Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) comes right out and says that the GOP is opposed to democracy:
By “democracy” he means all people have a say in government. By “peace” he means order. By “liberty” he means the freedom of [white] men to grab whatever they want.
The GOP, which has become the party of white grievance, is desperate. Their demographics are shrinking.
Ziblatt and Levitsky, in How Democracies Die, say: “It is difficult to find examples of societies in which shrinking ethnic majorities gave up their dominant status without a fight.”
As I explain here, MAGA means take America back to the days when [white men] could grab whatever they wanted. Before modern rape and sexual harassment laws, they could grab women. On the frontier, they could grab land. Before the New Deal and regulatory agencies, they could cheat, manipulate markets, and fix prices. It’s hard to give up all that “liberty.”
Me, neither, particularly just before an election. This morning Trump said Barr should indict Biden and Obama. This is wishful thinking (there are procedures including grand juries), but that wish is for an autocracy. That’s why Trump is their man. For Trump, too, democracy is not the objective.
I’ll link to two posts for new subscribers.
First this one, on how California paved the way, and this one, about how MAGA means take America back to the days when white men could cheat and grab. (This post starts out about Trump’s lawbreaking, then explains the GOP desire to return to a bygone era of [white] male supremacy.)
If you feel like we’re in a pivotal moment, you’re right. Heather Cox Richardson explains that our current struggle between democracy (equality) and oligarchy (MAGA) reaches all the way back to the founding of the nation.
Put another way, there are two views of the purpose of government:
- Maintain a hierarchy (order), or
- Create fairness
The GOP wants to maintain the hierarchy. (For more on hierarchy v. fairness, see this post.)
Personal history: I sat in a college dorm room watching the 1980 election coverage and cried. I’d been doing internal polling for the Carter campaign. The frustration I felt during each election from 1980 until 2012 was that the GOP managed to hide what it was about.
I am grateful that Stuart Stevens wrote It Was All A Lie, explaining what I’d watched my entire adult life. (For a post on Stevens’ book, click here.)
The GOP is in trouble: Its demographics are aging and shrinking. The GOP is desperate to win the election because it knows that if it loses, the Democrats (representing a majority of Americans) will be able to take steps that will push white supremacists to the fringes. Why do you think Pence harped on Democrats adding justices?
So, we’re at a tipping point: Which will win?
Answer: If the majority is motivated enough, democracy will win. It won’t be easy. The GOP is desperate.
But the size and intensity of the George Floyd protests showed me that the majority is motivated.
Also, I can read the polls. (I have a vague understanding of margins of error, probability, and representative samples.) Trump also knows how to read the polls. That’s why he’s not talking about them.
The way to get through the next few months is to remember that we’re watching the last desperate gasps of a dying hierarchy. Keep steady. Keep your eye on the goal. Do everything you can between now and the election to increase Biden’s margin of victory.
When FDR took office, things were worse than now. There was no minimum wage, no 40 hour work week, no protection for workers, basically no middle class. College was mostly for the wealthy. By the 1950s we had a thriving middle class. The changes didn’t happen overnight. They took a few years, but by all measures, the changes were rapid.
How did he do it? He was backed by a strong majority. He won a decisive victory, which included a Democratic Senate and House.
Change can happen quickly if the majority is motivated. Notice the ‘if’ in that sentence.
Ted Lieu totally knows how to do Twitter:
The “we’re not a democracy” folks ignore the amendments (except the Second and Tenth Amendments. They love those.) They rely on the Constitution as ratified in the eighteenth century, which set up a representative democracy but left out a lot of people.
What they mean is go back to 1787 when white men had almost unlimited personal “liberty” and women were chattel and minorities were not considered human.
They think they sound smart quoting slaveowners and ignoring a few centuries of progress.
