back on their life and be proud—never cheat, and cheaters never win.
3
@Aaron
The problem is that cheaters often do "win" - if not in the moral sense, at least in that sense that they get what they want and the rest doesn't matter. I don't think McConnell's Merrick Garland maneuver is keeping him up at night. This paper reported him saying it was the proudest moment of his career, or something like that. Cheaters do often win. That is why they cheat.
3
@Aaron: Life belongs to the living, but the US is ruled by the dead.
@Syliva Obviously, but if you have to step over your dead grandmother or sell your soul (let alone run roughshod over the constitution and American laws norms and values and cavort with racists, liars, criminals and adulterers), those short-term "victories" are, in the grand scheme of things, failures. The Republicans' actions are the actions of failures, of losers; they are doing things they probably counsel their own children not to do. And, because Republicans and Trump supporters in particular seem to believe God is on their side, I have a feeling that ultimately none of this will end well for them, and that makes me smile.
1
We need a “peoples” constitutional amendment that will:
1) Ban all dark money, lobbyist money and corporate money in politics. Fund elections with government vouchers given to all citizens who can “spend” their vouchers on any Federal race.
2) Popular vote for the President.
3) Federalize voter registration, allow mail-in balloting, make Election Day a national holiday.
4) Ban gerrymandering, require districts to be competitively drawn, and require “jungle” primaries with top two winners competing in the general regardless of political party.
5) 18 year Supreme Court term limit.
6) Allocate Senators by State population. Each state gets 1 senator, 50 senators allocated by population.
2
Couldn't agree more with this opinion, the GOP has been the party of fear, lies and corrupt intent for a very long time.
I've always wondered when the masses that vote Republican would wake up to the drivel they've been fed and react with anger to the GOP, I believe that is why we have Trump, but they got sold another false bill of goods by the con man.
It must be terrible on the other side, and driving their search for anything to save their fragile egos.
3
The Republican party is most definitely not essential for the survival of democracy and it is my belief that it is a proto fascist organization which will have to sink into irrelevance if democracy is to survive . By this I do not mean that all Republicans must be made irrelevant but that the organization must fall.
But should that happen will politics stagnate? I believe that it will not but that the democratic party will fragment and from that fragmentation new parties will arise and will quickly test the strength of the Democrats, We will not become a one party nation.
2
Call it fear or whatever you want two things seem obvious. Either, next year Republicans are driven from office where ever by vote, or to preserve the democratic republic Republicans have to be ousted by any means necessary.
1
Fear... sure... a fear that their greed will never be completely satisfied.
But mostly it’s just plain old unadulterated, narcissistic, conspicuous, shameless, never ending greed.
Fear may make people do bad things, but when people do things out of fear they stop once they have reached a safe point or a goal... greed can look and act a lot like fear on the outside but it just keeps going until it controls everything.
2
Why do Republicans play dirty? Because they lack any sense of morality and are willing to repeatedly sell what's left of their rotten souls to the devil in order to maintain power and wealth. That's why Carly Fiorina (remember her) ran to Trump Tower after the election looking for a job. That's why Lindsey Graham went from calling Trump "mentally unstable" to vouching for him on Fox News on a daily basis. The list is endless. As long as they can hold on to power, they're willing to do or say anything. Alas, that's also why they tend to win and it's something that Democrats need to think about CAREFULLY because the Dems are great at fighting too, only it's among themselves and not against the REAL enemy. Clear enough, ladies and gentlemen?
4
Mitt Romney and John McCain are the kind of Republicans that are loved, because in the end they are losers, but Trump and George W Bush are hated because they win. Republicans that criticize their party are hailed as leaders and courageous. If a Democrat criticizes his or her party they are branded traitors to the cause. Time to grow up, politics is not bean bag.
1
The Republican Party is led by people who placed a big bet: they cultivated ignorance in their base, undermining faith in government, denying science, denying the legitimacy of a free press, promoting quack economics and appealing to the basest instincts of racists and bigots. And now those voters have formed a voting bloc that the GOP can't control. It's a GOP Frankenstein that is roaming the countryside burning everything. With luck it will only destroy its creator.
3
"Why Republicans play dirty?" should be changed slightly to "Why do Today's Republicans play dirty?" Today's GOP is so devoid of real, bedrock principles that running on those "principles" is a loser for them.
The answer: The only way they can stay in power is to lie, cheat, obstruct, obfuscate, deflect and attack to create fear, uncertainty and doubt in enough of their voter base of single-issue and low-information voters to win elections (while simultaneously suppressing or discouraging opposition voters).
Interesting that the authors can remember all the way back to 1870, but suffer amnesia from the Obama years, in which that administration resorted to Executive Orders to ram through its broken view of the world. Even today's cancel culture heartily embraced by the extreme left that seeks to defame, bankrupt, and destroy those with whom the slightest deviation from radical orthodoxy doesn't get a mention. If you want to see hardball in action, turn on any liberal media outlet - or read your own paper.
2
Well duh!
It’s been obvious for years.
The modern GOP exists for only one purpose: to make the rich richer.
It turns out its base with bigotry and paranoia, and stacks the deck at every opportunity. They are aided and abetted by a media propaganda operation masquerading as legitimate press.
It is past time for the NY Times and everyone else to stop treating them as a legitimate political party and call them out for what they are: a real threat to every good thing our country is supposed to stand for.
They must be voted out of office at every level while they still can be stopped.
1
The elephant in the room is FOX News and it’s propaganda and fear mongering.
You can’t understand where we are at without seeing what this long drip of poison has done to polarize us.
2
The Republicans may play dirty, but the media plays dirtier. The Times did a real hatchet job on Kavanaugh last week and made a halfhearted clarification of the story, but not before a majority of the democratic candidates for president called for his impeachment. Is it any wonder that politicians should feel like there are no moral boundaries when it seems that the press will do anything to demonize them?
3
@George
Kavanaugh performed his own hatchet job on television last fall. I went into that whole thing pretty open-minded, but was floored by his tantrum. If he hadn't done that, likely the Times would have had less to say about him this fall.
3
As others have pointed out, it is indeed offense, not defense. And too often shoddy reporting or fact-checking plays into their hands.
Sadly, this article provides a great example.
This is the 4th or 5th time I’ve read/heard in the liberal/progressive media that this vote was taken while the democrats were attending a 9/11 memorial. That is simply not true. Only one legislator was attending such an event. Most were not there because the democratic leadership were TOLD by the republican leadership that there were be no vote. Told. Not sent a memo, email or voice-mail. So then the republican can say they never said that and must have been mis-understood.
