Bipartisan erosion of support for democracy in America

A 2020 research paper by Yale political scientists Matthew Graham and Milan Svolik indicates that Americans are valuing democracy less as polarization and extremism increases. They write:

Our research design allows us to infer Americans’ willingness to trade-off democratic principles for other valid but potentially conflicting considerations such as political ideology, partisan loyalty, and policy preferences. We find the U.S. public’s viability as a democratic check to be strikingly limited: only a small fraction of Americans prioritize democratic principles in their electoral choices, and their tendency to do so is decreasing in several measures of polarization, including the strength of partisanship, policy extremism, and candidate platform divergence. Our findings echo classic arguments about the importance of political moderation and cross-cutting cleavages for democratic stability and highlight the dangers that polarization represents for democracy.  

We show that this conventional wisdom [overwhelming public support for democracy dating back to Tocqueville] rests on fragile foundations. Rather than asking about support for democracy directly, we adopt an approach that infers Americans’ commitment to democratic principles from their choices of candidates in hypothetical election scenarios. Each candidate is experimentally assigned attributes and platforms that approximate real-world elections and, crucially, may endorse positions that violate core democratic principles, including free and fair elections, civil liberties, and checks and balances. In this framework, voters “support democracy” not when they say so, but rather when their choices reveal a preference for democratic principles over other valid but potentially conflicting considerations such as political ideology, partisan loyalty, or policy preferences.  

The following is a summary of our experimental findings: 

1. Americans value democracy, but not much: A candidate who considers adopting an undemocratic position can expect to be punished by losing only about 11.7% of his overall vote share. When we restrict attention to candidate-choice scenarios with combinations of partisanship and policies that we typically see in real-world elections, this punishment drops to 3.5%. 

2. Support for democracy is highly elastic: When the price of voting for a more democratic candidate is that candidate’s greater distance from the voter in terms of her preferred policies, even the most centrist voters are willing to tolerate at most a 10–15% increase in such a distance. 

3. Centrists are a pro-democratic force: “Centrist” voters who see small policy differences between candidates punish undemocratic behavior at four times the rate of “extremist” voters who strongly favor one of the candidates. 

4. Most voters are partisans first and democrats only second: Only about 13.1% of our respondents are willing to defect from a co-partisan candidate for violating democratic principles when the price of doing so is voting against their own party. Only independents and partisan “leaners” support more democratic candidates enough to defeat undemocratic ones regardless of their partisan affiliation. 

5. Supporters of both parties employ a partisan “double standard”: Respondents who identify as Republican are more willing to punish undemocratic behavior by Democratic Party than Republican Party candidates and vice versa. These effects are about equal among both Democrat and Republican respondents.

 A couple of points jump right out of the research. First, political extremism and polarization on the left and right tend to be anti-democratic. Second, hard core partisan voters believe they are supporting democracy even when they vote for anti-democratic candidates. As we all know, what people believe to be true can be mostly true, mostly ambiguous or mostly false. That argues for the importance and morality of honest speech and the deep immorality of dark free speech and the damage to democracy it causes.

Ratcheting toward an authoritarian abyss 

IMO (my interpretation of the results), the anti-democratic situation arguably is critical. The US is on the verge of losing its democracy. The authors data argues that people should cross party lines to vote for the pro-democracy candidate over an anti-democracy candidate. But with the Republican Party being dominated by anti-democratic authoritarian ideology, tactics (heavy reliance on dark free speech, RINO hunts, intolerance of dissent, etc.) and policies, there usually is no pro-democracy Republican choice to turn to when the Democratic Party choice is anti-democratic. 

To me, it looks like we are in a one-way political ratchet situation. America is ratcheting step by step away from democracy and toward authoritarianism. The fall of the GOP to neo-fascism leaves no alternative but to slowly inch toward an authoritarian abyss and eventually fall in. 

