Democracy Can't Survive Unless the Far Right Is Marginalized | Time - 0 views
-
As our nation comes to grip with the horrific events of January 6 and watches the Republican Party descend further into Trumpism as it pushes hundreds of restrictive voting laws across the country, the obvious question is how does American democracy come back from all this?
-
The super-majority of Americans across the political spectrum who reject the extremism need to come together. This includes the pro-democracy right
-
But only a new small “l” liberal Republican Party—distinct from the increasingly illiberal Trumpist GOP, can establish a new partisan identity that gives center-right voters a meaningful home.
- ...7 more annotations...
-
Republican Party is an illiberal anti-democratic nativist global outlier, with positions more extreme than France’s National Rally, and in line with the Germany’s AfD, Hungary’s Fidesz, Turkey’s AKP and Poland’s PiS, according to the widely respected V-Dem (Varieties of Democracy) Institute.
-
The GOP has been sliding into authoritarianism over two decades, using increasingly demonizing rhetoric against its opponents.
-
Three-quarters of Americans disapprove of the January 6 mob’s actions, and Trump’s seemingly immovable approval floor dropped by about more than six points. In the days after, only 13 percent of Americans considered themselves “Trump Supporters” while another 16 percent considered themselves “Traditional Republicans.” If “Trump Supporters” were their own party, they’d be about as popular as Germany’s far-right AfD, which polled at about 15 percent for 2019, though their support more recently dropped off to 11 percent.
-
. For decades, majorities of Americans have told pollsters they want more parties to choose from, and registered their dissatisfaction with the two-party system by increasingly identifying as independents.
-
But as the two parties began sorting more clearly along liberal-conservative lines as “culture war” issues starting in the 1970s, and as American politics nationalized around these cultural issues, and, starting in the 1990s, as the long-time Democratic control of the House ended, every election became a high-stakes all-or-nothing fight for control of federal power.
-
The only way to elevate the moderate Republicans is for Congress to use its constitutional authority (Article I, Section IV) to change how we vote, and create electoral opportunities for a center-right to rise again.