And then they can point at all the easily refuted reports about the democrats being at a memorial, calling the media out for “fake news” and thereby distracting everyone from the real reason.
Please, get your facts straight!
2
It's so typical of the Left - and the media - that one of the central claims in this Opinion piece about Republicans "playing dirty" - that NC Republicans override a budget while "most Democrats were told no vote would be held and so attended a 9/11 commemoration" - is just flat out false. As this Fact Check by the Charlotte newspaper shows: https://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/article235162077.html. There was ONE Democrat who was at a 9/11 commemoration. Not only is this false claim in the article, but it also accompanies the photo.
It is unsurprising to me that two political scientists get this wrong. Political scientists are typically not real scientists - they are typically partisan politicians. But this also shows how much the media does not fairly disclose the truth. The media is a partisan political actor as much as any other person on the Left - perfectly willing to use False claims to advance their agenda.
3
"Why Republicans Play Dirty"? As if Democrats don't. All I can say is Bret Kavanaugh.
4
@Marvid
Bret Kavanaugh behaved like a spoiled frat bro on national television. He embarrassed himself.
1
The republican party represents the biggest threat to our democracy that's ever existed. Americans must vote them out of office at every level of state and federal government so they never control the levers of power again.
4
Democrats need to stand up to these assaults and play hardball, too. They let themselves be bullied and dominated.
Also, Republicans should remember that what goes around, comes around. They will not hold power forever and they should not be surprised when their cutthroat actions come back to haunt them. They are setting new precedents for government that can easily be used by future Democratic leaders. It's a downward spiral for us all.
226
@dan Unfortunately, using the same tactics will only add to the downward spiral in a classic case of deviation amplifying feedback. It will be a difficult slog to get back to a culture of playing by the rules, especially when so many of our leaders refuse to play by them, but the way back will be through the ballot box, and, at this juncture the writing is on the wall for the Republican party just as it was for the that Southern Democratic party.
11
@dan and @bob I think a good solution might be a mid point between your perspectives, viz, maintain a big picture commitment to both the law and and the tenets of liberal democratic society, but without being rendered powerless by norms long abandoned by the other side.
So example: if the GOP engage in systematic voter suppression, and a partisan majority on the Supreme Court either endorse those actions or decline to review, it's not better to descend to lawlessness by ignoring the court. A better approach, as many have suggested and I support, is that reshaping the composition of the court by adding justices effectively dilutes the power of the Federalist Society gang. Sure it's norm busting, but it's entirely constitutionally conforming - both in black letter and in spirit.
5
@dan. “Republicans should remember that what goes around, comes around.” They were recently reminded of this by a bitter Bret Kavanaugh, who has declared he will be a partisan Supreme Court justice. So far he has been that. He will defend Trump as if Donald were Squi.
5
Interesting how the racist Southern Democrats of 1870's, forefathers of today's racists, after being jettisoned from a newly woke Democratic Party, found a welcome home in the Grand 'ol Party of Republicans.
They weren’t jettisoned. They left...
1
Great article! You have indeed nailed it and do so without using the unprintable language I typically use to describe some of the same feelings about Republicans and the party they’ve become.
2
With each passing news cycle it appears that among Trump's many apparent crimes is treason. We might reasonably expect him to declare that he is above the law, and that he won't be removed from office until Don Jr. is good and ready to take his place.
We might also reasonably assume that most Republican leaders will grouse quietly amongst themselves before they concur.
3
@Jennifer
the left continues to state lies as fact. There was no treason except perhaps by Hillary Clinton. But we will never know as the media is leftist so there is no one to run that investigation.
2
The 'average' Republican knows full well that there is no reason why they should have secure jobs, houses, etc. when others don't. But recognising the injustice doesn't mean you want to give up what you've got.
That condition brings its own paranoia, and anyone who can be categorized as different from you can hence be turned into a competitor, an enemy that cannot have the comforts of middle-class America without somehow dispossessing you of those same things.
The spectrum of that paranoia is reflected by the Republican party, and its most acute manifestation currently resides in the White House.
@Mark
what you say makes no sense. Secure jobs and housing come from a good economy which we currently have. This wonderful economy is floating all boats including and perhaps especially minorities. It is not reported of course because we have a leftist media.
2
As I have said and written many times, the GOP strategy is:
If you can't win fair and square, gerrymander.
If that doesn't work, disenfranchise/suppress.
If that doesn't work--commit electoral fraud (cheat).
13
What you have not analyzed is why and how the GOP justifies its actions to itself. See Corey Lewandowski before Congress -- saying he can lie to the media because they lie all the time. They have convinced themselves of things that are far from objective truth or reality, and in fact, could never be true on their face for impossibility. But that is where we are in the USA today, on the brink of another civil war.
5
Who said they believe their lies?
1
Why ? It’s the ONLY way they can WIN. Party over Country, Power over Principle, Winning over Rules.
Cheaters, Liars, and Scammers.
Next question, please.
10
Political cartoonist, HERBLOCK's essay, "Persona Au Gratin", in Here and Now (1955), writing about Eugene McCarthy, offers a preview of what to expect when the end of Trump arrives and desperate Republicans reinterpret the current moment.
Like Trump, what sustained McCarthy "was not so much his gullible followers and fellow-traveling demagogues as the tacit support of 'respectable' people who found it advantageous to go along with him or at least to look the other way."
For more information, The Herb Block Foundation, Washington DC 202 223 8801. A copy is available at the Herb Block Foundation.
Excerpts:
https://cellmate.wordpress.com/
1
the current GOP is the remnants of a once great GOP.
Most of my lifetime white GOP friends- male and female-
have left the GOP, or sit on the side, uncounted. The GOP
has the remnants, including the descendants of the mob deported from Europe centuries ago as being lunatics and anarchists.
The GOP is- or soon will be- history.
Time for a GN(ew)P!
I grew up around Republicans. They cheat and lie because most of them are greedy cheaters and liars. It's in their nature to give in to hate and, they honestly don't care how many people suffer of die because of it.
Don't believe me? Open your eyes and look around.
7
@Mars & Minerva. I agree. But given the way Senate votes and electoral college votes are apportioned under the constitution, is not the only way to cause a change, boycott those who vote for or support republicans, precinct by precinct.
1
They play dirty when they're winning, they play dirty when they're losing. They're just a dirty party, plain and simple.
4
Such a long history of Republican dirty tricks and the Democrats are still as innocent as newborn lambs.
@Kurt Pickard No one said we were "innocent lambs", but we're not the party who wants to crank back the clock on so many things from fuel to women's rights to minorities to religion. That's a GOP thing.
