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The Republican Party's Ruinous Revolt

Updated 11/07/2024

In his 2018 book Trumpocracy: The Corruption of the American Republic, David Frum observed:

“Maybe you do not care much about the future of the Republican Party. You should. Conservatives will always be with us. If conservatives become convinced that they can not win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. They will reject democracy.”

Conservatives prove how correct Frum was almost every day. For decades, they have been ignoring the wishes of the populace — the demos. Their goal is to rule, not to govern.

A brief history

Decline began for the Republican Party with the 1980 election of Ronald Reagan — he of the dictum "Government is not the solution to the problem; government is the problem." The slow downward slide gave us Newt Gingrich's "Contract [on] America" and Donald Trump's four years of baseless whining about "witch hunts" — as well as a Congress whose GOP members increasingly reject their oaths of office and their constitutional duty to "promote the general Welfare." They obstruct almost every substantive measure Democrats propose. The substantive measures they themselves propose often benefit their wealthy donors.

This revolt continues in various states where GOP-led legislatures attempt to consolidate power unto themselves. The conservative majority Trump and Mitch McConnell maneuvered onto the Supreme Court, and onto lower courts, backstops this revolt.

The GOP understands that it is a minority party, and that GOP victories become less likely the more people vote. GOP efforts, therefore, fall into three areas:

  1. Make it harder to vote
  2. Challenge voters, gerrymander districts, and intimidate election workers.
  3. Refuse to certify election results, or delay the process as much as possible.

Red states like Florida and Texas figure prominently in this campaign. Efforts are under way in other states, especially swing states like Nevada and Pennsylvania. But the "poster child" is Georgia. There, in the name of improving election integrity, the Republican-led legislature has tightened rules on election procedures. It is now illegal, for example, to offer water to anyone waiting in line at a polling place. County election boards are empowered to challenge the results of election on flimsy grounds. Anyone may challenge voters if they have a "reasonable suspicion" that they may be ineligible.

I go into detail on each of these areas in the pages linked below.

Step 1
Make voting harder.		 Step 2
Challenges and intimidation		 Step 3
Impede certification

Now that you have (I hope) read some or all of the content of those links, a big question arises: Why does any of this matter? It matters because Republican politicians — with a few notable exceptions —are not helping the people they are supposed to serve: their constituents. When those Republicans are in Congress, their misbehavior affects the whole nation and even foreign countries. I won't go into detail here, but see the links I provide below.

Many people think both major parties are the same. It is true that the Democratic Party has fallen short of its traditional support for working people. But Joe Biden's victory in 2020 began to reverse that trend. On the bread-and-butter issues that affect the daily lives of most Americans, the Biden administration has made solid improvements: it cut child poverty in half, relieved many college debts, launched massive infrastructure improvement, capped drug prices for seniors, created record numbers of jobs, reduced ACA healthcare premiums, strengthened the hands of labor union organizers, and reauthorized the Violence Against Women Act. Again, see the links below for details.

The Republican Party, by contrast, has been a party of words and not of deeds. They blame Democrats for "destroying the country" and — like Trump himself — constantly accuse them of "weaponizing the Justice Department with "politically motivated prosecutions" against him. What they have done in legislative measures mostly benefits the rich — like Trump's major achievement, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017.

And when it comes to voting rights, they are — as David Frum noted — opposed. That opposition is what I will examine in these pages. The link to Democracy Docket below is the prime source for daily updates.

This source on YouTube is best for daily updates on the fast-changing legal and political situation.

These are the three recommendations Marc Elias made. I'll leave them in place because they will apply in 2026:

Many groups are looking to purge voters from the rolls, and possibly to change voters' party affiliation.

Check the status of your voter registration — and your party preference!

Times and places for voting are also being changed, for example by removing drop boxes.

Have a plan for how you will get your vote counted!

Finally, make sure your vote — and the votes of your like-minded friends and family — do get counted.

Get your vote in on time!

Trump the tyrant George Washington feared
The Moment of Truth (Tom Nichols, The Atlantic, 9 October 2024
Image courtesy of Deadline White House, same date (video no longer available)

You know what's at stake: whether the United States remains a nation of laws, or becomes a true oligarchy.

Follow Marc Elais's Democracy Defenders, Nicolle Wallace's Deadline White House, Brian Tyler Cohen's Democracy Watch, and other news channels on YouTube. Stay in touch with mainstream news. Register for Democracy Docket.

Okay — Trump won. He won fair and square. I don't like it, but I accept it, as every American who respects the Constitution must.

President Biden and VP Kamala Harris have held up their end: both have promised a peaceful transfer of power, and Kamala Harris has conceded.

However, the bigger picture has not changed. The Biden administration still has an impressive track record of improving the economy, moving forward on infrastructure, and providing responsible governance. Trump's track record, by contrast, remains one of lowering health care and environmental protections, mostly helping the wealthy and big corporations, and providing shambolic governance.

In addition, Trump's more recent campaign provides clear evidence that he will continue those policies, and will also seek revenge on perceived enemies — a long list. And he will have less restraint than before.

The bottom line: We still have a republic, and it's still worth keeping.
The fight goes on.

Other sources:
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Created 7 September 2023. This page was last modified on 14 November 2024.