Don't Give Up Your Voice
While we debate whether or not Biden should step aside, don't forget the threat of Trump and MAGA Republican authoritarianism.
Let me start out by agreeing with many others who’ve pointed out that President Biden should step aside. Robert Leonard has made the argument; he’s also made the case for supporting Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee. Ezra Klein has been discussing whether or not Biden should step aside as the Democratic nominee since at least February of this year (his latest piece is here), also talking about how this could occur relative to the Democratic Convention process with Elaine Kamarck (senior fellow in governance studies and the director of the Center for Effective Public Management at Brookings). And he recently had a conversation with Elaina Plott Calabro (staff writer at The Atlantic) on the underratedness of Kamala Harris. Several New York Times columnists have also recently shared their individual preferences for a Democratic nominee.
The Threat of Donald Trump, MAGA Republicans, and Project 2025
But while this is a critical conversation to have, and one the media should be covering, post debate there has been significantly less coverage of Trump’s string of lies and rants and the reality of what a second Trump presidency will mean. Through some strange combination of a) blocking out the chaos of his presidency, b) becoming numb to his rhetoric (often unhinged and seemingly always reaching for new heights in shock value), and c) not consistently calling out his (and the MAGA cult’s) behavior for what it is, “we” have normalized MAGA-ism. Authoritarian cults built on white Christian nationalism, erasing gender identities, robbing women of control of their bodies, and taking away rights in general shouldn’t be considered normal.
The man has been found guilty by a jury of his peers on 34 felony counts, is an adjudicated rapist, and has been indicted for a) taking classified national defense documents after leaving the White House, b) interfering in our national elections and attempting to defraud the American people (related to January 6th and the run up to it), and c) interfering in Georgia’s elections. His company was convicted on multiple counts of criminal tax fraud and fined $1.61 million. On the international stage he’s both mocked and feared for the chaos he brings, and he’s a Russian (and dictator) apologist (at best).
He made fun of a reporter’s disability (if you’ve forgotten, the video is above) and recently opined on the choice between electrocution (via a sinking electric boat’s batteries) and being eaten by a shark. His appointments to the Supreme Court have provided a conservative majority that is attempting to reshape America, including overruling Roe v. Wade, ending Chevron Deference, allowing homelessness to be prosecuted as a crime, and in honor of July 4th this year decided to give the president the power of a king. Note that Trump has said on day one he would be a dictator and use the government to lash out at his enemies. And this barely scratches the surface. The man isn’t fit for most jobs (elected or not), let alone President of the United States. He has neither character, nor competence (at least where it’s needed).
And beyond the man himself will be all of the sycophants he surrounds himself with and the authoritarian conservative machine that has produced Project 2025. The vision of this Mandate for Leadership (as the project’s policy document has been titled - Republicans are full of irony) is to aggressively capture and remake the administrative state to concentrate MAGA Republican power and embed its ideology within our institutions. DEI in the federal government? Forget that, no more wokeism. Who needs an inclusive and equitable government or the competitive advantages offered by diversity?
A Reproductive Healthcare Access Task Force within the Department of Health and Human Services? Oh hell no, that shall now be the Pro-Life Task Force. And while we’re at it, we’ll change the department’s name to the Department of Life. A White House Gender Policy Council, an Office of Domestic Climate Policy, the Department of Education? Ha, ha, ha, ha… yeah, those are gone. Why on earth does the E.P.A. need an Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights, and why should we keep reaping the benefits of the Inflation Reduction Act? Ax those as well. And that climate change alarmist National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is definitely getting the boot. Don’t worry about all of the benefits we get from the National Weather Service (which operates under NOAA) - we’ll just privatize that - it’ll be fine.
A functioning government really needs long time civil servants with decades of experience, expertise, independence, and institutional knowledge? P-P-l-l-l-e-e-ease. All we need are less experienced political appointees ready to do the bidding of the President and the MAGA machine. Fund independent research with taxpayer dollars intended to better society across the spectrum of challenges we face, from gun violence and public health to climate change and the resiliency of our power grid? Oh come on now, be serious. Tax payer dollars must fund research that “… serves the national interest in a concrete way in line with conservative principles [italics added].” And that’s just a peek into the dystopian world of Project 2025.
New York Times Opinion columnist Carlos Lozado provides a good overview and analysis of the document here. Recently, Trump, his campaign, and other Republicans have tried to distance themselves from the plan as the media has begun to focus on the document more. And while it’s true the plan hasn’t been formally endorsed by Trump’s campaign (no doubt, to hide any connection), as Mr. Lozado has pointed out,
with so many former Trump officials among its contributors, so much praise for him throughout its pages (he is mentioned some 300 times, compared with once for Nikki Haley) and such clear affinity between Trump’s impulses and the document’s proposals, it is easy to imagine “Mandate for Leadership” wielding influence in a second Trump term.
John Oliver’s take on Project 2025 and a second Trump term is below (you can skip to the 26:00 mark if you just want to hear his summary). It’s definitely a more humorous take on much of what I’ve laid out above (and more). And sometimes you really need a good laugh before you break down and cry.
