How Bad Is the GOP for America? Even Worse Than You Think
Image Credit: CBS
This Is the Kind of Political Party Failed States Have, Not Modern Democracies
by umair haque
It’s been a slow burn. Over the last decade or so, America and the world have witnessed the GOP, the Republican Party…transform. Change. Into a malign force, inimical to democracy and modernity. But because it’s been a slow burn, I wonder if there’s really a solid understanding of just how severe this transformation’s been.
We say that the GOP’s “fanatical,” “extreme,” “crazy,” now — but what do those things really mean?
How bad is the GOP? Really, really bad. We might speak about it casually, even — but struggle, still, to articulate it well, just how off-the-charts the GOP’s behavior and attitudes and agenda all now really are. So in this little essay, I want to give you a way to way to do that. When we look at indices of democracy, a few criterion regularly emerge — and we’re going to use them to examine the GOP’s slide into fanaticism, lunacy, violence, rage, and hate.
Probably the first, almost most superficial criterion of polities or political parties is to think about integrity. That’s almost funny in this perspective, because…well, give me a second. Integrity’s usually just about corruption — the absence of it — alongside basics like impartiality and a lack of nepotism. You don’t have to think very hard to see the GOP’s level of corruption — from Ivanka and Jared as “special advisors” reportedly raking in millions, to the dark money that flows into the machine, to the obviously anti-democratic gerrymandering, to blocking campaign finance reform, and on, and on, an on.
But integrity’s laughable in the same sentence as GOP for an almost surreal reason. Big Lies. Integrity itself has become a Big Lie the GOP spouts at the speed of sound. “Election integrity,” meaning “the election was stolen!” There’s no evidence whatsoever on this score, and plenty to indicate the opposite, of course. That’s the point within the point. Usually “integrity” as a way to index democracy just means basics like corruption — but when you come across a party which goes to the next level of a lack of integrity, which makes Big Lies a part of its agenda, strategy, you’re veering off the charts into genuinely authoritarian territory. This is what fanaticism is, where it begins — with integrity being so perverted that Big Lies are the norm.
That’s how off the charts the GOP is — and we’ve barely begun. And by now I should hardly to recite the Big Lies, but that brings me to the next set of criteria. Rights. Does a political party…respect them? Does it even want…to expand them? These, after all, are fundamental to democracy. Not just as a static thing, but as a project. On one level, a democracy must defend and safeguard inalienable rights, and on another, to advance, it must expand rights. You can think of universal suffrage or America’s battle for civil rights as simple enough examples.
How does the GOP do on the criterion of rights — defending and expanding them? LOL, again, it’s laughable to even put those words together in a sentence. The GOP’s entire agenda — all of it — centers on taking rights away. And it’s done that in blitzkrieg fashion over the last year. Women’s rights were eviscerated, and their basic freedoms are under severe threat in state after state. Ma’am, why are you crossing state lines? Sir, did you “aid and abet” a woman? Gilead’s not so far off in a lot of these places — forced births are now having very real consequences, and the lunatics in the GOP are shouting about contraception next.
Then there are all the other ways rights have…simply…been set alight. Book bans. Teachers criminalized. In Texas, they’ll tell you what to wear. In Kansas, they’ve opened the door to…genital inspections for kids. I could go on almost endlessly, but the theme is the point. Fundamental rights. Which…rights…does the GOP….actually support…as inalienable and universal…anymore? The answer to that is something we all know, but it’s profoundly chilling to say it loud. Just guns. That’s it.