1
They play dirty because it has been working for them and they have no scruples and are shameless.
6
They play dirty, cheat, because they would otherwise lose.
2
What a ridiculous article! One could write a nearly parallel article about why Democrats play dirty. With at least as much evidence. From the Bork hearings to the elimination of the filibuster to the Kavanaugh ambush and on and on.
My team is clean, but the other guys...
Rubbish!
1
@Jonny Galt "One could write a nearly parallel article about why Democrats play dirty."
Then write it.
3
Republicans play dirty because it is in their nature, the entire party is based on selfishness, greed and hatred of anyone not white and rich.
2
Republicans are the only group to play this way? Uh huh.....
1
If you can’t beat ‘em, cheat ‘em
Democrats: "When you can't win elections on policy, play the race card."
1
This is one of the most prescient pieces I have ever read on why the GOP doesn't play by the rules, and will do anything to win. Not sad -- instead, PATHETIC!
Hence, a narcissist like Trump is the perfect match for today’s Republican Party. Both believe following rules and laws is for chumps.
1
I have been saying similar things for years, but without the pertinent facts. Great piece Levitsky and Ziblatt!
I worked with a sociologist in the 90's and we discussed the reality that whites would become a minority, based on the birth rates and aging. It's just a fact. I saw no problem with it and assumed we'd all work and play together to keep America sane.
I under-estimated the fear and resentment among the GOP, and my own peers, aging whites. I did not believe anyone would go as far as the extreme GOP has gone. I didn't believe we'd ever have a racist, expletive-deleted moron for a president. I didn't believe either political party would sell out the country and its ideals to try and retain power.
I was wrong. The GOP embraced the dark side back with Gingrich and Rove, embracing the religious right and then twisting reality to get moral people to embrace an immoral agenda.
I pray the young and the rest of us that care about America come out by the millions to vote the party of hate out of power.
8
And people with GOP and NRA stickers wonder why I key their cars. SMH.
2
Specious nonsense.
In the history of man those who say, the ends I want are so important any means necessary are justified, are common. To reduce this to white fear is senseless.
Further white Christians are not the problem. Go poll Amish on the English, mennoites and church of the brethren, or Garry Wills or most nuns.
White evangelical Christians in sects with beliefs that did not exist at the time the United States of America were made are the problem.
And white right wing Roman Catholics are the problem. Most every “Crisis! crisis! We must use all methods to destroy the evil culture!” arguments come from right wing catholic “thinkers” using arguments of right wing catholic “thinkers” going back to continental European Catholics fighting democracy and Protestantism before the United States was birthed. The Times makes them columnists.
Those two mortal enemies, white evangelicals and right wing Roman Catholics, have joined together slowly by Roe v Wade—a new end of the evangelicals—and political greed. They now live in a fantasy world. Are fascists. Refusing to know your enemy is a mortal sin. Two Harvard professors have no intention of seeing the American who hate democracy and want to trigger the rapture or the return of a latin Roman Catholic controlled world—the different ultimate ends of the mortal enemies.
I mean just go into a small town in Alabama or South Carolina and be loud and proud of your Catholicism and see what happens and you will see for yourself.
Here is a local sample of using any means necessary to preserve power that occurred in Michigan. In 2010, Oakland County Democrats won the countywide seats necessary to control county redistricting under Michigan state law. The county Republicans went to the gerrymandered Republican State Legislature and had the law changed after the fact, so that the county commissioners, then majority Republican, could do the redistricting in Oakland County, the only county in Michigan with such a redistricting system.
Any way you parse Republican motivations, the idea that they and theirs should be first in line for all good things that this country has to offer is at the heart of matter. As a 50 year old white male of The South, I meet few white people here who do not clearly bear personal witness in word or deed that we alone are the rightful ruling class and that our rule is the most benevolent of all options. And, while we know that we lag behind the rest of the country in almost every concrete measure of societal health, we lay these failures at the feet of the godforsaken among us with whom we are burdened with ruling. We are the fleet ships and they are our anchors, lodged in the rocks of the liberal coasts that encroach upon us.
7
You think it's bad now? Wait til next year. You ain't seen nuthin' yet.
3
The Republican Party has become so evil and corrupt that the best course may be its death and splintering into separate parties which better reflect the beliefs of their respective constituencies. Sometimes the patient simply must die.
3
Republicans have played dirty since Richard Nixon, who secretly blocked Johnson's peace deal with Vietnam, initiated the "southern"strategy, and committed crimes in office. Dirty play is an inherent part of the Republican top-down neo-fascist punishment philosophy.
4
Now that I have finished my severe bout of nausea. I see we are doing the Republicans are the fount of all EEEEEVIL & the Dems are innocent woolly lambs again. And to clarify & spare me the earful I have never voted Republican in my life & I didn't vote for Trump.
But this whole the Dems are the fount of all that is good & right in the world and the Repubs are all that is evil is ridiculous to put it mildly. Some simple questions for my own amusement:
1) What party admitted China to the WTO ? Thus effectively breaking the back of the middle & working class as so many jobs were shipped overseas? Not to mention of whose party was the President that said "Labor doesn't matter they have nowhere else to go!" ? Not mention it effectively broke the back of most private sector unions!
2) What party bailed out Wallstreet even to paying bonuses with Government Money? Meanwhile giving Mainstreet a single digit salute!
3) What party signed off on the revision of the bankruptcy laws in favor of the corporations? I'll give you a hint Senators Biden & Schumer seemed more interested in what was good for Wallstreet then what was good for the voters.
The Republicans are NO saints,but neither are the Democrats the paragons of all that is right in the world!
Note for those wanting to eliminate the E-college and change the senators, you can't irregardless of what congress says 38 states must agree 50 to change the number of senators per state. You haven't got 38 states that will agree!
4
@Stephan You are missing the point of this article. You are citing policies and actions you find objectionable, which you ascribe to Democrats but which actually had broad bipartisan support. The article addresses the many measures being undertaken by Republicans across the country to disenfranchise voters and otherwise undermine our democracy for the sole purpose of maintaining their hold on power.
2
@Stephan Ok, so don't back either, and try to make up some better rules. We're supposed to be American Citizens first, party members second.
Ask Judge Kavanaugh who is playing dirty.
1
@Dr. John
Nah - He got on the court, in spite of behaving like a boorish frat boy during the televised vetting that he apparently wasn't enough of a grown-up to handle without reverting to adolescent petulance, the apparent default behavior for a lot of Republicans and conservatives. Those of us who bother to think reserve questions about who was playing dirty for Merrick Garland, whose nomination didn't event make it to the Judiciary Committee because of Mitch McConnell's spurious "principles," inherent dishonesty and hatred of President Obama. This really happened, whether you choose to believe it or not.
