Sunday, May 16, 2021 | 2 a.m.
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A year ago this week, the Sun published a Page 1 editorial sounding an alarm about a march to authoritarianism by the extremist right. In it, we offered a step-by-step chronicle of abuses of power and other undemocratic actions by the Trump administration and GOP leadership pointing to an inescapable conclusion that the nation had “entered the early stages of a dictatorship.” This wasn’t a theoretical, we stated, and it was happening faster than anyone could have expected.
Today, it’s worth revisiting and updating that commentary. Unfortunately, the GOP’s attempt to subvert democracy and establish minority rule continues in full force. Although the White House changed hands, much of what we described last year still takes place today.
“This president and party have shown they’ll sideline any member of the administration who isn’t a partisan loyalist fully willing to lie to the American public and bend any policy to the convenience of the president,” we wrote at the time. “They will assault any independent institution. Wage war on the idea of independent truths. Refuse to protect the next election from tampering. Engage in wholesale gerrymandering. Restrict voter access.”
As we know now, these words would be prophetic.
The coming months brought an escalation of the assault on government: attempts to thwart voting access before the 2020 election, the Big Lie about the results, the intimidation of voting officials, the deluge of bogus lawsuits.
And then, of course, came the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection, the worst attack on the seat of U.S. government since the War of 1812.
Reassuringly, the systems that protect our democracy and the transfer of power held up. Election officials stood by their results, the courts threw out the junk lawsuits, and Congress certified the results despite the armed invasion of the Capitol.
But the relief was short-lived. Extremist Republicans weren’t defeated in their takeover bid, just temporarily repelled. Since then, they’ve not only doubled down but fanned out. Consider these actions:
Restricting the vote
New voter-suppression measures in Georgia, Florida, Iowa, Texas and Arizona would reduce use of drop boxes, shorten the window for early voting, reduce absentee balloting, purge voter registration rolls and establish other restrictions. The objective: Quell voting in communities of color and disempower minority voters.
Meanwhile, lawmakers in Georgia and Arizona expanded the authority of GOP-controlled legislatures to intervene in elections at the county level and overturn the results, while also disempowering bipartisan election boards and independently elected secretaries of state.
Think about the ramifications of this. In 2020, the thin margin of victory for President Joe Biden held up when Georgia’s Republican secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, certified it and Republican Gov. Brian Kemp backed him up despite pressure from the Trump administration and GOP lawmakers. Had the new law been in place, Republicans in the Legislature could have taken things into their own hands.
It’s no coincidence that in the states where Republican lawmakers are subverting the vote, Democrats have been making gains. Republicans long ago realized that demographic changes were playing against them: The minority population is growing, and the largest generation in the country — those in their teens and 20s, a group bigger than the baby boomers — is beginning to vote. Both of those groups tend not to support GOP candidates. But instead of trying to broaden the party’s appeal, Republicans instead are subverting the system in hopes of establishing minority rule.
While assaulting the vote at the state level, Republicans also have opposed the congressional For the People Act — the package of legislation that would expand and protect voter access.
Maintaining the election lie and attacking the truth
With Wednesday’s vote by House Republicans to remove Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming from her leadership role over her refusal to promote Trump’s false claims of election fraud, the party’s extremist leaders sent a clear message that they would continue to use the lie to suppress voting and subvert the process.
But Cheney is hardly the only Republican who’s been punished for telling the truth. Even Nevada Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske — the only GOP candidate to win a statewide election in 2018 — was censured by the party after she refused to overturn Biden’s victory in Nevada.
Former GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney was booed and called a traitor at his state party’s convention. Idaho legislators stripped the state’s attorney general’s office of key powers after the current AG, a Republican, refused to sign Idaho onto the bogus lawsuits challenging the election results.
Those are just some examples.
Clearly, the party’s goal is to clear itself of members who would honor their responsibility to uphold the law and stand in the way of their movement toward minority rule. The more the Republicans can add to the 147 GOP congressional delegates who voted to overturn the 2020 election results, the better chance of subverting future votes. The more supplicants at the state level, the more likely the results already will be twisted to Republicans’ favor by the time they reach Congress for certification.
By maintaining the Big Lie and attacking media organizations, they also continue to mislead and agitate millions of Americans. A recent Ipsos poll showed that 55% of Republicans believe Trump’s loss was the result of illegal voting or election rigging, while 60% agreed with a statement that the election was “stolen” from Trump.
Meanwhile, dozens of court cases and audits have proven there was no fraud that affected the election.
Emboldening those who would overthrow democracy
During a House Oversight Committee hearing this past week examining the Capitol violence, Rep. Andrew Clyde, R-Ga., stated flatly that “There was no insurrection.” Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., accused the Justice Department of “harassing peaceful patriots” in its efforts to hold the insurrectionists legally accountable for their actions.”
Comments like these might have been jaw-dropping at one time, given the terrifying sights that Americans saw with their own eyes on Jan. 6 — law enforcement officers being attacked, intruders breaking out windows and rifling through desks, gallows being erected, people stalking the halls of Congress and calling out the names of leaders they clearly intended to harm.
But Clyde and Gosar aren’t alone — numerous Republicans have downplayed the severity of the incident and criticized the justice system’s response to it. In doing so, they’re attempting to normalize what happened at the Capitol and are sending a disturbing message to violent extremists and radicalized Americans.
In the Sun’s May 15, 2020, editorial, we described several key elements of authoritarianism and explained how key actions by Trump and GOP leaders mirrored them.
“History teaches us that around the world, dictatorships often don’t announce themselves with tanks in the streets,” we wrote. “Instead they arrive with the constant erosion of just systems, the finger pointing at imaginary enemies to mobilize their supporters and the constant concentration of power in a few hands. Meanwhile, they weaponize the justice system, the purse strings of government, law enforcement and the courts to their benefit. After they get away with the early steps, those who would rule let their actions accelerate. Suddenly the population wakes up one day to realize what’s happened. Often it’s too late by then.”
Americans, thank goodness, showed in November that they were awake to the danger.
But the threat isn’t over, as we’ve seen. We can’t afford to sleep on it.
