Subsumed by the news since the U.S. presidential election on Nov. 3 is a study released in the closing weeks of the campaign that finds the Republican party has withdrawn from upholding democratic norms.
The finding came from the V-Dem Institute at Sweden’s University of Gothenburg, which since 1970 has studied shifts in political parties around the world. In the GOP’s illiberalism, the study finds, the party resembles the authoritarian party of Hungary’s Viktor Orban that has made Hungary country the only non-democracy in the European Union.
The Republican Party has displayed its anti-democratic drive without hesitation over the two weeks since the election. The party’s congressional delegation, with a handful of exceptions, has joined President Trump in refusing to acknowledge the results. Ditto for many Republican governors. Republican support for Trump’s claims are “delegitimizing democracy,” former President Barack Obama told CBS News.
Unearthing Trump’s motivation comes down to, as Steve Coll noted in the New Yorker, “what’s in it for him.” Trump may see a second term as the best hope for shielding himself from both prosecution and hundreds of millions of dollars in debt. “It’s the office of the presidency that’s keeping him from prison and the poorhouse,” Timothy Snyder, a history professor at Yale, told the New Yorker’s Jane Mayer.
For their part, Republicans seem to be acting out of fear for their own for survival (thanks to Trump’s sway with their base) and a determination to hold power. Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, may hope that by insisting that Trump has every right to contest the results (notwithstanding any evidence of irregularity in the voting), he’ll encourage Republicans in Georgia to turn out for two Senate run-off elections that will decide whether McConnell retains his job.
For years now, Republicans have relied on partisan gerrymandering, the structural advantage the Senate confers on rural states, and other anti-Democratic devices to achieve what they’ve been unable to at the ballot box. A majority of Americans, for example, support abortion rights. So Republicans focus on filling federal courts with judges who oppose such rights.
If nothing else, the GOP’s refusal to accept the result of the election (while embracing results of elections won by its members) shows that democracy is as difficult as ever. Seventy-two million Americans voted for Donald Trump.
Misinformation matters. Republicans are far more likely than Democrats to say that social media sites likely censor political viewpoints. “It’ll take more than one election to reverse those trends,” Obama told the BBC, referring to what he termed “truth decay.”
Finding ways to show Americans what we have in common would help, too. In a memo last week, four leading progressive groups analyzed what went wrong for congressional Democrats, who nearly lost their majority in the House of Representatives. The underperformance touched off a debate between the party’s left and members who blamed the left for the results.
In their memo, the progressive groups call for an economic message that connects with working people of all races. “Too often Democrats keep issues of economic justice and racial justice in separate siloes,” they wrote. “Data has shown that an explicit multiracial, populist message mobilizes and persuades voters. We need a Democratic Party dedicated to economic and racial justice and that names the Republican Party’s racism as a class weapon.”
Trump was a strongman without a strategy. Someday our democracy may confront one who has their act together. Now would be time to get ready.