Could have skipped the test of the column as the subtitle says it all.
" Why Republican play dirty" ? This is very funny question. Is it new? They always play dirty. McConnell's blocking Merrick Garland's nomination is the worst dirty job in recent history. From gerrymandering to Dixiecrats and fighting against civil rights for minority and using bible and Jesus Christ for political gain, creating obstacles for minority voters from voting are the GOP policies. Unfortunately our voters are politically naïve, lazy and ignorant. The white Americans are very fearful and scared that they may loose their majority status. The truth is that even after 100 years, the white will be single majority in America. Lot of us think that Trump is a Messiah. Our democracy is terminally sick . The electoral college system is undemocratic. There should be one person one vote and whoever gets majority nationwide should be president.
1
Why did the litany of Republican ill doing not mention pregnant chads?
At this point even if there is a massive tsunami of Democrats being elected and pushing out Republicans they have little real interest to do any self actualization, if anything they will further double down. Talk radio, Fox News, and right wing conspiracy groups will simply say the Democrats cheated, because in their minds America looks like them (white and christian) so it should be impossible for the heathen Democrats so reviled at Fox News to gain a real plurality.
Watch Fox News for even an hour and they are always planting the seed that everything the Democrats are doing are bad, so they are already setting up their audiance to never admit Democrats should ever govern.
1
Republicans play dirty because they have no integrity on behalf of money and power!
2
Sure. Just ask Brett Kavanaugh's family about how cleanly Dems play politics. And I'll remember reading this the next time ... which surely will be after the next election when one of the lame Dems presently in the field loses ... when Dems once again claim the winner is illegitimate and therefore its leadership is illegitimate, the Russians or fraud must be the reason the Dems lost, declare half the country rubes and racists (anyone who didn't vote Dem), and the nation must change the rules, pack the Supreme Court, get rid of the Electoral College which assures smaller states NY and California won't essentially control the country and thus they still have a reason to stay in the Union, all so a Dem can win next time and achieve perpetual rule in the name of Wokeness.
3
That they play hardball is, while hideous and undemocratic, is perhaps predictable. But to give in to foreign interference in our elections -- that is downright treasonous. In past eras, this would have meant the guillotine.
3
Because. They get. Away with it.
As long as their opposition continues to bring plastic sporks to gunfights, and they can continue to figure out ever-more-byzantine ways to twist and stretch the power of their decrepit, dimwit (plus their billionaire overlords) base, the Republican Party will continue to operate in the reptilian manner it has since Nixon.
1
The points are well articulated, but the premise is so obvious you have to wonder where academia resides. Maybe the next great revelation will be that southern Democrats of the Jim Crow era are one and the same with the red state Republicans of today. Surprised?.........not
1
Something strange, nothing new. Republican hardball is the oldest trick in the white supremacy playbook. It was used to create a nation in which "all men are created equal" meant only white men.
And these GOP /Republicans get the support from our corrupt religious organizations. Or fake religions. Very sad.
1
“If we don’t win this election,” Mr. Trump added. “you’ll never see another Republican.”
From your mouth to God's ears.
3
Republicans play dirty because it pays off. While praising the intelligence of the American electorate, he secretly knows that they can be led around like bulls with nose rings - only instead of bull rings, he uses their beliefs and prejudices to lead them wherever he wants. If DJT doesn't destroy our fragile democracy, he has published the blueprint and playbook for some other demagogue to do it later. If a democracy like America's is going to exist, there will have to be a paradigm shift in human thought throughout the world.
In the near future, we will program the human mind in the computer based on a "survival" algorithm, which will provide irrefutable proof as to how we trick the mind with our ridiculous beliefs about what is important and what is supposed to survive - producing minds programmed de facto for dirty tricks and destruction. These minds see the survival of a particular belief as more important than the survival of us all. When we understand this, we will begin the long trek back to reason and sanity.
See RevolutionOfReason.com
Time to think a little deeper. We read that "Republican leaders must either stand up to their base and broaden their appeal..." This is nonsensical. In what world is the leadership not ordinarily a fair reflection of its base?
What are the significant differences we read about between the two parties and their bases? Liberal vs. conservative, urban vs. rural, everybody else vs. whites? How about confident and smart and vs. fearful and stupid? And can we imagine the Republican leadership, as we know it, going against its (also) fearful and stupid base?
All we can do is hope that confident and smart can, indeed, soon enough overcome fearful and stupid. Unfortunately, these seem to be fearful times.
Totally correct except for one point: it was not a constitutional act when the traitor, Moscow Mitch McConnell and his fellow GOP senate crooks, stole the Supreme Court seat from Merick Garland.
1
Trump wins and we get 4 more years of complete chaos.
Trump loses and he pulls out all the stops and says that he's not leaving. His "base" now has permission to bring the country to its knees.
Scary times, for sure.
Please. You can’t get past the second paragraph without revealing yourselves as pathetic hypocrites. In a piece about the GOP not “playing by the rules”, you admit that they ... played by the rules respecting the SCOTUS seat. And not a word about how the left – in the person of Sen Leahy – prevented the filling of some judicial vacancies by W for EIGHT YEARS. He played by the rules.
And MUST the left incessantly lie? No, the Dems in NC were NOT at a 911 ceremony; they were actually plotting a gerrymander. And, again, the GOP PLAYED BY THE RULES.
Consider: BHO played “constitutional hardball” by unilaterally writing a statute: DACA. He played “constitutional hardball” by unconstitutionally diverting funds to subsidize ACA insurers. He played “constitutional hardball” by refusing to collect a tax included in the ACA. And not a peep from the left.
“Gracious losing”?! Can you spell “resist”? How many Republicans took to the streets to riot in 2018?
It is entirely possible that identity politics and envy – the two mighty pillars of the American left – will prevail; Amercans are not immune from electoral stupidity. Group-think tribalism inevitably contains the seeds of civil war, and socialism inevitably dooms any society which adopts it. One of the good things about being a conservative is enjoying the schadenfreude of surveying the destruction brought about by leftism as saying, “we told you so.”
Here's to hoping that Americans are smart enough to preclude that pleasure.
2
I teach political science in college, and every time I thoroughly discuss these growing, multiple kinds of Republican voter obstructions, it appears I am being highly partisan for Democrats. I am not. The creativity of Republicans nationwide in desperately maintaining their power through voter repression is unbounded and depressing. Merely running through the huge list of obstructions in the classroom, as this article does, strains the credibility I have with the students to appear fair to all sides. This is not fake news, this is democracy in a meltdown -- and I need my students to understand that. It will ultimately be their job to fix it.
