A Radicalized, Extremist GQP Embraces Authoritarianism, A Clear And Present Danger To American Democracy

Above: h/t Vox.com, Call it authoritarianism.

Paul Waldman of the Washington Post writes, Republicans have a reimagined view of state power — one without constraint:

If you thought the antiabortion vigilante law Texas Republicans passed last year was the most appalling abuse of legislative power you’d ever seen, I have some bad news for you.

That law was a wake-up call, not to Democrats — who seem to have done almost nothing in response — but to Republicans across the country. It said to them, We don’t have to hold back anymore. We can do anything we want.

And that’s just what they’re doing.

I hate to break it to you, Paul, but authoritarian Republicans have been doing this in Arizona for years, without accountability.

We’re witnessing a new phase not only in the culture wars but in U.S. politics generally. Republicans are arriving at a reimagined view of power, one without limit or restraint.

[In] state after state, bills that a few years ago might have died in committee because they were too extreme are now on their way to passage.

Republican legislatures are reaching into classrooms to ban the utterance of “divisive concepts” and books that conservative Republicans find unsettling. Florida just passed its “don’t say gay” bill, targeted at teachers of kindergarten through third grade who mention sexuality or gender identity and once again using the threat of ruinous lawsuits against individuals to impose its will.

Something has changed, and it isn’t that a wave of extremist Republicans got elected at the state level and pushed out their “reasonable” predecessors. That may be part of the story, but it didn’t all happen at once, like the tea party wave of 2010.

Instead, extreme Republicans have gotten elected to state legislatures over the course of the past few elections and have worked their way up the ranks. You’re familiar with trolls in Congress, such as Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.), but there are dozens or even hundreds like them in state legislatures around the country. [Like our Troll Boy, Rep. John Kavanaugh.]

Even Republicans who have been in office for many years are going along with this new radicalism. The extremists are working with their party’s leadership. Whether out of fear of being primaried or because they finally feel free to indulge their darkest fantasies, the longer-serving members seem nearly as enthusiastic about this new lack of restraint as anyone. And the bills have support from Republican governors who are hardly insurgents within their party.

A number of factors set the stage for the emergence of this new authoritarianism. The most obvious is Donald Trump’s takeover of the GOP, which took all the party’s worst attributes — its reliance on anger and resentment as mobilizing tools, its contempt for democratic norms, its loathing for Americans it disagrees with — and supercharged them.

Conservative media has also grown more radical; the most popular conservative media figure in the country is an anti-vaccine crusader whose show is a forum for race-baiting, conspiracy theories, and pro-Putin propaganda. That poison is spread to both Republican voters and officeholders, pushing them to be more extreme in their tactics and demands.

Then you have the way power is divided in the country at the moment. Democrats control Washington, which creates a visible target for right-wing anger, while Republicans dominate at the state level, which gives them the ability to express that anger in legislation. It’s all enabled by gerrymandering and other means of eliminating democratic accountability that assure Republicans that nothing they do will threaten their hold on power.

Central to the enterprise is the idea that Democrats are the ones promoting an insane agenda [psychological projection], which serves as the justification for almost anything Republicans want to do. Since Democrats are so horrifying, say Republicans, no tactic is too immoral to utilize, no Republican candidate too dangerous to support, and no proposal too offensive to pass in opposing them.

It’s why former attorney general William P. Barr describes in detail how Trump tried to stage a coup against U.S. democracy — then says that if Trump is the 2024 Republican nominee he’ll vote for him to combat the “threat” from the left. It’s why the hateful Arizona state Sen. Wendy Rogers can speak at white supremacist rallies and the state’s governor, Doug Ducey, will respond to questions about her by saying, “She’s still better than her opponent.”

And it’s why almost no Republican officeholders anywhere will speak out against their party’s authoritarian radicalism. The further they push, the more they’re convinced they can get away with. It’s only going to get worse.

Paul Waldman continues, Why the GOP agenda will grow even more extreme in the coming years:

[T]he GOP has an agenda, one that’s quite clear if you’re paying close enough attention — which most Americans aren’t. It matters greatly, not only for what they would do between 2022 and 2024, but more importantly, what will happen should they take both chambers of Congress and the presidency afterward.