The entire enterprise is colored by the fact that as racial and ethnic minority influence increases, there seems to be no way to even define what centrism is. The progressive wing vs. the Biden wing of the Democratic Party illustrates this. The MSM and many people see Biden as a centrist or moderate. But lots of others do not, seeing him as mostly (not always) center right to hard right. And, after its years of RINO hunts, the GOP is far more monolith than diverse. There's very little centrism or compromise there, if any. 

Further complicating this is the fact that decades of radical right dark free speech has pushed the Overton window[1] to the extreme right. What used to be fringe crackpots (Marjorie Taylor Greene) and nutball ideas (climate change is not a serious problem) are now mainstream and dominant in the GOP. The GOP was not always anti-climate science, gun-identity infused, rabidly anti-government, anti-abortion, or etc. Neo-Fascist Republican extremists are now often (usually?) seen as merely moderate conservative, not radical right. In fact, there is little that is moderately conservative about the modern Republican Party. It is overwhelmingly radical right, aggressive and intolerant.

Footnote: 
1. Wikipedia: “The Overton window is the range of policies politically acceptable to the mainstream population at a given time. It is also known as the window of discourse. The term is named after American policy analyst Joseph Overton, who stated that an idea's political viability depends mainly on whether it falls within this range, rather than on politicians' individual preferences. According to Overton, the window frames the range of policies that a politician can recommend without appearing too extreme to gain or keep public office given the climate of public opinion at that time. Overton described a spectrum from "more free" to "less free" with regard to government intervention, oriented vertically on an axis, to avoid comparison with the left/right political spectrum. As the spectrum moves or expands, an idea at a given location may become more or less politically acceptable.”

Overton window on energy efficient buildings

But, opinions will vary:

Most people concerned about climate change 

might see the Paris Accords and legislation as 

sensible or acceptable, not radical or unthinkable

Is Trumpism a "Cult"?

 Consider the characteristics of a cult:

According to the Cult Education Institute, there are specific warning signs to look out for when considering whether a group might be a cult. Cults are characterized by:

1. Absolute authoritarianism without accountability
2. Zero tolerance for criticism or questions
3. Lack of meaningful financial disclosure regarding budget
4. Unreasonable fears about the outside world that often involve evil conspiracies and persecutions
5. A belief that former followers are always wrong for leaving and there is never a legitimate reason for anyone else to leave
6. Abuse of members
7. Records, books, articles, or programs documenting the abuses of the leader or group
8. Followers feeling they are never able to be “good enough”
9. A belief that the leader is right at all times
10. A belief that the leader is the exclusive means of knowing “truth” or giving validation

https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-a-cult-5078234

Here is Another one:

Cults have commonly been led by narcissists; harmful cults have been led by abusive narcissists.
The following are some common tendencies abusive narcissists share to different extents:

• They believe they are always victims and are treated unfairly.
• They consider their victims to be aggressors, and their opponents to be evil.
• In their mind they are never wrong and never apologize; they will only rectify what they said if it will earn them power.
• They consider themselves above the law.
• They manipulate the hearts and minds of their enablers and create a group of unconditional fans or codependents.
• They lie and believe their lies; whoever contradicts the lies will pay the consequences.
• They lead their loyal and strong followers to commit crimes or unethical acts; they will not get their hands dirty publicly.
• They produce codependents who will not question them or their character, since to do so would be a sign of weakness.
• They are jealous if they are not at the top of the game, and until they convince themselves and others that they are at the top.
• They are incapable of experiencing true empathy, and those at the bottom are in their mind losers; a win-win scenario is out of the picture.

https://ctmirror.org/2021/01/19/is-trump-leading-a-cult/

Does the above apply to Trump and Trump followers? Are they a Cult?

