The Future of American Democracy is in Danger

[Levelfive]

Two entries just from this morning:

An Open Letter in Defense of Democracy
The future of democracy in the United States is in danger.

[This open letter is being published simultaneously by The Bulwark and the New Republic.]

We are writers, academics, and political activists who have long disagreed about many things.

Some of us are Democrats and others Republicans. Some identify with the left, some with the right, and some with neither. We have disagreed in the past, and we hope to be able to disagree, productively, for years to come. Because we believe in the pluralism that is at the heart of democracy.

But right now we agree on a fundamental point: We need to join together to defend liberal democracy.

Because liberal democracy itself is in serious danger. Liberal democracy depends on free and fair elections, respect for the rights of others, the rule of law, a commitment to truth and tolerance in our public discourse. All of these are now in serious danger.

The primary source of this danger is one of our two major national parties, the Republican Party, which remains under the sway of Donald Trump and Trumpist authoritarianism. Unimpeded by Trump’s defeat in 2020 and unfazed by the January 6 insurrection, Trump and his supporters actively work to exploit anxieties and prejudices, to promote reckless hostility to the truth and to Americans who disagree with them, and to discredit the very practice of free and fair elections in which winners and losers respect the peaceful transfer of power.

So we, who have differed on so much in the past—and who continue to differ on much today—have come together to say:

We vigorously oppose ongoing Republican efforts to change state election laws to limit voter participation.

We vigorously oppose ongoing Republican efforts to empower state legislatures to override duly appointed election officials and interfere with the proper certification of election results, thereby substituting their own political preferences for those expressed by citizens at the polls.

We vigorously oppose the relentless and unending promotion of unprofessional and phony “election audits” that waste public money, jeopardize public electoral data and voting machines, and generate paranoia about the legitimacy of elections.

We urge the Democratic-controlled Congress to pass effective, national legislation to protect the vote and our elections, and if necessary to override the Senate filibuster rule.

And we urge all responsible citizens who care about democracy—public officials, journalists, educators, activists, ordinary citizens—to make the defense of democracy an urgent priority now.

Now is the time for leaders in all walks of life—for citizens of all political backgrounds and persuasions—to come to the aid of the Republic.

Todd Gitlin
Professor of Journalism, Sociology and Communications
Columbia University

Jeffrey C. Isaac
James H. Rudy Professor of Political Science
Indiana University, Bloomington

William Kristol
Editor at Large, The Bulwark
Director, Defending Democracy Together
Cosigners

Affiliations listed for identification purposes only.

Sheri Berman
Professor of Political Science
Barnard College

Max Boot
Senior Fellow
Council on Foreign Relations

James Carroll
Writer

Leo Casey
Assistant to the President
American Federation of Teachers

Mona Charen
Policy Editor
The Bulwark

Noam Chomsky
Institute Professor and Professor of Linguistics Emeritus
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Jelani Cobb
Professor of Journalism
Columbia University

Eliot A. Cohen
Robert E. Osgood Professor
Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies

David Cole
National Legal Director
American Civil Liberties Union

Laura K. Field
Senior Fellow
Niskanen Center

Carolyn Forché
University Professor
Georgetown University

Francis Fukuyama
Olivier Nomellini Senior Fellow
Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Stanford University

William A. Galston
Senior Fellow
Brookings Institution

Jeffrey C. Goldfarb
Michael E. Gellert Professor Emeritus
New School for Social Research

Hahrie Hahn
Stavros Niarchos Foundation Professor of Political Science
Director, SNF Agora Institute
Johns Hopkins University

Roya Hakakian
Writer

John Judis
Writer

Ira Katznelson
Ruggles Professor of Political Science and History
Columbia University

Michael Kazin
Professor of History
Georgetown University

Randall Kennedy
Michael R. Klein Professor of Law
Harvard University

Steven R. Levitsky
Professor of Government
Harvard University

Robert Jay Lifton, M.D.
Psychiatrist and author

Susie Linfield
Professor of Journalism
New York University

Damon Linker
Senior Correspondent
The Week

Dahlia Lithwick
Senior Editor
Slate

Jane Mansbridge
Charles F. Adams Professor, Emerita
Harvard Kennedy School

Win McCormack
Editor in Chief
The New Republic

John McWhorter
Professor of Linguistics
Columbia University

Deborah Meier
Educator

James Miller
Professor of Politics and Liberal Studies
New School for Social Research