3
@Tom Unlike your comment, I attempt to be extremely fair in my classroom discussions. To the extent those issues come up and are relevant to my instruction, I do so -- for example, when we discuss immigration to the U.S., I make it a point to highlight President Obama's enormous number of deportations, and the fact that the AEDPA and IIRIRA were signed into law under President Clinton. Those are facts -- you might want to look them up to understand.
1
Important Overview:
As of September 19, 2019, the United States Senate has confirmed 152 Article III judges nominated by President Trump, including 2 Associate Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States, 43 judges for the United States Courts of Appeals, 105 judges for the United States District Courts, and 2 judges for the United States Court of International Trade.
In addition, are currently 37 nominations to Article III courts awaiting Senate action, including 4 for the Courts of Appeals and 33 for the District Courts.
Furthermore there are currently 4 vacancies on the U.S. Courts of Appeals, 91 vacancies on the U.S. District Courts, 2 vacancies on the U.S. Court of International Trade, and 13 announced federal judicial vacancies that will occur BEFORE the end of Trump's first term.
2
The Republican Party has become nothing more than the tools of the very wealthy - doing whatever the very wealthy want no matter how short-sighted and selfish.
The Republicans need to decide if they want a representative democracy or an oligarchy. As of now, they look like they want oligarchy.
3
The vote allowing felons that completed their sentences in Florida is a prime example. It overwhelmingly passed by the voters. The republican state legislature then made them ineligible to vote unless all fines and court costs were paid, something clearly not in the original law.
They fear that in a state they hold by a very slim margin would flip democratic because of course the brown and black are more likely to be charged with crimes white people would be given a pass on.
2
"We live in a republic, not a democracy." That little piece of nonsense, repeated ad nauseum by Republicans for the last 50 years, explains why Republicans act the way they do. Please note the part that says "not a democracy."
2
The bottom line is corrected stated in the article: until reactionary, white identity politics fails the Republican party completely, as it has in my home state of California (which used to be "Reagan Country"), they will continue to use it and use the cheating tactics of voter suppression and gerrymandering and flat out flaunting of constitutional norms. They don't have a plan B at the moment, until Trumpism, racism, and cheating fails utterly, they'll ride that until it takes them off a cliff.
Brilliant piece, fear is a far greater motivator than aspiration. My hope is that enough Americans are so appalled by this despicable lawless president who every days acts in conflict with basic human values and only in self interest will turn out to vote. For this we need a more aspirational candidate than Joe Biden and I like Joe. Fear works with Republicans but I "FEAR" that fear alone (of another Trump term) which is the primary rai-son de e'tre for Joe's appeal will not turn out the vote. Right now Elizabeth Warren is tapping into both fear and aspiration.
2
Mentoring Republicans in the social graces of losing, noble as it sounds, is positively sociopathic when compared with allowing them to distill themselves ever more deliriously into a higher proof of sanctimony, aggression, hallucination and treachery. Even these writers distinguish the forest from the trees, in noting, the world doesn't need better Republicans, it needs better government.
1
This is an intriguing analysis that misses an important point. The Republican Party became committed to dirty tricks long before the demographic changes became apparent.
The reliance upon dirty tricks began in the 60s. By 1968 the Democratic Party had abandoned Jim Crow and the George Wallace candidacy defeated Hubert Humphrey putting Richard Nixon into the White House with less than 44% of the popular vote. Nixon's "silent majority" was neither silent nor a majority. The vote count proved to Republicans that socially conservative policies and appeals to racism were essential to victory.
The dirty tricks employed by the Nixon Administration were as bad as and arguably worse than those employed by the Trump Administration. They led to Nixon's resignation when impeachment became a certainty. The string of dirty tricks continued through the Reagan and Bush Administrations. Today's voter suppression tactics and dirty tricks mimic those used in 2000 and tacitly approved by the Supreme Court in Bush v. Gore.
Republicans have relied on dirty tricks to deceive voters during the adult years of almost all voters alive today. Voters seem to have suspended the skepticism necessary to preserve democracy in the face of a political party that has a long history of relying on dirty tricks.
Let's hope that November 3, 2020 will be the day that voters decide to hold Republican accountable for their dirty tricks.
2
Really?
We require parties that know how to lose?
The Democrats haven’t figured that out since they were shocked on 8 November 2016.
For the last 3 years, with support from the MSM, there have been continued new breathless efforts to investigate, weaken and remove Trump - all to overturn the results of their bad campaign and lost election.
And they still cannot figure out why they lose even at that.
3
Should the Republicans even be called Republicans? Republican is derived from the Latin for public things.
I would have liked to vote Republican but have found few that are interested in the public good since 1980.
Obama's election in 2008 was the trigger, I think. No one, regardless of their race or party affiliation, thought they would see a black president in their lifetime. And then it happened. This triggered panic and a jolt of urgency in the racial psyche of the dominant culture (not just republican; witness the vote switching by the white working class in 2016), resulting in the familiar "I get my way, or I burn the whole thing down" mentality.
2
This is a fine analysis of Republicans playing dirty, but what about Democrats?
When Republicans in blatant violation of the advise and consent obligation of the Senate blocked Merrick Garland from even a hearing, the Democrats laid down! Alan Dershowitz called it unconstitutional, and he was right! Democrats did not even test the constitutionality of that obstruction. They need to fight back harder as I see only Stacey Abrams doing.
It is democrats who attempted a coup to overthrow the results of an election.
And when that coup failed carried on endless investigations on the basis of nothing.
It is the Democrats who want open borders to increase their voter base.
Who want to use climate change as a lever to seize power and change the United States of America into a socialist country.
That this opinion piece was published shows that there is no shame on the left.
1
Donald Trump is emblematic of the Republican mode of operation. Everything is self serving and done in bad faith. It’s astonishing how they get away with it. It reinforces the fact that white males still act with impunity.
There is no way out for the GOP. Their kiss up/kick down ideology is sociopathic in character, and while it plays well with a certain segment of white reactionary Pharisees, it doesn't hold widespread appeal for everybody else (who are on the "kick down" portion of the GOP's calculus). Look at the options...
The GOP could try to be honestly Christian (instead of Christianist -- using the Bible as a shield for a very un-Christian agenda). But doing so would abrogate their kiss up ethos. They love the rich and loathe the poor -- so, honest Christian values go out the window.
