Evidence of Threat to American Democracy and Its Rule of Law

This discussion is longer than most, but what it contains strikes me as important and urgent.

Several recent discussions here assert that there is an immediate, dire threat to democracy and the rule of law. The threat is asserted to come from radical right groups and propaganda sources like Fox News, the Sinclair Broadcasting behemoth, etc., the republican party leadership and elites and at least some rank and file republicans who are deceived into a sincere belief that they are fighting to defend democracy and the rule of law. 

Obviously, the American people are not a monolith in their beliefs. For example, I characterize the 1/6 attack on the US capitol as terrifying and a coup attempt. But that is a minority opinion. For example, Pew Research found that only 14% of Americans surveyed indicated “surprise/concern for country” and only 13% blamed Trump. Just 9% of Americans were critical of the law enforcement response to the sacking, 8% describe it as a “coup attempt” or as “domestic terrorism” and a mere 3% claimed to be scared about it. That lack of fear by Americans and their failure to connect T**** with the coup attempt really frightens me. A lot. I am undeniably out of synch with most Americans on this issue.

But does that poll data on the 1/6 coup attempt accurately reflect the seriousness of what I firmly claim to be a deadly serious attack by the radical right, including at least the GOP leadership, on democracy and the rule of law? Other people saw the threat going at least back to a couple of days after the 2016 election. Russian journalist Masha Gessen, who witnessed the fall of democracy in Russia to tyrants and kleptocrats, was blunt about what she saw:

“Thank you, my friends. Thank you. Thank you. We have lost. We have lost, and this is the last day of my political career, so I will say what must be said. We are standing at the edge of the abyss. Our political system, our society, our country itself are in greater danger than at any time in the last century and a half. The president-elect has made his intentions clear, and it would be immoral to pretend otherwise. We must band together right now to defend the laws, the institutions, and the ideals on which our country is based.”

 
That, or something like that, is what Hillary Clinton should have said on Wednesday [in her concession speech to T****].

An article in the current issue of Washington Monthly, America’s Next Insurgency, posits this: “The January 6 violence could signal the start of nationwide conflict not seen since the Civil War. Can we stop it?” WM writes:

The present United States may be more polarized than it has been at any time since the 1850s. Large swaths of the population simply refuse to accept the election of political opponents as legitimate. Many of the social issues that divide us, in particular questions of systemic discrimination, stem from slavery.

Most frighteningly, research suggests that a growing number of Americans believe that political violence is acceptable. In a 2017 survey by the political scientists Lilliana Mason and Nathan Kalmoe, 18 percent of Democrats and 12 percent of Republicans said that violence would be at least a little justified if the opposing party won the presidency. In February 2021, those numbers increased to 20 percent and 28 percent, respectively. Other researchers have found an even bigger appetite for extreme activity. In a January poll conducted by the American Enterprise Institute, researchers asked respondents whether “the traditional American way of life is disappearing so fast that we may have to use force to save it.” Thirty-six percent of Americans, and an astounding 56 percent of Republicans, said yes.

All of this raises a serious question: Could the United States experience prolonged, acute civil violence?

According to dozens of interviews with former and current government officials, counterterrorism researchers, and political scientists who study both the U.S. and other countries, the answer is yes. “I think that the conditions are pretty clearly headed in that direction,” says Katrina Mulligan, the managing director for national security and international policy at the Center for American Progress and the former director for preparedness and response in the national security division at the Department of Justice (DOJ). The insurrection on “January 6 was a canary in the coal mine in a way, precisely because it wasn’t a surprise to those of us who have been following this.” 

But officials and researchers overwhelmingly agreed on the main source of the threat: the radical right. Despite overwrought warnings of “antifa,” it has been extreme conservatives who have driven into crowds of protestors, killing liberal activists. No leftists have murdered police officers or security guards, as right-wing fanatics did last summer in California. Progressives have not called for a race war or the bloody overthrow of the federal government. “Primarily, this is a far-right problem,” Napolitano said. “We saw it pretty clearly expressed on January 6.” 

Unfortunately, the Biden administration might not have much more luck fighting insurgents on the home front. The economic dislocation and misplaced cultural grievances that are driving discontent are not easy to fix, especially with our knotty political system. And even if the president can tackle these challenges, the institutions that are trusted by the right—incendiary conservative politicians, Fox News, talk radio grifters, Facebook commentators obsessed with “owning the libs,” and, above all else, Donald Trump—have no incentive to stop peddling lies or to cool their tone. Hate works to their political and financial benefit. 

“We can run around and do targeting operations. The FBI can sweep up dudes nonstop,” says Jason Dempsey, an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security and a former special assistant to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. But political violence is, ultimately, a political problem. So long as the GOP remains in thrall to the far right, attackers will have enough support to regenerate. “If you don’t address that,” Dempsey says, “then no amount of tactical action will ever get you ahead of the game.” (emphasis added)

There is also evidence of significant public support for a potential military intervention and/or closing down Congress. The Washington Post indicates that both voters and non-voters share such views:   

Our research finds that, in fact, substantial numbers of U.S. adults say they would embrace ruptures in the constitutional order, which is in keeping with Bright Line Watch findings that experts believe that measures of U.S. democracy have declined under President Trump.

Whether his supporters believe it or not, the former president was and still is not democratic (in my opinion). He was and is an authoritarian autocrat with a lot of hostility toward democracy, especially elections, and the rule of law. Based on that data, most republican believe T****-style democracy, i.e., autocracy, is just fine.

Another cause for concern lies with arguably inadequate laws and/or reluctance to enforce existing laws in the face of right wing domestic terrorism. Once source comments on this:

“When someone like [Tree of Life synagogue shooter] Robert Bowers kills18 people in a Pittsburgh synagogue, and he’s not considered a domestic terrorist because he used a handgun and not a weapon of mass destruction. It really points to the absurdity of the law as it exists today,” Blazakis told The Intercept. “If that were an individual inspired by ISIS, they’d be charged with an act of terrorism. 

Collectively, that evidence is convincing to me that democracy and the rule of law are under a severe attack and most of the danger, about 90% in my opinion, comes from the republican party leadership and radical right conservatism and propaganda generally. 

Questions: Is that content and analysis too biased-prejudiced and/or the evidence too cherry picked to be persuasive? Is Antifa and/or governance by democrats much more of a threat than just ~10%, say ~50% or even 90%? If there is widespread delusional thinking and belief, is it mostly on the left or the right, or roughly equal on both sides? Are the information sources not trustworthy and thus the evidence is not true or believable?

Thanks to PD for raising most of the information this discussion is based on.