Nell Irvin Painter
Edwards Professor of American History Emerita
Princeton University

Rick Perlstein
Writer

Katha Pollitt
Writer

Claire Potter
Professor of History
New School for Social Research

Jedediah Purdy
William S. Beinecke Professor of Law
Columbia University

Jonathan Rauch
Senior Fellow
Brookings Institution

Adolph Reed
Emeritus Professor of Political Science
University of Pennsylvania

Kim Lane Scheppele
Laurance S. Rockefeller Professor of Sociology and International Affairs
Princeton University

Charles Sykes
Founder and Editor at Large
The Bulwark

George Thomas
Burnet C. Wohlford Professor of American Political Institutions
Claremont McKenna College

Michael Tomasky
Editor, The New Republic
Editor, Democracy: A Journal of Ideas

Jeffrey K. Tulis
Professor of Government and Law
University of Texas

Joan Walsh
Writer
The Nation

Michael Walzer
Professor Emeritus of Social Science
Institute for Advanced Study

Dorian T. Warren
President
Community Change

Sean Wilentz
Sidney and Ruth Lapidus Professor in the American Revolutionary Era
Princeton University

Benjamin Wittes
Senior Fellow
Brookings Institution

_____________________________________________________

Pro-Trump Professors Are Plotting an Authoritarian Comeback
Conservative intellectuals’ plans to erode liberal democracy are just getting started.

"On Halloween, the second National Conservatism conference, or NatCon II, will kick off in Orlando, Florida. It is hard to know quite what to make of the lineup for the three-day fest, which boasts a few household names (Senators Josh Hawley and Marco Rubio are both keynote speakers), but also features conspiracist Jack Posobiec of Pizzagate fame. One through line, with a few exceptions, is support for Donald Trump. But the animating ideas come less from the ex-president than from a disparate group of formerly obscure academics.

Media coverage of the Trump phenomenon typically begins and ends with the base—the coal miner at the Midwestern diner, or the MAGA rally crowd. We don’t talk much about the professors.

Since 2016, an array of little-known conservative intellectuals and think tank sorts have emerged as powerful voices in Trump’s Republican Party. Zealous opposition to immigration and so-called woke culture stoked their political ambition. They lent a veneer of much-needed respectability to the Trump administration. And now, despite some genuine theoretical differences, the group is coalescing around an illiberal political project—not just espousing typical conservative policy preferences, but standing against liberal, constitutional democracy in the traditional, nonpartisan sense. Some of the most prominent intellectual voices on the right are openly consolidating around the notion that America needs a radical political transformation, away from rule by and for “We the People” and toward something more top-down and monolithic. At its essence, NatCon II is an opportunity for the big names in this movement to offer a dressed-up, sublimating version of Trumpism.

Today, the conservative intellectuals who first came together in defense of Trumpism and under the banner of National Conservatism are preparing the ideological terrain for a post-liberal America. Not to take them seriously betrays a historical naïveté and a fetishization of the intellect—as if intelligence has never walked alongside moral and political horror—as well as a dreadful overconfidence in the immediate appeal of the liberal democratic worldview.

At first glance, Trump seems like an unlikely champion for any group of intellectuals, and it’s true that many hold him at arm’s length. But some came to appreciate Trump’s irreverence, or what Charles R. Kesler of the Claremont Institute has called Trump’s “courage,” in standing up to the left. A small conservative think tank founded in 1979, the Claremont Institute positions itself in defense of the American Founding and the tradition of natural right and became an early intellectual champion for Trump. In September 2016, the institute published the “Flight 93 Election” essay, which argued, in effect, that it was time for conservatives to put their money where their shock-jock mouths had been for decades. As the author put it, “a Hillary Clinton presidency is Russian Roulette with a semi-auto. With Trump, at least you can spin the cylinder and take your chances.” Rush Limbaugh devoted one of his shows to promoting the piece, and its author, Michael Anton, would later join Trump’s National Security Council. Anton now works for Hillsdale College, whose current president, Larry P. Arnn, chaired President Trump’s 1776 Commission Report, which argued for the promotion of “patriotic education,” prefiguring current Republican attacks on critical race theory.

