A Post-Democracy Party

In early August, Fox News host Tucker Carlson visited the post-democratic nation of Hungary to broadcast his show and heap praise upon the country’s authoritarian prime minister, Viktor Orban. On August 5th, Carlson posited a question to viewers with regards to citizens of Hungary and the United States. “Who’s freer?” he asked, “If you’re an American, the answer is painful to admit.” Despite Hungary’s rigged elections, it’s ethnonationalism, and state-controlled media, Carlson told his viewers that they’d be freer there than in the United States. “I love America, I think my country is the best in the world. But don’t tell me America is more free than Hungary.” While Carlson’s viewers likely saw this series about Hungary as a quirky isolated incident, the truth is that it was just one more chapter in a larger story about the American Right’s rejection of liberal democracy in favor of achieving their goals through any means necessary.

For over a decade, Prime Minister Viktor Orban has been using state power to punish his enemies, rig the electoral system in his favor, and build a state centered around Christian nationalism. Hungary, according to the V-Dem Institute, crossed the line into autocracy back in 2018 and, this year, was kicked out of a center-right European alliance for straying too far into authoritarian territory. Tucker Carlson is the most watched cable news host in the country, and when he endorses someone like Orban, it sends a clear message to his audience that it’s acceptable to reject democratic principles in order to get what they want. Carlson isn’t the only prominent conservative who’s praised the European strongman in recent years. Notable writers from popular right-wing publications like National Review, American Conservative, and the New York Post have also endorsed Orban’s strategy. Christopher Caldwell wrote for the Claremont Institute describing Orban as being “blessed with almost every political gift.” According to political scientist Dan Drezner, it’s that appeal of “conservative state power reinforcing itself” that enamors those on the American Right. They see Orban’s willingness to target the LGBT community, academics, the press, and immigrants as an example of how the Republican Party should operate in America.

There’s an emerging belief among the Republican movement that Democrats are tyrannical and have restricted the rights and freedoms of conservatives. Many leaders of the conservative movement have used this fantasy to talk themselves and others into adopting authoritarian methods described above. For example, on August 7th, Fox News contributor Kurt Schlichter took to Twitter promoting his response to the alleged tyranny of the Left. “We must, by any means necessary, force them to be like us,” he wrote, “No quarter. No compromise.” He also listed numerous extreme policy positions including banning “leftist” media and entertainment from spreading misinformation, banning Critical Race Theory, Marxism, and anti-American sentiment, mandating conservatism as the operational ideology of academia, penalizing households without children through taxation and voter disenfranchisement, and establishing property and military service qualifications for voting. He encouraged his followers to “use the law to ensure blue submission. Imprison dissenters.”

Schlichter isn’t alone, though, in his extremism. As noted previously, many members of the Right’s “intellectual class” have also not-so-subtly called for fascist-adjacent actions they claim are necessary for preserving the traditional American way of life. The National Review published three separate essays over the past year that have made the explicit argument that fewer people should vote. One of the essays, written by Kevin Williamson, called for fewer but better voters. Of course, by “better” Williamson meant more conservative and less liberal. Folks like Michael Anton, who worked briefly on President Trump’s National Security Council, have claimed the need for an “American Caesar” to take back control of the federal government to prevent the supposed destruction of the United States.

What’s worse, perhaps, than the radicalization of the Republican Party’s intellectual leaders is the acceptance by its voters and activists to embrace such unhinged ideas. Former White House advisor Steve Bannon said on his show in early October he has twenty thousand “’shock troops’ on standby” and that “We control this country… We have to start acting like it.” The fetishization of violence by the right-wing media has emboldened many voters and activists to take real action. I touched on the rise in extremism and violence among right-wing terrorists in a June 2021 essay. Most recently, activists and politicians have encouraged violence in the face of mask and vaccine mandates. In August, a Los Angeles man protesting before a vote on a mask mandate held a sign with the addresses of each LA City Council member. When asked what the purpose of the sign was, he responded that they were going to the homes of whoever voted for the mandate, and if it passed, “it’s civil war, get your guns.” In the same month, Steve Lynch, a GOP candidate for Northampton County executive, spoke at a rally saying, “Forget going into these school boards with freaking data. You go into these school boards to remove them. I’m going in with 20 strong men and I’m gonna give them an option — they can leave, or they can be removed.” There seems to be a growing infatuation with civil war and rebellion on the Right. Marine Lt. Col. Stuart Scheller, who was relieved of command after openly criticizing the withdrawal from Afghanistan, recorded a video in which he warned, “You have no idea what I’m capable of doing.” He went on to encourage his supporters saying, “Follow me, and we will bring the whole f*cking system down!” Likewise, Trump supporter Lori Levi said at a recent October rally in Iowa, “We’re not gonna take it anymore. I see a civil war coming.”