They could try to be actually conservative (instead of faux-conservative), but they love Pentagon spending and big ticket payola for the top 1%, and can't risk alienating their paymasters at home and abroad.
Their entire ideological enterprise is founded on mendacity and corruption, deception and dissembling. The rot has been growing for them throughout the 20th century and accelerating in the 21st (even as they try to drag the nation back to the 19th or even 18th century).
There's no actual reform possible in the GOP -- the closest you get are corporate "centrist" Democrats, who resemble what the GOP used to be decades ago. Those fake Democrats are the only honest Republicans left in government. The GOP has gone far off into the weeds, and is ultimately unrecoverable. That's why they're at war with American democracy -- they know it's either that or oblivion for them.
The Republican party represents a tiny fraction of people. These are mostly corporate types and those with vast amounts of inherited wealth. Corporate types play to win as their business is simply making a profit. The corporate world keeps within a vanishingly thin line separating them from complete illegality. Cross that line and they are the mafia. Therefore, the Republicans play the game of their masters. The electorate that votes them in is vast. Invariably, these are less well informed and vote against their short-term and long-term interests. They are emotionally more malleable and phrases such as 'god and country' makes them teary eyed. They are mostly predisposed to be fearful of what they don't see, hear or meet. So while they aren't always racist, they are usually xenophobic. So Republicans need to play dirty to stay in power.
3
Republicans need a good shellacking. Let's hope one comes in 2020 and again in 2022.
Otherwise, good luck America.
1
I'm just happy that we have a pure political party in the Democrats, thankfully the Democrats never play dirty.
Its assuring to know that Democrats are above the divisive tactics of modern politicians which thrive on the friction division creates resulting in power, money and votes.
And Jesus entered the temple and drove out the money-changers.
Ahhh, the Democrats, the hope of mankind.
Good analysis! Missing tho is their mis information and ignoring facts i. e climate change. They have many enablers such as their “think tanks” who concentrate on messaging, donors and media allies who never challenge their views with facts. It’s obvious they never believed in their ideals of limiting government free markets and fiscal responsibility. They were quickly abandoned to keep access to their drug of power.
Several points per this screed:
1) There is no mystical "spirit of the law" hovering about the letter of the law. All there is is the letter of the law. Criticizing those who adhere to the letter of the law in light of a mythical spirit of the law is just a rhetorical dodge.
2) Congress itself passed the Emergency Powers Act specifically granting the president authority to declare an emergency and move already appropriated funds, more or less, as needed. The fault here is with Congress for passing such a stupid law, not with the president for using its provisions to advance his agenda. In any case I take it you wouldn't complain if a future President Warren declared global warming a national emergency and started shifting funds appropriated for other purposes to address it.
3) Speaking of thought-experiments, try this one: In the last year of President Romney's second term, a Supreme Court seat opens up and he nominates Bret Kavanaugh. Senate Democrats have only a slim majority so the majority leader Harry Reid refuses to allow hearings on the nomination for nearly a year claiming that the American people should have a voice by voting in the upcoming election. Would you call this an abuse of power, an example of "playing dirty," or would you call it a skillful use of Senate rules to protect basic rights like abortion rights?
"Democracy requires that parties know how to lose." Also applies to Democrats and their vanguard in academia. Those who live in glass houses...
Republicans will NEVER play fair, with voters or the Democratic Party. They have power now and mean to keep it. They also know that their standard bearer is compromised and unworthy of his office but they deem him much more preferable as president than any Democrat.
Republicans treated Barack Obama as if he were 3/5ths of a president, a 21st century Dred Scott. The Republican Party is supported by millions of people who feel the way the McConnells, the Kemps, the De Santises and this president do about minorities. One day though, they'll realize that they've "monkeyed-up" their own hopes to govern fairly in a truly diverse America.
2
"Why Republicans Play Dirty". A simply hilarious op-ed headline because it implies that the Dems don't play dirty, distort the facts or do whatever else is required to overcome those who disagree with them. The op-ed talks about the GOP's refusal to hold a confirmation for Garland. I agree that was morally wrong but as the op-ed points out, it was not legally wrong. I'm not overly familiar with Justice Kavanaugh's legal perspectives but no less than Justice Ginsburg has stated that both Kavanaugh and Gorsuch are decent people and well qualified jurists. I'll believe her before I believe the NYT. What was done by the Democrats to Kavanaugh based on mere allegation was outrageous. Even the NYT article of the other day made allegations against Kavanaugh which the had to retract and apologize for. That notwithstanding, some of the Democrats who want to run in 2020 are still using the piece as the basis for their calls to have Kavanaugh impeached. If the NYT weren't biased, engaging in yellow journalism, they would not maintain that the Republicans are the greatest threat to our nation. The truth be told, the Democrats are no better and neither is Fox News.
1
They are right. If they play by the rules they will lose.
If democrats let them fight dirty and don’t response, then democrats will continue to lose.
1
"Democracy requires that parties know how to lose. Politicians who fail to win elections must be willing to accept defeat, go home, and get ready to play again the next day. This norm of gracious losing is essential to a healthy democracy."
This was offered by the authors as a criticism of Republicans. Excuse me? When I read it I blew coffee out my nose laughing. For over 2 years Trump has been attacked in Congress and by the media in the most furious attempt to undo an election in our history.
So. Do. not. lecture. the.right. on. being. a. sore. loser.
1
Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt clearly describe what I half-jokingly said was the Republican party motto even before Trump became president: If you can't win fairly, stack the deck; if you can't stack the deck, cheat. I still say that but now it's in all seriousness.
The republican party has lost the essential reason for a democracy to not only exist but thrive, on a spirit of dialogue; considering the other party (the democrats) as an enemy that must be destroyed...before they can ascend to the seat of power by free and fair elections, is an outrage and an abuse of power, corrupt to it's core. In sum, Trumpian, based on 'racism', and a constant cry of resentment towards 'the other' (read, non-white). Have we lost all our marbles in this process?
1
This article is like an oxymoron. Republicans play dirty? Have these two "political scientists" been on Mars for the past three years? Not ever did a Republican attempt a coup. Every single person involved in that horrifying threat to our democracy was (and is) a democrat.
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Think total national strike after a decertified election
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The GOP's leader, our President, bribed a foreign country, Ukraine, with $250 million of our tax dollars to dig up dirt on the Democratic opponent he fears most, Joe Biden.
If he isn't impeached as a result of this behavior -- emblematic of his party -- then our Constitution is dead.
It is that simple.
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Republicans are doing what any party representing a minority of voters would do. They cheat. Now, some kinds of their cheating - political gerrymandering and gutting the Voting Rights Act, for example - have been approved by the Supreme Court. So the playing field is definitely tilted in Republicans' favor.