During the Trump era, the Claremont group took a deliberate turn toward more active political engagement. What once could pass as jingoism and racial ignorance within the institute soon descended into open racism and rank conspiracism. By 2020, Anton and other leaders at *Claremont were actively promoting the idea of a “Biden coup,” and John C. Eastman, the founding director of the Claremont Institute’s Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence, wrote for Trump a six-point plan explaining how Mike Pence should overturn the election on January 6.

Far from operating in isolation, the Claremont contingent has a solid presence in the emerging National Conservatism movement, which is organized by the Edmund Burke Foundation (a new group chaired by Israeli American scholar Yoram Hazony, author of the 2018 book The Virtue of Nationalism). The broader conference is more ideologically diverse than Claremont and includes a good number of religious traditionalists, many of whom take a more decorous approach to politics. But they’ve found common cause. In March 2019, First Things magazine published an open letter entitled “AGAINST THE DEAD CONSENSUS,” which served as an early cri de coeur for the movement. Signatories include Sohrab Ahmari, the opinion editor for the New York Post, and Patrick Deneen, author of the popular 2018 hit Why Liberalism Failed and a professor at the University of Notre Dame. The letter blamed the conservative establishment for its failure to stem the tide of “tyrannical liberalism,” and praised “the Trump phenomenon” for opening up space for new kinds of political inquiry and practice. NatCon I took place in July 2019—Tucker Carlson and John Bolton were featured speakers—and in February 2020 there was a National Conservatism conference in Rome.

The camps are unified behind a divisive and dehumanizing account of their political opponents. On the more temperate end, men like Deneen and Hazony espouse dismissive accounts of how liberal elites’ deepest relationships—with their spouses, their parents, their offspring—are mercenary and free of real love and loyalty. At the other end, there’s the boundless cynicism of the Claremont Institute, which publishes writers who refer to Black Lives Matter activists as evil and liken left-leaning Americans to zombies and human rodents. Across the continuum of illiberal intellectualism, there are apocalyptic cries about the imminent collapse of Western Civilization. The passionate rhetoric abandons any pretense to liberal ideals of reasoned deliberation and contestation within a shared constitutional framework.

Instead, these intellectuals have embraced various alternatives to American pluralism. Deneen has advocated for a political form called “Aristopopulism,” which aims to replace today’s elites with “genuine aristoi,” and he’s defended the idea of using “Machiavellian means to achieve Aristotelian ends.” J.D. Vance, author of Hillbilly Elegy and a current candidate for a Senate seat in Ohio, echoed the thought on Fox News. “If we want a healthy ruling class in this country,” Vance told Tucker Carlson in July, “we should support more people who actually have kids.” The Claremont Institute sees itself as engaged in a world-historical defense of America, which means standing in strident opposition to multiculturalism (the institute likes to call it a “war”).

In searching for real-world alternatives, these intellectuals—especially the traditionalists—have looked abroad, latching on to Viktor Orbán’s Hungary as the best concrete example of their ideal. An open proponent of “illiberal democracy,” Orbán has become increasingly autocratic since he became the country’s prime minister in 2010, consolidating his power around staunch anti-immigration policies and Christian nationalism, asserting state control over the media, bending the judiciary to his will, exerting new controls over public education, and manipulating elections. America’s illiberal intellectuals often speak highly of Orbán, who was an honored guest at the National Conservatism gathering in Rome. Patrick Deneen and American Conservative columnist Rod Dreher visited Hungary in June, and were full of praise. Dreher sees the country as exemplifying “a sustained pushback to the inevitability of global progressivism” and finds it “tremendously encouraging.” Deneen thinks Hungary has a lot to teach America about how the law can be used to support traditional family life and a “genuine kind of human flourishing.”