This is what MAGA Republicans want to do - this is their vision and they are hell bent on achieving it. Kevin Roberts, President of The Heritage Foundation (the right wing think tank coordinating Project 2025) stated that our country was “in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.” You can hear him state this below.
So, in Mr. Robert’s opinion, the first American Revolution didn’t get it right (at least not far enough to the right) and the left (essentially anyone who isn’t a MAGA Republican) better stand aside if they know what’s good for them. Mr. Roberts also stated that the “… Left that has a long history of violence, so it’s up to them to allow a peaceful transfer of power.” MAGA Republican irony, slays me every time.
As Robert Leonard has said, listen to what they’re saying and writing - they’re telling us what they plan to do. And this isn’t limited to the federal level. It also applies to our state and local governments where this is already happening.
The Threat of Supermajorities
Ann Applebaum, staff writer at The Atlantic, who has written extensively on authoritarianism, recently wrote a piece examining the negative impacts on democracy of Republican supermajorities within state and local governments, focusing on Tennessee. NPR’s Embedded podcast has also produced a series of episodes on the same topic (here’s the series intro).
The short answer is that Ms. Applebaum sees several parallels with what’s happened in other democracies that have taken an authoritarian path, drawing specifically from Poland, Hungary, and Venezuela. She covers a lot of details, from gerrymandering and restrictive voting laws to painting the opposition as enemies of the people, but one that I want to focus on is how this impacts those in control, those in the supermajority. It seems to push them even further down the path of authoritarianism.
While minority members of the government often turn to activism in part due to their inability to have any impact on governing, those in the supermajority also turn to “activism of a different kind.” From her article:
As in Hungary or Poland or as in Venezuela, the experience of radicalism can make people more radical. Total control of a political system can make the victors not more magnanimous, but more frustrated, not least because they learn that total control still doesn’t deliver what they think it should. No county commission or state legislature can possibly meet the demands of a quasi-religious movement that believes it has God on its side and that its opponents herald the apocalypse. But that doesn’t mean they give up. It just means they keep trying, using any tool available. Eventually they arrive at the point described by Tom Lee, the lawyer for the Sumner County Election Commission: “It’s not enough to get your majority and get your way—they have to make the minority lose their voice.”
The supermajority’s frustration at not being able to accomplish all they would like to is in part due to simply being out of alignment with the majority of the population on many of the issues at hand. Silencing opposition voices is in part a reaction to this as it limits the visibility of opposing views; it makes it seem as though less people exist who share those opposing views and easier for the governing supermajority to claim they’re doing the work of the people (at least that’s a goal; it doesn’t always work). This is also a goal of Project 2025 - silence opposition voices (or just voices of accountability) by removing them from the federal government.
Tennessee examples cited by Ms. Applebaum include Republican leadership turning off Democrats’ microphones when they’re speaking, expelling Democratic members from the legislature, and falsely linking Democrats to pedophiles in order to “spook” potential Democratic candidates in some of the rural parts of the state. Along those lines, gerrymandering and restricting voting rights also silence opposition voices by limiting minority makeup within governing bodies. Those of us who live in other states with Republican supermajorities can relate.
In Kansas where I live the Republican controlled legislature (currently a supermajority) over the years has developed a suite of methods to obscure what they’re doing and silence any opposition. These range from the opaque gut and go bill process to removing fellow Republican legislators from committee leadership positions when their voice isn’t in alignment with the House or Senate leadership’s voice. Committee chair persons have unjustifiably kicked out citizens present to testify against legislation, cutoff testimony they disliked, and waved the capitol police card around to scare speakers.
And it is common practice to give short notice for public testimony on controversial Republican backed bills as well as give overall equal time to proponent and opponent testimony even when the opponents vastly outnumber the proponents. They justify this by appealing to an idea of fairness relative to the overall time allotment (there’s that Republican irony again). This is just a taste of the authoritarian leaning shenanigans that go on in our state legislature.
Don’t Let Your Voice Be Silenced
Believe what they’re telling us. Believe what your eyes see them doing. Our democracy is under threat, at all levels of government. Republicans like to deflect this assertion by stating that America isn’t a democracy. That’s partially true, but as Ron Elving of NPR put it in 2022, we are both a democracy and a democratic republic.
Throughout our history we have functioned as both. Put another way, we have utilized characteristics of both. The people decide, but they do so through elected representatives working in pre-established, rule-bound and intentionally balky institutions such as Congress and the courts.
Mr. Elving also quotes George Thomas, the Wohlford Professor of American Political Institutions at Claremont McKenna College, stating that while there is "some truth to this insistence" on calling the U.S. a republic, “[i]t is mostly disingenuous. The Constitution was meant to foster a complex form of majority rule, not enable minority rule."
We, the people, have a voice. MAGA Republicans, in their move to authoritarianism, to minority rule, are attempting to silence that voice.
So yes, we should be having the debate about Biden. The concerns about his electability and capabilities are legitimate. He really should step aside, and I would love to get excited about transitioning American leadership to the next generation. But even if Biden doesn’t bow out, don’t lose sight of the bigger threat to American society, and frankly to the future of our species when you take climate change into account.
Don’t give up your voice.
great column