The Republican Party plan to subvert the 2022 elections is coalescing

This is another warning about the neo-fascist push by the Republican Party to kill American democracy and install a kleptocratic dictatorship. As discussed here yesterday, the GOP is focused on making fraud by Democratic voters a key part of its election subversion strategy. This post discusses another prong of attack on elections, intimidating voters at the polls and, in my opinion, that includes setting up the political infrastructure to fabricate evidence of voter fraud. The GOP is dead serious about attacking elections and Democratic and independent voters.

Politico writes:

‘It’s going to be an army’: Tapes reveal GOP plan to contest elections

Placing operatives as poll workers and building a "hotline" to friendly attorneys are among the strategies to be deployed in Michigan and other swing states.

Video recordings of Republican Party operatives meeting with grassroots activists provide an inside look at a multi-pronged strategy to target and potentially overturn votes in Democratic precincts: Install trained recruits as regular poll workers and put them in direct contact with party attorneys.

The plan, as outlined by a Republican National Committee staffer in Michigan, includes utilizing rules designed to provide political balance among poll workers to install party-trained volunteers prepared to challenge voters at Democratic-majority polling places, developing a website to connect those workers to local lawyers and establishing a network of party-friendly district attorneys who could intervene to block vote counts at certain precincts.

“Being a poll worker, you just have so many more rights and things you can do to stop something than [as] a poll challenger,” said Matthew Seifried, the RNC’s election integrity director for Michigan, stressing the importance of obtaining official designations as poll workers in a meeting with GOP activists in Wayne County last Nov. 6. It is one of a series of recordings of GOP meetings between summer of 2021 and May of this year obtained by POLITICO.

Backing up those front-line workers, “it’s going to be an army,” Seifried promised at an Oct. 5 training session. “We’re going to have more lawyers than we’ve ever recruited, because let’s be honest, that’s where it’s going to be fought, right?”

Separately, POLITICO obtained Zoom tapings of Tim Griffin, legal counsel to The Amistad Project, a self-described election-integrity group that Donald Trump’s former lawyer Rudy Giuliani once portrayed as a “partner” in the Trump campaign’s legal efforts to overturn the 2020 election, meeting with activists from multiple states and discussing plans for identifying friendly district attorneys who could stage real-time interventions in local election disputes.

On the recording, Griffin speaks of building a nationwide network of district attorney allies and how to create a legal “trap” for Winfrey.

“Remember, guys, we’re trying to build out a nationwide district attorney network. Your local district attorney, as we always say, is more powerful than your congressman,” Griffin said during a Sept. 21 meeting. “They’re the ones that can seat a grand jury. They’re the ones that can start an investigation, issue subpoenas, make sure that records are retained, etc.,” he said.  

In the introduction graphic on his training presentation, Seifried says the RNC’s goal is to “make it easy to vote and HARD TO CHEAT.” 

The recordings are among the first windows into what former Trump strategist Stephen Bannon, who’s been urging listeners to his podcast to take on election leadership positions, calls “the precinct strategy.”

But Penniman, the election watchdog, believes the strategy is designed to create enough disputes to justify intervention by GOP-controlled state legislatures, who declined to take such steps in 2020.

By now, most neutral observers can see that there are a few thin lines that still hold back Republican Party neo-fascism. One of them is crossing the line from not finding evidence to support GOP crackpottery and lies like the 2020 election was stolen. Crossing that  thin line to fabricating evidence needed to "prove" their crackpottery and lies is a huge temptation. It is just a very thin line. What harm could there possibly be in crossing it for the sake of the country?

And, once Republicans control political offices needed to pull off their crimes, that line will more likely than not be crossed for the first time (assuming it has not already been crossed). After that, it becomes easier to cross it again. Then again and again and again. The last vestige of a moral qualm will be buried under the Republican Party's overriding moral imperative: Sacred Republican Party ends justify the corrupt, immoral and/or criminal means. Republicans cannot win on the merits, so they will win on the deceit and cheat.

Then democracy and truth will die. The kleptocrat tyrant will rise, hiding behind the false claim that the effort was selfless and just for the sake and welfare of us and democracy.