But by majorities, the American people support separation of church and state, legal abortion, sensible regulation on guns, equal rights for all Americans, regardless of ethnicity or gender, affordable health care and affordable higher education, and the need for our nation to do something about climate change. Trump voters, however, support none of these things.
Thus we are at impasse. Between the Electoral College and the Supreme Court's favoring a minority party, we may be looking at minority rule indefinitely. Republican voters could shrink to 20% and they would still not give up holding onto control of our government. Republicans would simply pass more laws giving them more power. Gerrymandering will become even more extreme, in their desperate attempt to hold onto power.
The fact is, the majority of Americans want an America that looks vastly different than the America Trump voters want. Peaceful means for change may no longer be possible, because of actions of this Supreme Court and the Republican party. But never in history has a majority remained silent indefinitely. The only unknown, now, is the manner in which our nation is going to break apart.
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There is a deep flaw in this analysis, and it begins in the assumptions that the source of party conflict today is traceable merely to the status and political anxieties of Christians and, additionally, to that of "white Protestant men."
The problem, of course, is that there is SOME truth to this bundle of assumptions--which always conceal other assumptions--but that they do not explain anything definitive about why such people have reacted other than their membership in those groups.
Let's be clear, here. For more than 40 years, Christian beliefs about abortion and other moral issues have been under relentless and malicious attack by feminists and other groups in America. Every time I worked for Barack Obama in 3 states--Kansas, Colorado and Missouri--this issue always--always--got thrown in my face. It is simply wrong to assume that this momentous cultural conflict is traceable merely to the religion, race and gender of Republicans.
These people are, after all, human beings and not merely members of their religion, sex or race. A serious historical explanation of the Republican Party's political injustices absolutely requires an exploration of what there is about their membership in these groups that causes them to react the way they do.
This analysis is devoid of any such effort, and it explains almost nothing. I am NOT seeking to justify what Republicans do, but I want explanations, not propaganda.
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Great piece.
But I do have to quibble with "Republican leaders are not driven by an intrinsic or ideological contempt for democracy."
As described, Rep.'s extreme gerrymandering and elections fraud schemes are proof that they do indeed have contempt for the democratic process. For Republicans, hierarchical divisions between the haves and have-nots, men and women, black and white, etc. is simply the natural order of things, and anything like democracy or equality destroys the traditional privilege they believe is their god-given right.
These nasty actions are the death-throes of today's Republicans.
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As I read this article, I kept thinking of this quote by David Frum: "If conservatives [also, Republicans] become convinced that they can not win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. The will reject democracy.” We are seeing that play out before our eyes in real time. Our democracy is dying, VOTE 2020, the life of our democracy depends on it - literally.
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@MM Never have been a fan of David Frum but the threat of the Trump era onto our way of living has not only led David but a cascade of other Republicans to join into our collective angst of a dark future for this country. We are on the slippery slope to becoming a banana republic. Can anyone stop it? Let's hope so, soon.
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@John I'm not a David Frum fan either, but on this point he is spot on. Republicans are showing us their allegiance not to democracy, but to exclusionary racist, sexist, and homophobic tenets that are an anathema to real democracy. From gerrymandering, to stealing SCOTUS seats, poll taxes and other efforts to suppress or deny voting to eligible voters, their efforts to gain/retain power are disgusting.
The script has flipped and it's about nothing other than winning...at any cost.
"It's how you play the game" was always a fine ideal, but I'm not sure it was ever more than some hoped for abstract social commandment.
I don't like these people very much.
They are not good for our country.
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Playing dirty it not as new to Republicans as these authors seem to want to suggest. Consider Nixon's 1968 secret negotiations with the Vietnamese and Reagan's pre-election dealings with Iran. In both cases, Republicans committed serious crimes. And in neither case did the party face an existential threat. It simply wanted to win.
One might also also ask what "conservative interests", as typified by the Republican party of 2019, do democracies require, even should the party become more "diverse"? What exacly is worth preserving in that program of hate, resentment, deregulatory zeal and upward income transfers?
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This article sounds right, but I would add a factor.
I don’t think the existential struggle for power is about a party per se, but about a perceived religious, ethnic, racial identity: namely white conservative evangelicalism.
Since 1980 the GOP and evangelicalism have joined forces. More recently, their interests have so merged as to become identical: the GOP is simply the voting wing of white conservative evangelicalism.
Will you do anything...ANYTHING....to “keep” America “Christian”, that is, to thrust white conservative evangelical concerns into political centrality? That is the question on every GOP voters mind, and Trumpism gave the right answer.
There are two opponents to this view. One is ecumenical, mainstream Christianity, which is now gathering force to declare white conservative evangelicalism a heresy. My own view is that that cannot happen soon enough.
And the other opponent is every true lover of American Democracy.
Thus, a religious civil war—a church struggle—is nested inside our political struggle against Trumpism and all it stands for. A similar church struggle happened in Germany in the 1930s, and in apartheid South Africa.
In my opinion, whether a person cares or not about that church struggle, they should be aware of it. This coming election may be determined in part by its outcome.
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It should also be noted that true Christians believe in a sovereign God who wants holy, good and righteous followers. These so-called “Christians” fail at the basics. America is not Christian because the “Christians” don’t actually follow Christ.
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It is days like this, times like this, that I hear the echo of my enslaved ancestors singing "we shall overcome someday." These Republican assaults on our democracy, on tradition -- which fly in the face of the word 'conservative' -- will wane one day. I will work for that day. I may not be alive to see it, but it will happen. "The arc of a moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." -- MLK
1
@newyorkerva
These Republican assaults are all about the word "conservative".
I think we should join the Republican party and change it from within, instead of waiting for them to change after experiencing humiliating defeat. The problem, as I see it, is that the Republican party has been taken over by extremists who are threatening ... well everything: the planet, the people, democracy ... At least we can vote against Trump in the Republican primary to try to end this madness
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Is this a joke?
Rule changes? (See the House Judiciary Committee just this week where the Dems changed the rules unilaterally and then didn't keep them. The Dems brought about the nuclear option. The Dems are talking about changing the constitution to win elections.)
Accept loss? (See the last three years of an attempted overthrow of a duly elected president, an ongoing coup d'etat using the power of federal government against its citizens.)
SCOTUS Complaints? (The Dems are the ones who said that a nominee should not be confirmed in an election year.)