Meanwhile, the Claremont Institute intellectuals indulge in bizarre, violent imagery and militaristic language. In addition to the notorious deeds of Eastman, they were an important nexus for Trump’s “Stop the Steal” lies and openly flirt with secessionism. In March, one of Claremont’s senior fellows published an essay proclaiming the need for a counterrevolution against the American majority who didn’t vote for Trump. In late May, the think tank produced a podcast that gamed out how a future president might convert herself or himself into a new Caesar.

It’s tempting to think that the worst is behind us. Joe Biden’s Washington is consumed by debates over infrastructure and the social safety net. Republicans in Congress may refuse to acknowledge the realities of what happened on January 6, but for now they can’t implement further anti-democratic measures nationally. However, away from D.C., these intellectuals have taken up Trump’s illiberal baton with gusto. For them, Trump was a trial balloon for what they hope will be an altogether more serious and deliberate political project.

This isn’t just abstract hypotheticals. National Conservatism has ties to prominent GOP politicians. Beyond Hawley and Rubio headlining the NatCon II conference, the Claremont Institute is set to honor Florida Governor Ron DeSantis at its annual gala in late October. Tucker Carlson and former Vice President Mike Pence recently paid separate visits to Budapest. And the arguments coming from the illiberal right are entirely consonant with recent state GOP efforts to limit voting rights, control public education on race, and strictly curtail abortion access. These all cut against the core principles and spirit of American constitutionalism, and yet it is easy to imagine their being deployed by more staid and respectable politicians than Trump; from there, it’s not hard to imagine a more serious autocratic turn for the Republican Party, with violent implications for the country."
____________________________________________________________

As an addendum, for those who would like to track our "progress," here's a relatively short paper from 1998 called The Five Stages of Fascism: http://waypointweichel.weebly.com/up...of_fascism.pdf

[Dezerte]

I think the consequences (or lack thereof) for those who instigated (and not just those who went there) the insurrection will be very telling for how much danger the US democracy is in.

[Mihalik]

I've said it then, and I'll say it again.

January 6th was our Beer Hall Putsch. And just like the Weimar Republic, we have failed to adequately deal with the event or its consequences.

The next one will be Krystalnacht and we know this because GOOPers have been loudly telling us for years that's that where they want to take this.

[cubby]

It's truly frightening how little consequence we've seen overall for those that have done so much damage to our democracy. The above is just another chapter in the Foundations of Gilead.

[Narwhalosh Whalescream]

Let's hope american democracy survives, and democracy in the world. I shudder to think a world with states like Russia and China.

[Mihalik]

Let's hope american democracy survives, and democracy in the world. I shudder to think a world with states like Russia and China.

The path of Fascism we are on, if taken to its final conclusion, would make Russia and China look positively liberal, modern, free, fair and safe.

[Levelfive]

I've said it then, and I'll say it again.

January 6th was our Beer Hall Putsch. And just like the Weimar Republic, we have failed to adequately deal with the event or its consequences.

The next one will be Krystalnacht and we know this because GOOPers have been loudly telling us for years that's that where they want to take this.

Agreed. They're in something akin to a sexual frenzy at the thought of opening fire on Democrats.

- - - Updated - - -

It's truly frightening how little consequence we've seen overall for those that have done so much damage to our democracy. The above is just another chapter in the Foundations of Gilead.

This is why on some level I'm relieved to see people at least openly, publicly naming what's happening, when it feels like everyone else in a position to do something is sleepwalking through the collapse of democracy in the US.

[Endus]

I've said it then, and I'll say it again.

January 6th was our Beer Hall Putsch. And just like the Weimar Republic, we have failed to adequately deal with the event or its consequences.

This is grossly unfair.

The Weimar Republic prosecuted the instigators of the Beer Hall Putsch, including Hitler, and put them in prison. Hitler in particular was convicted of treason and sentenced to five years in prison. He was arrested two days after the Putsch, and charged, prosecuted, and sentenced over a 24-day trial.

That wasn't enough, of course. They should've gone further, looking back.

