Asymmetric partisan polarization in the US and the Orbanization of the Republican Party

The asymmetric partisan polarization in the United States has a continually radicalizing Republcian Party facing off against a Democratic Party mostly controlled by leaders who would rather not have to be bothered to fight for anything that might discomfort the comfortable in any way. Or, for that matter, anything that might mildly irritate outright oligarchs.

The Republican Party has now been fully Trumpified. Or Orbanized, as Europeans might say. It's done with liberal democracy and wants something like a Hungarian-type "illiberal democracy" which maintains the forms of a democracy with competitive parties but institutionally arranged so that the oligarchical ruling party keeps a secure hold on power even when they lose elections. That includes installing a pliable partisan-political judiciary. An authoritarian government with at best formal democratic forms without the actual democracy and rule-of-law parts.

The Republican Party was well along the authoritarian road during the Cheney-Bush Administration. And once Trump became President, the party essentially collapsed as a democratic institution. It is now an authoritarian party that is even making open alliances with far-right political militias aspiring to be death squads.

Joseph Stiglitz recently wrote (The Republican Threat to the Republic Project Syndicate 10/02/2020):

Even more disturbing [than his secrecy about his taxes during his first debate with Joe Biden] his refusal to denounce white supremacists and violent extremist groups like the Proud Boys, whom he instructed to “stand back and stand by.” Combined with his refusal to commit to a peaceful transition of power and persistent efforts to delegitimize the voting process, Trump’s behavior in the run-up to the election has increasingly posed a direct threat to American democracy. [my emphasis]

He calls attention to how even the most solid governmental and political institutions depend on sufficient support for them and for norms that sustain them being observed by sufficient numbers of people and politicians in order to properly function. And even to survive. Stiglitz notes:

When I served as chief economist at the World Bank in the late 1990s, we would travel the world lecturing others about good governance and good institutions, and the United States was often held up as the exemplar of these concepts.

Not anymore.

It's useful to recall that Hitler came to power in Germany as Chancellor in 1933 through the institutions of the Weimar Constitution, which had been eroded by President Paul von Hindenburg, who was not really a fan of the democracy of which he was the head of state, and by the conservative and parties who allied with him and eventually with Hitler, as well. The Nazi governmental institutions didn't stick with the forms of the Weimar Constitution - but never even bothered to formally abolish it.

The Republican Party's program bears less direct resemblance to Hitler's than to some mashup of that of Viktor Orbán in Hungary and Mississppi's notoriously racist one-time Senator Theodor Bilbo. But there goal is to set aside liberal democracy as we have known it in the US. As Stiglitz explains:

The bad news is that Republicans know they are increasingly in the minority on most of the critical issues in today’s politics. Americans want stronger gun control, a higher minimum wage, sensible environmental and financial regulations, affordable health insurance, expanded funding for preschool education, improved access to college, and greater limitations on money in politics.

The clearly expressed will of the majority puts the GOP in an impossible position: The party cannot simultaneously pursue its unpopular agenda and also endorse honest, transparent, democratic governance. That is why it is now openly waging war on American democracy, doubling down on efforts to disenfranchise voters, politicize the judiciary and the federal bureaucracy, and lock in minority rule permanently through tactics like partisan gerrymandering. [my emphasis]

Stiglitz doesn't discuss there the GOP's demographic problem of being heavily dependent on older white voters. That demographic disadvantage is real. But it's not some kind of developing Malthusian determinism. After all, many people who were young during The Sixties not are counted among Trump supporters.

Paul Waldman wrote about the current state of that demographic shift in Is the Emerging Democratic Majority Finally Coming to Pass? The American Prospect 08/11/2019, with particular reference to the 2020 election, then well over a year away:

There is no mystery about how Trump plans to get re-elected: He believes that with enough race-baiting to encourage them, his supporters will flock to the polls as they did in 2016. But there’s an emerging fear among Republicans that Trump has been so personally repellent and spent so much time focusing on his project of racial revanchism that it could be putting the suburbs—where a majority of Americans now live—out of the GOP’s reach. ...

One can imagine a different kind of Republican Party that could compete better with suburban moderates, not to mention do better with non-white and younger voters. It might advocate for lower taxes and a lighter government footprint, but consent to more sensible gun policies and get rid of its race-baiting. The trouble is that the current Republican Party has decided that no priority is higher than holding on to its white, rural base—and in Donald Trump’s view, that requires a commitment to a white identity politics based on hatred and resentment. In an America that grows more diverse by the day, the GOP is actually getting whiter.

