I think everyone here knows that Republicans are dangerous extremists, but it’s helpful to take a step back and recognize just how historically fascist they’ve become. It’s important to recognize how we got here in order to rescue our fast-fading democracy and national sanity.
The new study, dubbed the Global Party Survey, compares political parties across the world on the basis of populism. It was rigorously and scientifically conducted, based on surveys conducted over the course of the last several decades: The researchers interviewed 1,861 party and election experts to evaluate “21 core items to estimate key ideological values, issue positions, and populist rhetoric for 1,127 parties in 170 countries.”
The findings emphasize just how far-right the GOP has become — the blue circle is my masterwork.
It’s sobering to look at, right? And this was from 2019, before Trump and his Republican sycophants began spreading the Big Lie and diminishing faith in American elections. You can only imagine where the GOP would be on that graph now. How the hell did this happen?
The GOP has never been in favor of democracy, but the last decade has super-charged their antipathy. Did you know that before the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act in 2013, it was renewed unanimously by the US Senate in 2007? Even two and a half decades into the Reagan project, while Republicans were otherwise terrorizing the Middle East, the LGBTQ community, and the environment, among other things, they still had to at least pretend that they supported fair access to democracy.
The 2010 election and the SCOTUS decision opened the door to gerrymandering and then the all-out assault on voter rights, which introduced a new generation of extremists into the party even before Donald Trump made both open hate speech and relentless and unchecked corruption the norm for the GOP. While Republicans may still be functionally treated by media as a legitimate participant in democracy and covered in good faith, it’s important to recognize how far afield they’ve gone, especially compared to the rest of the world.
Here are parties in the US compared to those in the UK:
This is a comparison of their economic policies, with the vertical axis representing conservativism and the horizontal axis representing social issues. As you can see, Republicans are further right on social and economic issues than UKIP, the party that made Brexit possible.
It’s sobering to see just how far-right Republicans have swung and how much damage it’s done to the national conversation and government altogether. There will be no bipartisanship. There will be no big realization. Democrats have to save democracy by ending the filibuster and passing the For the People Act in order to put a stop to extreme voter suppression and gerrymandering.
P.S. I have a political newsletter called Progressives Everywhere, which focuses in-depth on voting rights, the filibuster, state legislatures, economic issues, and progressive policy. Every week, you’ll get deep dives on items like progressive ballot initiatives, saving the Supreme Court, the gig economy, and the economics of student debt. I also offer ways for people to get involved in creating progressive change by spotlighting important grassroots groups and voter registration organizations.
It’s free! You can subscribe to the newsletter here!