And the unfairness is that the USA is doing way fucking less than the Weimar Republic. Less police resistance during the event. Complicity between police and the insurrectionists. The architects have not been charged or arrested, and it's been 10 months.

To give you an idea, the Putsch took place on the 8th-9th November 1923, and Hitler was released from prison after serving 9 months on 20 December, 1924 (yes, that's bullshit and part of what led to the Nazi rise to power, but not the point). In the same time frame, from January 6, would be the end of February of 2022. That's just a few months away. Do you think it's likely that the architects of January 6 will still be walking free, unprosecuted, on that date? That would mean that Hitler was arrested, charged, prosecuted, sentenced, served his time, and was released all within the same time that nothing has been fuckin' done to the architects of January 6.

We know who they are. They were tweeting their support the day of. Calling out the location of people like Pelosi in real-time so the insurrectionists could locate her to kill her. And they're still not charged. They're not even hiding.

Yeah, it's super fucking unfair to compare this to the Beer Hall Putsch. The Weimar Republic half-assed their response to the Putsch. The USA isn't even half-assing a response to the January 6 insurrection. Not even quarter-assing. It's a thin, reedy whistle of a fart of a response.

[Mihalik]

This is grossly unfair.

Yeah, it's super fucking unfair to compare this to the Beer Hall Putsch. The Weimar Republic half-assed their response to the Putsch. The USA isn't even half-assing a response to the January 6 insurrection. Not even quarter-assing. It's a thin, reedy whistle of a fart of a response.

True, but what I mostly mean when I compare the two is that Jan. 6 was our failed coup attempt. The trail run so to say, and it is in some way doing the same as the Beer Hall Putsch, it's turning a poorly organized frenzied event into a clearer plan for a path to power. It also serves as a sort of ideological litmus test, creating the "leadership" for the real thing.

While history doesn't quite repeats itself, it often rhymes, and holy fuck this rhymes.

[cubby]

This is why on some level I'm relieved to see people at least openly, publicly naming what's happening, when it feels like everyone else in a position to do something is sleepwalking through the collapse of democracy in the US.

I am as well. I'm also deeply curious to see how the prosecution goes with the recent revelations of GQP Members of Congress and White House staffers planning the Insurrection will be handled.

- - - Updated - - -

This is grossly unfair.

The Weimar Republic prosecuted the instigators of the Beer Hall Putsch, including Hitler, and put them in prison. Hitler in particular was convicted of treason and sentenced to five years in prison. He was arrested two days after the Putsch, and charged, prosecuted, and sentenced over a 24-day trial.

That wasn't enough, of course. They should've gone further, looking back.

And the unfairness is that the USA is doing way fucking less than the Weimar Republic. Less police resistance during the event. Complicity between police and the insurrectionists. The architects have not been charged or arrested, and it's been 10 months.

To give you an idea, the Putsch took place on the 8th-9th November 1923, and Hitler was released from prison after serving 9 months on 20 December, 1924 (yes, that's bullshit and part of what led to the Nazi rise to power, but not the point). In the same time frame, from January 6, would be the end of February of 2022. That's just a few months away. Do you think it's likely that the architects of January 6 will still be walking free, unprosecuted, on that date? That would mean that Hitler was arrested, charged, prosecuted, sentenced, served his time, and was released all within the same time that nothing has been fuckin' done to the architects of January 6.

We know who they are. They were tweeting their support the day of. Calling out the location of people like Pelosi in real-time so the insurrectionists could locate her to kill her. And they're still not charged. They're not even hiding.

Yeah, it's super fucking unfair to compare this to the Beer Hall Putsch. The Weimar Republic half-assed their response to the Putsch. The USA isn't even half-assing a response to the January 6 insurrection. Not even quarter-assing. It's a thin, reedy whistle of a fart of a response.

This is entirely accurate and given the frank summary, very frightening. The United States is doing far less to our treasonous insurrectionist terrorists than Germany did to Hitler and his crew.

[Dacia Ultan]

This is grossly unfair.

The Weimar Republic prosecuted the instigators of the Beer Hall Putsch, including Hitler, and put them in prison. Hitler in particular was convicted of treason and sentenced to five years in prison. He was arrested two days after the Putsch, and charged, prosecuted, and sentenced over a 24-day trial.

