The GOP Is An Autocratic Party

Ron Brownstein: “Republicans’ tolerance, if not active support, for President Trump’s ongoing bid to overturn the 2020 election has crystallized a stark question: Does the GOP still qualify as a small-d democratic party—or is it morphing into something very different?”

“Even with the Supreme Court still deciding whether to consider a last-ditch legal effort to invalidate the results from the key swing states, there appears little chance that Trump will succeed in subverting Joe Biden’s victory. But Trump’s failure on that front has obscured his success at enlisting a growing swath of his party to join his cause—a dynamic that is already prompting new Republican efforts to make it more difficult to vote and raising concerns about the party’s commitment to the basic tenets of Western democratic rules and conventions, including the peaceful transfer of power.”

“Republicans’ widespread enlistment in Trump’s efforts follows years in which officials have advanced hundreds of state-level measures making it more difficult to vote; engaged in extraordinary legislative maneuvering to deny former President Barack Obama the opportunity to fill a vacant U.S. Supreme Court seat; and have either looked the other way or abetted Trump in a series of actions shredding democratic norms, including attempting to weaponize the Postal Service, tilt the results of the census, and pressure the Justice Department to investigate his opponents.”

Jonathan Last: The Republican Party as Totalitarian State.