Republican Party training materials in voter intimidation

The next phase in the march of neo-fascism: Demagoguing a survivalist mode mindset

The warnings need to be repeated 24/7/365. There's no denying the Republican Party is trying to achieve its goal of installing a corrupt, bigoted tyranny in the US. They are doling it by demagoguery, crime and any other tactics that might work. The GOP close to achieving its evil goal. Warnings must now be constant. Maybe a few minds can still be shaken awake to help defend democracy. Maybe.

Ruth Ben-Ghiat writes at Lucid: 

When polarization shifts into survivalist mode, democracy is in danger

“I went to Congress as a collaborator, and now I'm in an environment where the Republicans want to rule or ruin-- that's the mindset,” Congressman Eric Swalwell (D-CA) told me in January. “There's no room for collaboration…Do you believe in rule of law or do you believe in violence? That's the battle in Washington right now.”

Rep. Swalwell’s comment, which reflects a political class that is deeply divided, prompts thoughts on polarization. We often hear about polarization as a fixed state of affairs, rather than as a process that can deepen if there is a political will driving it, as there is in the US today.

Disaffection with liberal democracy, rising economic inequality, and social media’s exposure of billions to disinformation are among the factors that have contributed to the spread of polarization around the world, as studies show. Polarization is likely here to stay, and democracies need to find ways to contain and reverse it.

History is clear on who benefits from polarization: It’s never democracies. For a century, anti-democratic movements and parties have encouraged it. When it is joined to an illiberal political design, polarization can become “energized,” shading into survivalist states of mind.

In the hands of authoritarians, the low-level rancor of me vs. you can become me or you –the idea that only one of us can survive the encounter – leading to violence and other lawless behaviors. It is deeply worrying that in the US, Republicans are not just accelerating polarization, but shifting into survivalist mode.

Polarization, like propaganda, feeds on existing biases and tribalist impulses that are continually refreshed as we do research on line or scroll through the news, absorbing algorithmically-selected ads and friend/follow suggestions.

Illiberal [Germaine’s label: neo-fascist] politicians and their media allies build on this, feeding us images and rhetoric designed to encourage anti-democratic behaviors and outcomes. Media disinformation and conspiracy theories that undermine shared assumptions and truths act in harmony with political polarization, creating enemies and scapegoats that further foment division, suspicion and hostility.

The global right’s exploitation of the pandemic to destroy accepted scientific and public health practices is one example. Schools, town councils, hospitals and clinics become sites of conflict. Anti-science aggression (to use Peter Hotez’s term) and hostility to education have turned previously respected community members, like teachers, health officials, and nurses, into enemies. 

How rank and file republicans see reality --

His opinion is worse than worthless and insulting, it’s neo-fascist

Polarization is just the start of a process that aims to get people into a state of fear about losing everything, preparing them to accept authoritarian solutions to democratic issues of free speech and coexistence with diversity.

The crystallized Republican strategy and tactics on fraudulent elections

The GOP propaganda and sleaze Leviathan appears to have settled on a strategy to appear rational about an argument that is pure partisan vaporware. Here's the secret: Argue vehemently that Democrats commit vote fraud, but Republicans do not.

It's not true, but it is brilliant. Sheer brilliance.

A Washington Post opinion piece comments:

You might have noticed that many of the same Republicans who insisted that “voter fraud” cast doubt on Donald Trump’s 2020 loss mysteriously don’t see fraud at play in elections that they win. This is routinely described as “hypocrisy.”

But the “hypocrisy” charge doesn’t do this justice. Because embedded in this tactic is something more than mere political double talk. It embodies an actual principle of sorts: that when Republicans lose elections, the voting can be presumed illegitimate or suspect, and when Republicans win them, the voting can be presumed legitimate and above suspicion entirely.

Usefully enough, Rep. Mo Brooks has now stepped forward to confirm this. And the Alabama Republican’s corroboration is noteworthy in light of emerging details about a complex new GOP plan to make this principle actionable in future elections.

