The Republican Party Is Radicalizing Against Democracy

Now, this only goes so far: The War on Terror continues, as does the war in Afghanistan, and air and drone strikes expanded under Trump, as did civilian casualties in the places we continue to bomb. We’ve not reached some wonderful new era of hegemonic peace. But the politics of the Iraq War inverted, helping the U.S. avoid another calamity of that magnitude.

And while some conservatives have redoubled their efforts to use the courts to secure religious exemptions from nondiscrimination law, and while conservatives continue to wage political battles against transgender Americans, the central issue of marriage equality has largely been rendered moot. The GOP has more or less given up. Broadsides against marriage equality or lesbian, gay, and bisexual individuals have largely disappeared from the Republican Party’s mainstream political messaging.

Mitch Landrieu: Only accountability will allow the U.S. to move forward

No political victory, of course, is ever truly total or final. But liberals won, resoundingly, two of the most contentious battles of the 2004 election, even though it was the only recent presidential election in which they lost the majority of the vote. And, indeed, as the Republican Party has changed its views on the wisdom of the Iraq War, and on the fundamental equality of gay, lesbian, and bisexual people, it has taken a potent political weapon away from its Democratic opponents.

The result is that voters have more or less forgotten and forgiven Republicans’ awful rhetoric and policies on Iraq and marriage equality, because voters’ memories are short. I’m personally furious that, to this day, no one involved in those activities has ever truly paid an appropriate long-term reputational price. Nevertheless, we now enjoy a kind of broad consensus that is better and more progressive than what prevailed before.

But if Democrats are winning the big policy fights, why are our elections still so close, and the nation so bitterly divided?

Imagine for a moment that you’re in a room with 100 other people. This is in the before times, so no masks! Everyone’s socializing, maybe drinking and laughing and talking. It just so happens that 52 of the people in the room are wearing sweatshirts and 48 have T-shirts on. You step outside for a moment to take a call, and when you come back, four people have gotten a little warm and taken off their sweatshirts. There are now 52 people with T-shirts on and 48 with sweatshirts.

Would you be tempted to write a big think piece about “Why This Is a T-Shirt Room Now”? Would you find yourself seized with a horrified vertigo because you don’t recognize the room anymore? Or would you even notice?

Welcome to contemporary American politics. In 2020, Georgia swung more than any other swing state and moved about five points. In politics, five points in four years is an enormous change, but again, that’s just a few people in the room switching their shirts.