That wasn't enough, of course. They should've gone further, looking back.

And the unfairness is that the USA is doing way fucking less than the Weimar Republic. Less police resistance during the event. Complicity between police and the insurrectionists. The architects have not been charged or arrested, and it's been 10 months.

This is entirely accurate and given the frank summary, very frightening. The United States is doing far less to our treasonous insurrectionist terrorists than Germany did to Hitler and his crew.

And, emboldened by this: they've been staging an ongoing soft coup ever since.

[Inuyaki]

I've said it then, and I'll say it again.

January 6th was our Beer Hall Putsch. And just like the Weimar Republic, we have failed to adequately deal with the event or its consequences.

The next one will be Krystalnacht and we know this because GOOPers have been loudly telling us for years that's that where they want to take this.

Just for info, it's spelled "Kristallnacht"

Yeah, I fear the same

[RaoBurning]

If we want a healthy ruling class in this country[...]

I feel like this is significantly more telling than Vance intended. Not governing, not legislating. Ruling. Like kings and nobles all over again. Consolidation of power at the expense of all else.

No thank you. Siri order six dozen guillotines and a French dictionary (I can already fumble my way through German).

[cubby]

And, emboldened by this: they've been staging an ongoing soft coup ever since.

Exactly. Some ridiculous percentage of GQP'ers don't even believe Trump lost the 2020 election (IIRC it's over 50%). And there is literal volumes of data showing that soft coup you mention since the election and the Terrorist Insurrection.

[Dacia Ultan]

Exactly. Some ridiculous percentage of GQP'ers don't even believe Trump lost the 2020 election (IIRC it's over 50%). And there is literal volumes of data showing that soft coup you mention since the election and the Terrorist Insurrection.

It's 53%. And, to no one's surprise: still more evidence has now surfaced that several members of Congress were actively complicit in the hard coup attempt (for all that they're all indignantly denying it). These are the kind of people we have calling the shots for us, in what's supposed to be the world's greatest nation.

I feel like this is significantly more telling than Vance intended. Not governing, not legislating. Ruling. Like kings and nobles all over again. Consolidation of power at the expense of all else.

No thank you. Siri order six dozen guillotines and a French dictionary (I can already fumble my way through German).

It likely wasn't accidental. You'll have noticed, of course, that the right really like to red-bait (that is, to fling around baseless accusations of "communism" and of concepts associated—at least I the American public eye—with such). This is a smokescreen; they are trying to redefine "communism" as "anything that's not corporate latter-day feudalism."

Seriously: if even a mealymouthed professional human shield like John McWhorter is smelling a rat (no offense meant to any pocket pets)? Something is deeply wrong.

[Draco-Onis]

I am as well. I'm also deeply curious to see how the prosecution goes with the recent revelations of GQP Members of Congress and White House staffers planning the Insurrection will be handled.

There will be no consequences because democrats have no balls, too many are still under the delusion that this whole fascism and terrorism thing with the right is temporary.

[Dacia Ultan]

There will be no consequences because democrats have no balls, too many are still under the delusion that this whole fascism and terrorism thing with the right is temporary.

I don't want you to be right, because that would mean that the country is essentially doomed; but I suspect that you probably are. Hell, it took them this long to admit that the right has gone off the rails at all; and they're still not admitting that the right has gone full totalitarian and wants nothing of bipartisanship or compromise.

[Draco-Onis]

I don't want you to be right, because that would mean that the country is essentially doomed; but I suspect that you probably are. Hell, it took them this long to admit that the right has gone off the rails at all; and they're still not admitting that the right has gone full totalitarian and wants nothing of bipartisanship or compromise.

Whatever hope I had went out the window when the answer to the supreme court by Biden was a right wing commission.

[Polyxo]

This stuff started way before Trump though. Anybody remember the Brooks Brothers Riot?

[Dacia Ultan]

This stuff started way before Trump though. Anybody remember the Brooks Brothers Riot?

Newt Gingrich started escalating it back in the '90s. Note use of "escalating."