Brooks’s latest comes in a New York Times piece that reports on the selective approach that Republicans take with charges of voter fraud. As the Times notes, this exposes a “fundamental contradiction,” in which those charges are used to challenge GOP losses but not GOP wins.

Pressed further by the Times, Brooks blithely suggested that in Alabama, the fraud took place “in predominantly Democrat parts of the state.”

You see, in primaries decided by Republican voters in red areas, the voting is pure and unsullied. By contrast, in general elections that Democrats are trying to steal from Republicans, the voting in blue areas is marred by widespread fraud.

That form of fraud alleged by Brooks happens to be virtually nonexistent. But the point is that the mere assertion that something illicit happened is the coin of the realm here. It’s meant to give some kind of patina of a public rationale for naked efforts to subvert election losses.

I raised the question here before of who is disrespecting whom. I raise it again. This is another reason to raise it again. 

Republican elites and their propaganda and slanders Leviathan claiming that Republican voters are honest citizens, while claiming that Democratic Party voters are evil criminal socialist-communist tyrant pedophiles, and cannibal baby killers, or whatever other bullshit lies and slanders that (i) GOP elites choose to use, and (ii) most of its rank and file (~97% ?) indefensibly and unjustifiably believe.

It is past time to be outraged by corrupt, incompetent, lying neo-fascist Republican elites and their complicit rank and file. They are evil criminals and human scum, not the political opposition.

Questions: 

1. Is that rant over the top, or is there at least a non-trivial basis in fact to support most of that blunt harshness? 

2. Is it OK for Republican elites to call Democrats criminals on the basis of zero evidence because it is just politics?

This insulting stupidity is about what passes for mainstream 

Republican elite propaganda reasoning

The radical right legal onslaught in defense of demagoguery

This is a complex area of legal attack that is heavily shrouded in sophisticated disinformation, misdirection, spin and lies. But as the attack proceeds into laws that are challenged in courts, some of the deceit and opacity are stripped away by court filings that are public documents. The Republican radicals attacking the right of private citizens to control speech are focused on the big social media platforms. 

What is going on right now is a fascinating attack on private platforms like Twitter and Facebook. Radical right Republicans have passed laws that prevent the platform from banning people like the ex-president for bad speech. Those laws are clearly unconstitutional, but this line of attack directly challenges what had been settled law, namely the right of a private entity to control or ban whatever speech it chose for any reason or no reason. 

To try to simplify and clarify what is going on, my analysis and opinion follows:

Radical Republican neo-fascists need unfettered access to big social media to maximize the impact of their divisive propaganda. That propaganda is necessary for success of their run for neo-fascist power and kleptocratic wealth. As discussed here before, most big neo-fascist Republican online sites instantly ban critics and inconvenient truth because it weakens the power of their lies and divisiveness. They demand that the really big sites carry their propaganda without interference. The misdirection here is that the really big sites are targeted, while leaving all the smaller ones free to censor dissent and inconvenient truth. If that analysis is basically correct, and I believe it is, the Republican calculation probably is that the neo-fascist cause will be helped more than hurt by doing what they are now trying to do. 

From what I can tell, Republicans rely on, and their rank and file responds to, demagoguery significantly more than Democrats and independents. The advantage is with authoritarian demagogues over the democrats and honest speech. That is something, arguably a fact, not an opinion, that has been known since at least Plato and Aristotle. 

One troubling factor here is that some liberal judges appear to be buying into this line of attack. Apparently, they cannot see the threat of demagoguery in the form of protected free speech. The radical right myth has always been, the more speech the better. That poison dart is false. But it quite effectively denies or deflects from the fact that dark free speech can be and now is being used to attack democracy. The attack of authoritarian demagogues is not just ongoing in America. It is being applied to all democracies everywhere. Simply put, it is not always true that more speech is better. In the hands of authoritarian demagogues, more speech is worse.