Playing dirty? (See Nadler running the committee. It was a joke, allowing witnesses to filibuster and take the members time, allowing the Dems to break the rules, allowing private citizens to act as part of the government in violation of the rules. See the scandal of the FBI that has been revealed in the IG report. See the lack of curiosity as to why the Obama administration allowed Russian interference in the 2016 campaign.)
If you agree with an article like this, you are part of the problem in our country. These two authors are at best misinformed. They are more likely intentionally misleading. They know these things equally apply to Democrats, starting as far back as the mid 80s and the borking of Judge Bork, an have continued in the same vein to this day. For far too long, the GOP has tried to play nice and take the high road. And now look what we have.
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@Lawrence
You can always count a conservative to fail to see the big picture. Your cherry-picked comments are very telling indeed. Thank you for that. Best defense for the article's relevancy you could give.
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@Lawrence
"For far too long, the GOP has tried to play nice and take the high road. "
Newt Gingrich would like a word with you.
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@Lawrence
Let's just back up for a moment and examine a bit of Republican propaganda in action here. Specifically the claim that "The Dems are the ones who said that a nominee should not be confirmed in an election year."
Joe Biden made a comment to such effect in 1992 about SC nominees. It was dumb in the way a lot of the things politicians say usually are. It was never supported in any official way by the party. In fact such an idea flew in the face of actual election year nominations throughout the country's history.
Flash-forward to 2016 and here's Mitch McConnell citing "The Biden Rule" as justification for withholding Pres Obama's nomination of Judge Garland to the SC. A "rule" with no basis in history or practice, merely an ancient comment dredged up to serve the Republican Party's own political ends. That justification of course picked up and reported by Fox News as an actual rule the Republicans were correct to invoke in the given circumstances.
There is no "Biden Rule", just a mostly forgotten comment by a senator in the early 90s who had no idea at the time how badly his words would be misappropriated 24 years later to steal a SC seat.
But tell your average Republican voter that and they might just post an angry missive to the NYT claiming anyone saying otherwise in living in a fantasy world.
2
I have been waiting some three decades to see this discussion finally make its way into the pages of NYT.
What republicans want is illegitimate. It cannot be had in a democratic process. It relies of races, genders, classes fighting with each other while they line their pockets. Rules of fair play, law and order, generally do not allow them (or anyone) to enjoy unquestioned power, power to subjugate others, or line their personal pockets with impunity. But that is what they want - and want it badly.
So they play dirty.
472
@Kalidan Kalidan, we should go for a drink. I've been saying this forever as well. This is not news.
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@Kalidan As a white male I can only hope that when the minorities that have been treated so poorly finally become the majority, in spite of every ounce of effort by arch conservatives, that they will recognize that not all of those who were part of the former majority were working to keep them down.
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When will the NYT ditch the Trump articles and talk about the Democratic candidates?
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Because he has the power
The Alabama Sharpie trick showcases Trump's absolute power (yes, we already live in an autocracy):
He lied, was caught, and forced the National Weather Service to bend to his will.
He told us loud and clear: "I can say and do whatever I please to you now. You have no recourse."
Americas must beat down the GOP's dirty tricks and lies, or their autocratic plans will press the dying breath out of our country.
6
Take billionaires' money out of politics, ban it! It's killing America. It aims to elect more Trumps to UNRAVEL and destroy law and order.
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@Tom Both parties are bought and paid for. The "political system" we are forced to endure is totally corrupt. We are subjected to perpetual election campaigns which change nothing. It's mind-numbing, which is what is designed to do.
1
Why is the Republican Party playing dirty? Because they know no other way.
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Regarding the statement that the GOP must diversify from a party of white men. I recall a few years ago that then Speaker Paul Ryan took a selfie with the Republican interns for Congress. Finding a dark face was like looking for Waldo. Then the Democrat interns took a selfie. The group looked like America. Those interns will become leaders in the future. One party has self-selected to be Lilly white and one has selected to reflect the diversity of America. The GOP is in a trap of its own making and has no way out and therefor must use dirty tricks and subvert democracy in order to hold power.
3
Regarding the statement that the GOP must diversify from a party of white men. I recall a few years ago that then Speaker Paul Ryan took a selfie with the Republican interns for Congress. Finding a dark face was like looking for Waldo. Then the Democrat interns took a selfie. The group looked like America. Those interns will become leaders in the future. One party has self-selected to be Lilly white and one has selected to reflect the diversity of America. The GOP is in a trap of its own making and has no way out and therefor must use dirty tricks and subvert democracy in order to hold power.
1
For a long time, therapists were encouraged to view bullies as victims themselves, often of bullying parents.
It took feminist therapists to point out the obvious; bullying is actually a learned power strategy for getting what the bully wants.
The Sopranos is a great dramatic enactment of this truth; therapy usually just helps the antisocial to improve their hustle.
Republicans play dirty for power, to get what they want. They are not fearful victims, they are bullies. Think Orwell, Machiavelli, or Rand claiming the world rides on the backs of the heroic few. Like the long list of Trump appointees now forced to resign, under investigation, or in jail. Many leading GOP figures and donors might fit the criteria for being antisocial: Nixon, Agnew, Koch, Cohn, McCarthy, etc. but not fearful victims.
Now their base, they've been made to fear, and stay afraid, like every bully's target.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cluster_B_personality_disorders
https://diplopundit.net/2019/04/24/pompeo-swaggers-into-the-bright-light-we-lied-we-cheated-we-stole-laughter/
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It’s all about FEAR. Fear of the unknown. Fear of change. Fear of losing. Fear of the other. The GOP is scared, really scared and they are COWARDS!
When there is a common enemy humans unite. Currently, at least on the international stage we have no such enemy so trump and his GOP have to create a FAKE enemy- immigrants running for their lives! They have to convince themselves that they need to arm themselves against- what? An immigrant who will probably work picking fruit or plucking chickens?
What are they so afraid of? It boggles the mind.
It is pathetic that they are willing to trash this precious American experiment for their own selfish fake sense of security built of nothingness.
Republicans are scared of the majority/minority shift in America. The largely white, male Republican Party does not want to see white America become brown/black/white America. They will fight tooth and nail to keep white power. Racism rules.
1
It’s amazing how people can rally around a silly premise. The thought that an individual could make a case that one brand of politics is “cleaner” or more “proper” in their ways is the most fact less assertion ever made.
There are thousands of examples of the left breaking rules for their own ideals. From the FISL warrants to Comey
and McCabe to the Governor of Virginia to the Prime Minister of Canada to the Cavanaugh hearings...
So please don’t bore me with with the “my devil is better than the your devil”. It’s simply ludicrous and we all know it. You need a better argument.
Respectfully ...
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