“If University Students can be Loyal Republicans in 2022, then anybody can talk about anything”
The quotation above is a reply I posted this morning to a tweet by the UMass Amherst College Republicans in which they were trolling PA US Senate candidate John Fetterman for talking about crime. The reality that my tweet is in no way indicative of the kind of partisan bias that would be problematic for a political scientist is, to put it mildly, depressing.
The transition of the Republican Party from the nation’s politically conservative liberal democratic political party to the political arm of a violent, extremist authoritarian revolt against America’s constitutional democracy is well under way, and more importantly, is no longer seriously in dispute among objective experts and analysts.
Unfortunately, too many folks who should realize and/or be making this clear to others have instead resisted coming to grips with this admittedly depressing reality. Polling of American voters in the run up to next week’s midterm elections make clear that a frighteningly large segment of the population believes that the GOP can be both a Trumpian cult and a legitimate liberal democratic political party at the same time.
The difficult position of Conservative voters still caught in the grip of the GOP cannot be easily dismissed, though the habit of consequentialist reasoning certainly makes that approach hard to resist. The durability of our two party system, the ideological and socio-cultural sorting of Americans into one or the other major party over several decades, and the longstanding bipartisan misunderstanding of the government’s impact on the economy all genuinely complicate the ability of politically conservative Americans to respond rationally to the now indisputable corruption and illegitimacy of the Republican Party.
The very difficult position of professional journalists too makes rational responses by politically conservative American voters to the transformation of the GOP from a democratic political party to an anti-democratic, anti-rule of law, revolutionary organization more difficult. Faced with unprecedented market competition from fake news outfits and disinformation entrepreneurs cashing in on the political cynicism and non-rational cognitive tendencies of average Americans, professional journalists are trapped between the ethical standards of their profession and economic survival. The stubborn persistence, even among real journalists and real news outlets, of “both-sides-ism” and false equivalencies designed to serve as an affordable proxy for objectivity that helps defuse criticism that might further erode market shares is effectively crippling the Fourth Estate.
Who can effectively stand in the breach today? Who can effectively herald the stark and dangerous reality that one (and only one) of our two major political parties has become an enemy of the Republic? It is quite clear that this difficult but crucial function requires the leadership of people who enjoy economic and professional invulnerability, as well as credibility with a broad segment of the American people. It is also quite clear that the perpetrators of this well-financed attack on American democracy have and are steadily and transparently attacking the people and institutions best positioned to defend American democracy. In fact, the right wing anti-intellectual assaults on science, higher education, primary and secondary education, the arts, the entertainment industry, and anything else that might foster the intellectual acuity, integrity, and financial independence that most threatens the advance of authoritarian conservatism in America, pre-dates the rise of Fox News, Donald Trump, and Alex Jones by decades. The successful infiltration of America’s judiciary as well as the government agencies entrusted with the fair and democratic administration of elections by right wing enemies of the Republic is ongoing.
Right wing politicians, plutocrats, and political profiteers no longer even have effective control over the forces they have unleashed in pursuit of what may have once been a debatable vision of American democracy. The distinction between the right wing manipulators and manipulated may well be academic at this point. Donald Trump’s trademarked obsequious boot licking of the moral and intellectual dregs of American society make clear that the chain of command in the right wing army attacking American democracy today is upside down. Nowhere in American life is mob rule more clearly in evidence than in the Republican/Trumpublican Party (alt) universe.
Difficulties and perverse incentives aside, anyone suggesting that the Republican Party in 2022 represents a legitimate or credible democratic alternative at the ballot box cannot credibly claim to be an objective authority. Worse yet, anyone who is a relevant objective authority cannot credibly remain so without being willing to call out the corruption of the politicians, activists, interest groups, ideologues, and financiers, who remain loyal to the Republican Party brand for their complicity in an ongoing existential threat to the Republic.
If the 2022 midterm elections result in a Republican Party takeover of the U.S. Congress and key election administration posts at the state-level, then the unhinged mob presently dictating the actions of GOP “leaders” will have won a key battle, namely the battle to normalize in the United States authoritarian populism, political terrorism, and open (even proud) contempt for the rule of law. If voters are willing to forget that the GOP sponsored and condoned an actual insurrection aimed at altering the results of an indisputably free and fair election and are willing to take seriously the political leadership of a twice-impeached, openly corrupt and incompetent former president, as well as the candidacies of Republicans endorsed by him, then everyone who knows better and didn’t say so loudly and clearly, owns a piece of what happens next.