The New York Times writes:

Supreme Court Blocks Texas Law Regulating Social Media Platforms

The law, prompted by conservative complaints about censorship, prohibits big technology companies like Facebook and Twitter from removing posts based on the views they express. 

The Supreme Court on Tuesday blocked a Texas law that would ban large social media companies from removing posts based on the views they express.

The court’s brief order was unsigned and gave no reasons, which is typical when the justices act on emergency applications. The order was not the last word in the case, which is pending before a federal appeals court and may return to the Supreme Court.

The vote was 5 to 4, with an unusual coalition in dissent. The court’s three most conservative members — Justices Samuel A. Alito Jr., Clarence Thomas and Neil M. Gorsuch — filed a dissent saying they would have let stand, for now at least, an appeals court order that left the law in place while the case moved forward. Justice Elena Kagan, a liberal, also said she would have let the order stand, though she did not join the dissent and gave no reasons of her own.

Justice Alito wrote that the issues were so novel and significant that the Supreme Court would have to consider them at some point.

“This application concerns issues of great importance that will plainly merit this court’s review,” he wrote. “Social media platforms have transformed the way people communicate with each other and obtain news. At issue is a groundbreaking Texas law that addresses the power of dominant social media corporations to shape public discussion of the important issues of the day.”

Justice Alito said he was skeptical of the argument that the social media companies have editorial discretion protected by the First Amendment like that enjoyed by newspapers and other traditional publishers.

“It is not at all obvious,” he wrote, “how our existing precedents, which predate the age of the internet, should apply to large social media companies.”  

The law’s supporters said the measure was an attempt to combat what they called Silicon Valley censorship, saying major platforms had removed posts expressing conservative views. The law was prompted in part by the decisions of some platforms to bar President Donald J. Trump after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

The law, H.B. 20, applies to social media platforms with more than 50 million active monthly users, including Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. It does not appear to reach smaller platforms that appeal to conservatives, like Truth Social and Gettr, the law’s challengers told the Supreme Court.  

The law also does not cover sites that are devoted to news, sports, entertainment and other information that their users do not primarily generate. The covered sites are largely prohibited from removing posts based on the viewpoints they express, with exceptions for the sexual exploitation of children, incitement of criminal activity and some threats of violence.

Keeping in mind the advantage of demagoguery over honest speech, just consider (i) how the radical far right justice Alito frame this issue for authoritarian advantage, and (ii) how the Texas law was written for partisan advantage: “It is not at all obvious how our existing precedents, which predate the age of the internet, should apply to large social media companies.” He conveniently leaves out medium and small social media companies. He does not define the concept of large. 

In my opinion, what is in Alito’s mind is partisan advantage for the outnumbered neo-fascists. The six Republican Christian nationalists on the court can conveniently decide such lawsuits case by case. That allows maximum advantage to the demagogues who can (1) force big social media to accept their poisonous democracy killing demagoguery, and (2) which demagoguery sites remain free to reject inconvenient honest speech. Or the radicals can simply define large to maximize benefit to radical right demagoguery while blunting benefits to honest speech as much as possible. When one (i) frames the issue like this, and (ii) considers the differences in mindset between modern radical right conservatives and most everyone else, the possibilities for radical right partisan advantage start to come into view.

Does all of this sound cynical, hyper-partisan or shockingly hypocritical? Maybe, but the scope of objective political reality can include ice-cold political cynicism, foaming at the mouth, self-serving hyper-partisanship and ghastly hypocrisy. As far as I know, no law stands in the way of any of that, just like no law stands in the way of ~99.9% of political lies and deceit. 

Obviously, the demagogues will vehemently deny cynicism, partisanship and hypocrisy. They will demagogue this as just them valiantly trying to defend free speech for the benefit of all. That propaganda conveniently ignores and denies that their speech is poison to democracy, inconvenient truth and some other good things.