Consider, for instance, [the “Grim Reaper of Democracy,”] Mitch McConnell’s latest obsession: too many kids who have enough to eat during the school day.

As part of pandemic relief passed by Congress in 2020, the Agriculture Department funded universal free lunch in schools. Rather than having a complex system in which some kids paid for lunch, some got reduced price meals, and some ate for free, schools could just feed everyone. It made for less bureaucracy and better-fed kids, at a time when the country was economically stressed.

While you can argue that the Trump era saw a partial retreat in the GOP from Paul Ryan-style attacks on the safety net, the impulse to literally take food from the mouths of children is still there — and will surface whenever Republicans have the chance.

Why go there? Their most common argument they make is that it’s just too expensive, and they’re seeking budget cuts. I’d remind you that Congress recently passed a $768 billion bill to fund the military for a single year, which Republicans enthusiastically supported. So they have zero credibility to complain about high spending; they support spending on some things and not others.

If Republicans do win control of one or both houses in the midterms, we’re likely to see a lot of this type of effort to chip away at social spending wherever possible. Sometimes, it will be for political reasons, but often, such as in this case, it will be a reflection of their sincere beliefs about what government should and shouldn’t do.

The GQP agenda is to repeal the 20th Century and return to the “golden era” of President William McKinley (1897-1901) – the late Gilded Age. Hell, they have even written books about it. ‘The Triumph of William McKinley,’ by Karl Rove.

Senator Rick Scott’s radical 11-point plan to “rescue America” includes making all federal legislation “sunset” in five years, saying “If a law is worth keeping, Congress can pass it again.” Among the laws that could face erasure under the sunset policy: Medicaid and Medicare legislation, food stamps, welfare, tax credits for business developers, even the 2017 tax reforms passed under former President Donald Trump. All of these laws, and hundreds of others, could potentially disappear if Congress is unable to pass the laws a second, third, or fourth time, recurring every five years.

We’re also likely to see a repeat of a pattern that was evident when the Republicans took over first the House and then the Senate when Barack Obama was president. To satisfy the voters who elected them, they have to hold show votes on issues that matter to their base, even though those bills will be filibustered or vetoed. But in the process, they frustrate those same voters, who want results.

Note: Au contraire mon frère, the very first order of business for the Grim Reaper of Democracy, Mitch McConnell, should Americans be foolish enough to make him leader of the Senate again, will be to eliminate the Senate filibuster rule in the organizing rules of the next Senate in January. Authoritarian Republicans who do not see Democrats as legitimately elected are not going to allow their radical, extremist agenda to be derailed by a Senate filibuster rule this time. They will cement their permanent authoritarian rule by making certain that opposition to their authoritarian rule is not possible. This is how democracy dies.

So, if and when they finally take the presidency as well — as in 2016 — they will really have to deliver. We saw that with the Affordable Care Act: After holding more than 60 failed votes to repeal the law while Obama was in office, they had to follow through once they had all the power. Fortunately for the country, their last attempt in 2017 was a disaster, and collapsed when Sen. John McCain refused to vote for repeal.

How much the appetite remains in the party for that particular act of destruction is unclear, but Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) recently said during a radio show that he still hopes to repeal the ACA. Whatever they do, they’ll have to show the base that they’re sticking it to the libs and moving ahead with a conservative agenda.

There’s another key part of this dynamic that wasn’t present before: State-level Republicans have gotten so extreme and aggressive that they may have created a new set of expectations that congressional Republicans will have to satisfy.

When your state representatives are essentially outlawing abortion, banning books and passing “Don’t Say Gay” bills, you may not be satisfied unless your member of Congress is willing to go just as far. Which will put pressure on congressional Republicans — but unlike those at the state level, they won’t be able to put their agenda into law.

That is, unless and until they take over in 2024, at which point they’ll have to follow through on all the radical policy changes they said they wanted but were stymied by President Biden from enacting.

Which means that should we find ourselves there three years from now, the Republican agenda will be a secret to no one — and its audacity will make your head spin.