The GOP Is Doing Just Fine
Published at 18:48 on 10 May 2021
Please, spare me all the wishful thinking about the “crisis” caused by the GOP’s failure to acknowledge legitimacy of Biden’s win. There is no crisis in the GOP. The GOP has chosen fascism, and it is working.
Whether they have chosen fascism because they actually like fascism as a first choice, or due to cravenness, or to political expediency, is not nearly so relevant a question as whether or not they have chosen fascism. And chosen it they have: they desire to rule by force, and wish to be exempt from democratic accountability.
And it is working. There was not a massive repudiation of the GOP last November; in fact the party of American Christian fascism actually picked up a few seats in the House and continues to control a majority of state legislatures.
Now, many of those same fascist-controlled legislatures are passing laws to undermine voting, and to grant themselves the power to appoint electors in contravention to how the public vote goes. Those legislatures will control a redistricting process that will (thanks to census results) give their states and their authoritarian project even more representation in Congress.
The old GOP was not shy about gerrymandering; the new, fully fascist one will be even less so. Congress is about to get even less representative of popular will than it used to be, and this will be almost entirely to the benefit of the GOP.
There is no “crisis” in the GOP. The GOP is doing just fine.
2024 is likely to see Trump retake office, with a majority in both houses of Congress. That he will almost certainly have less votes than his opponent will not matter. That GOP Congressional candidates will have received less votes collectively than their Democratic colleagues will not matter.
Anyone who thinks mere lack of popular support is a show-stopper to a power-hungry minority that wishes to rule by force in an undemocratic system is a total fucking idiot. “Power-hungry minority ruling by force” literally describes virtually the entire history of human civilization.
Modern procedural democracy is a very recent development, and has generally entailed a power-hungry minority ruling by propaganda and deception. Now, that’s a lighter touch than outright brute force, and despite all its shortcomings definitely preferable to the brute force option, not the least because it makes further progress possible with less violence than would otherwise be the case.
However, just because the propaganda and deception tactic worked for a while is no guarantee it will continue to be the operating strategy. And as the propaganda and deception is looking less likely to produce sufficiently right-of-center options, enough of the American right has decided to hell with democracy, they would rather have fascism.
They would rather have fascism, and they are quite likely to get it. It is all happening in the open; anyone who pays attention and looks at the current situation honestly can see all the pieces neatly being put into place.
There is no crisis in the GOP. It is the American Republic, and not the so-called “Republican” Party, that is in crisis.