Sadly, these aren’t isolated incidents or lone wolf individuals. In poll after poll, we are seeing that a large number of Republican voters are willing to embrace violent efforts to reject democratic institutions. In a July CBS News poll, 55% of Trump voters described what happened at the Capitol Building on January 6th as “defending freedom”. The other choices were “patriotism” (51%), “trying to overturn the election” (32%), and “insurrection” (20%). The University of Chicago Project on Security and Threats conducted another survey that further emphasizes the Right’s growing affinity for violence. They found that 47 million Americans-a quarter of American adults-agreed with the statement that “the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump, and Joe Biden is an illegitimate president.” Of those, almost half agreed that “use of force is justified to restore Donald J. Trump to the presidency.” University of Virginia’s Center for Politics found that 84% of Trump voters agree with the statement “I have come to view elected officials of the Democratic Party as presenting a clear and present danger to American democracy.” With this growing mindset, it is no surprise that the FBI has warned that there is an “elevated threat of violence from domestic violent extremists” motivated by “anti-government or anti-authority” sentiment. These right-wing grievances, the FBI says, “will very likely pose the greatest domestic terrorism threats in 2021 and likely into 2022.”

With the frightening radicalization of the Republican Party’s voters in mind, most of its elected officials have refused to condemn the actions of the January 6th insurrectionists or acknowledge Trump’s role in it. Some, like Representative Andrew Clyde of Georgia, described the incident as a “normal tourist visit.” Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona even accused the Justice Department of “harassing peaceful patriots across the country” and that “Outright propaganda and lies are being used to unleash the national security state against law-abiding U.S. citizens, especially Trump voters.” Even fewer officials will plainly answer the simple question of whether or not Joe Biden is the legitimate winner of the 2020 election. These include the top two Republicans of the US House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy and Steve Scalise. And why would they? Almost a year after the 2020 election, Donald Trump himself, a man who maintains a 91% approval rating within the Republican Party, still insists there was massive fraud. Many of the Party’s politicians are concerned not just for their reelection chances but for their safety. According to Congresswoman Liz Cheney, many Republicans voted against Donald Trump’s second impeachment because “they were afraid for their own security — afraid, in some instances, for their lives.” Other politicians, like Marjorie Taylor Greene, have embraced the Party’s base and gone so far as to offer evidence-free conspiracy theories that the insurrection was part of a “Deep State” plot.

Former President Trump attempted a coup and incited a violent insurrection after casting doubt on the 2020 election results. Rather than stepping back and reflecting on their own involvement and responsibility, the conservative movement has instead chosen to double down. Currently, there are 15 Republican candidates for secretary of state in Arizona, Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Nevada. Of those 15, ten of them have declared the 2020 election stolen or called for the results to be invalidated. Other state legislatures from across the country have called for a 50-state audit of the election while nearly a dozen states have enacted laws that could subvert the results of future elections. Megan Lewis, the executive director of Voting Rights Lab warned CNN that if we don’t roll back these efforts “we really run the risk of eroding the fabric of our democracy.”

In a healthy political environment, those promoting anti-democratic rhetoric and actions would face repudiation. Instead, rather than being a deal breaker, opposing democracy has become a selling point for too many conservatives. There’s no longer any incentive for moderation within the Party. Today, right-leaning politicians, journalists, and activists are rewarded for their extremist views with airtime, profiles, and donations. With the Republican Party becoming more unmoored with each passing day, it leaves many asking the question “What, if anything, can be done to stop this growing threat?” This moment in history requires a coalition of Democrats, Republicans, and independents to stand up to defend our democracy. There is no written rule or guiding principle that liberal democracy in the United States will always prevail. If we have learned anything from the last several years, it is that we cannot afford to ignore or normalize the anti-democratic tendencies within the modern conservative movement. As global politics professor Brian Klaas recently told Ruth Ben-Ghiat, “democracy is very much like a sandcastle… to destroy one, you can either have one big wave… or it goes slowly.” Today, we are watching that sandcastle erode away.