Three years into Trump’s term, it is no longer possible for any Republican voter to deny what their party is about. [my emphasis]

Never say never is always a good caution to keep in mind in politics. So it's always possible that the Republican Party will soon dramatically change itself and respond to Nancy Pelosi's plea last year, "To the Republicans in the crowd, I say: take back your party, the Grand Old Party." Although what she may have meant by that is less than clear. She continued, "America needs a strong Republican Party, not a rubber stamp." (Pelosi tells Republicans: 'Take back your party' The Hill 01/23/2019)

For rank-and-file Democrats, the Republican Party already looks way too "strong" as it is! Especially when it comes to rolling over Democrats on issue after issue after issue in Congress.

Even after the last year-and-a-half-plus, after the failed effort to remove Trump from office by impeachment, after Trump's spectacular failure on the COVID-19 epidemic, after the spectacular corruption, after seeing the Republican elected officials at all levels stick staunchly by his misdeeds, Pelosi was saying the same thing on Morning Joe just last week! "One of my prayers is that the Republicans will take back their party. "The country needs a strong Republican Party. It's done so much for our country, and to have it be hijacked as a cult at this time is really a sad thing for America. (Jason Lemon, Nancy Pelosi Says America 'Needs a Strong Republican Party,' Not a Hijacked 'Cult' Newsweek 09/30/2020)

He's Pelosi's sad segment itself, providing a great illustration of the Democratic side of the very asymmetric partisan polarization, Nancy Pelosi: I Pray The Republicans Will Take Back Their Party 09/30/2020:

But given the Republican Party's history of 30 years of basically continuously and severely radicalizing and moving further and further away from a commitment to liberal democracy, Steve M's observations at No More Mister Nice Blog, looking in particular at the examples of how the Republican Party handles school shootings and the COVID-19 pandemic, describes the state of the party speaks more to the present condition of that party (Don't Confuse Us With the Facts 10/03/2020):

Republicans are never abashed. They're never crestfallen. They never admit the error of their ways. They're the Double Down Party.

You can argue that this is why Republicans are successful or you can argue that this is a demonstration of their sociopathic tendencies. (Or both.) Just don't expect them to change in response to new facts -- ever.

We can find examples of authoritarian rightwing parties that have evolved into more traditional democratic parties. But it's a long and difficult process. When it happens at all.

Also with particular reference to Trump's explicit appeal to the far-right Proud Boys hate group, David Masciotrra gives this picture of the current asymmetrical partisan polarization There's only one political party in the United States — the other one has descended into madness Salon 10/03/2020

It's certainly true that Republican officials are afraid of the bloodlust of the Trump cult. But it is also true, and more important to recognize, that Trump's hatred for democracy — which critics and commentators view as a liability is largely an asset for his supporters. Many of those who hold office at the national level, as evident from the ghoulish statements of Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas and others, along with the voters who applaud Trump's every act of cruelty, are glad to see him waging war on a system designed to give representation and power to a diverse group of citizens.

If Trump, Attorney General Bill Barr, and their enablers in Congress can succeed in subverting the presidential election, and "making America great again" by enshrining the minority rule of white Christians, the average Republican will celebrate. There is no other reasonable conclusion to draw from the fact that between 80 and 90 percent of Republicans approve of Trump's performance in office.

Among Democrats, there is an ongoing, interesting and important argument between moderate figures like Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg, and progressives like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez regarding the expansion of the social welfare state, federal regulation of economic activity and the extent of measures necessary to curb inequality and climate change.

The Republican Party offers nothing to the American people. They have no policy agenda. Despite Trump's meaningless and inane boasting of nonexistent "plans," they articulate no agenda to address the converging crises of American life. [my emphasis]

As John Dean and Bob Altemeyer writes in their excellent new book, Authoritarian Nightmare: Trump and His Followers:

As political scientists Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt point out, most of the democracies overthrown since World War II died at the ballot box when authoritarian leaders were voted into power. Usually these totalitarians did not even bother to throw out the country's constitution. They just subverted it bit by bit until they controlled everything, and it became irrelevant. We do not relish playing Paul Revere now, but it seems to us that American democracy is nearly at the point of no return in this process. Americans elected a very traditional type of authoritarian leader with Donald Trump - a demagogue. [my emphasis]

The collapse of the Republican Party as a democratic political institution does not mean that the Democratic Party as an institution is necessarily able to avoid its own kind of collapse. But it have a much better opportunity to do so at the moment than its counterpart.

Also, when I talk about the Republican Party having collapsed as a democratic political institution, that does not mean it has collapsed as an effective political organization. It means it no longer functions as an institution that supports a liberal democratic political system and the rule of law.