Today we stand tall

 

This is a free version of what’s included in our premium membership. Democracy Docket members always receive Marc’s exclusive analysis on the latest voting and democracy news of the day as well as four premium newsletters, invites to members-only live events and more. This is a day we did not want. At noon Donald Trump will take the presidential oath of office prescribed by the U.S. Constitution. I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. Nearly every word he will say will be a lie. Being solemn requires having “deep sincerity,” something Trump utterly lacks. Trump will not be “faithful” in exercising the power of his office. Trump has contempt for the restraints on his power the U.S. Constitution represents. He has no intention of preserving, protecting or defending it. Starting this afternoon Trump will attempt to transform our country from a nation of laws into a dystopian authoritarian regime. Those of us who care about democracy must stand tall and resolute in preventing this from happening. Since the election, we have witnessed the guardrails of democracy fall aside with astonishing speed. The Republican Party has ceased to exist as an institution separate from the will and whim of Donald Trump. Speaker Johnson serves only at Trump’s pleasure. Senate Republicans have surrendered their right to advise and consent. Corporate titans and billionaires have been transformed into court jesters that Trump can summon for companionship and mock for amusement. They have paid for the privilege of being reduced to objects of ridicule and scorn. As Trump takes the Oval Office later today, Democracy Docket is recommitting itself to exposing his attacks on democracy by covering the hundreds of lawsuits that will be filed starting once he is sworn in. Upgrade to our premium membership to always be the first to know about these efforts and support our pro-democracy mission. The legacy media, that assured us it stood as a centurion of democracy, has largely gone AWOL — unwilling to confront Trump as confident protectors of press freedom and independence. Many of its most prominent voices have gone silent, others have suffered the humiliation of public capitulation. Shortly after the election, I wrote about the need for a new opposition movement based on winning elections and developing new institutions of power. I argued that it should be a big tent that is unafraid of good faith debates and differences. I also made clear that we need to nurture and support new, independent media outlets that are willing to embrace a pro-democracy ethos. Since then, there have been promising signs that an opposition movement is emerging. But the real test begins today. When Donald Trump walks off the podium and back into the Capitol, his term will begin. He has already promised scores of new executive orders and policies and loyalist officials ready to do his bidding. It will then be up to each of us to declare for ourselves how we will confront the reality of another four years of Trump. Some will choose to tune out and go about their lives. Others will bend and accommodate. I have made my choices known for myself and for Democracy Docket: Like others, I fear the threat of government retribution, political vengeance and an angry right-wing mob. But I know that giving into it will only strengthen Trump and undermine the future of our democracy. Trump wants us to be scared. He wants us to give up — gradually and then suddenly. As a lawyer, I will continue to fight for voting rights and democracy in court and to help build a strong opposition. As the founder of Democracy Docket, I can assure you it will become an ever more fearless voice for democracy. We will not bow down. We will stand tall. We will not obey. Starting at 12:01pm today, I hope you will join us for the next four years. Want to hear Marc’s thoughts and reactions to Trump’s inaugural address? Join him on Jan. 22 at 7 p.m. ET for a live, members-only call on what to expect in the first 100 days of the second Trump administration. Don’t miss out — upgrade now to join! UPGRADE NOW

The state of democracy is fraying

 

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You're reading my monthly State of Democracy newsletter, where I share my thoughts and insights on the current trends and stories impacting voters and our democracy. With the incoming Republican trifecta, expect my analysis on Trump and his cronies’ anti-democratic actions — you won't find my thoughts on this anywhere else! As we end the year, there is no denying it, our democracy is fraying. The signs are everywhere. Business leaders are replacing their platitudes about caring about a just society with commitments to help Trump make America great again. The media is so terrified of crossing the incoming president that they are practically urinating on themselves. Billionaires are debasing themselves to curry favor with someone Spy Magazine called a “short-fingered vulgarian.” For now, those who bow the deepest and kiss the ring with the most passion, are perceived the winners. Those who stand on principle and cherish the rule of law are considered the latest version of suckers and losers. The ethos of the current moment is the celebration of clever lying, alternative facts and double standards. Eight years ago, we feared that Trump might, in fact, be able to stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and get away with it. Today, we know he could incite a violent insurrection with total immunity. When the Washington Post adopted the slogan “Democracy Dies in Darkness” in February 2017, we saw it as an affirmation of a fearless media. Now, it seems more like the ironic prediction of a billionaire owner with bigger commercial endeavors to promote. The Republican Party has ceased to exist as an institution. It is now simply the expression of Trump’s will. Dissent is not just discouraged; it does not exist. It has been replaced with personal loyalty tests and professions of faith. In Trump’s GOP there is nothing more valued than acts of public self-humiliation to please him. Even the former resistance seems hollowed out, unwilling or unable to muster the strength and energy to fight back. There are still many who are ready to act but lack the leadership or plan to make collective action effective. A healthy democracy requires civic engagement and leaders committed to the public good. There is no question that our democracy is not healthy. It can still be fixed, but its fraying needs repair… In this edition of State of Democracy I dive into: The reaction to Pennsylvania’s tight Senate race Efforts by the North Carolina GOP to disenfranchise 60,000 voters Election deniers in the Trump administration A new power grab law to look out for Want to read the rest? Upgrade to our premium membership for $120/year to get two monthly newsletters from me (including this one), my weekly tip sheet with the top cases to watch, invites to live events and more. Plus, by becoming a member, you will help support Democracy Docket’s work and ensure everything on our website remains free for all. UPGRADE NOW

 IT'S TIME TO RESTORE SANITY!

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How did the GOP became the party of cranks, crackpots, and fruitcakes?

Robert Reich Oct 7

Credit: Randy Molton, 2015

Friends,

Mark Robinson, the GOP gubernatorial candidate in North Carolina and current lieutenant governor, is in trouble again.

Not just because Robinson has referred to himself as a “black NAZI” and a “perv,” expressed support for reinstating slavery, said he watched transgender pornography, called homosexuality “filth” and the Holocaust “hogwash,” and has asserted that “some folks need killing.”

He’s in trouble now because he blew off a vote on a declaration that would have granted Governor Roy Cooper key emergency powers ahead of Hurricane Helene’s landfall. Robinson was the only member on the Council of State — a board of nine — who didn’t vote in favor of the declaration. Cooper got the power he needed, but Robinson is now criticizing him for not doing more in the wake of the storm.

How is this even possible?

Yet Robinson still commands the support of 63 percent of Republicans in North Carolina, according to an East Carolina University poll released Wednesday.

Something seriously troubling has happened to the Republican Party. It’s become filled with wacko candidates for office who are being supported by large percentages of Republican voters.

The trend started in the 1980s with Rush Limbaugh’s radio program, which attracted a wide audience with a toxic mixture of lies, conspiracy theories, fear-mongering, and thinly veiled racism.

It accelerated in 1996 when Rupert Murdoch hired Roger Ailes to emulate Limbaugh with a new TV channel, Fox News. Additional media imitators followed.

The growing supply of this poison offered the (predominantly) white working-class an easy explanation for why the wages and status of many blue-collar men had hit the skids: They could blame immigrants, Black people, Latinos, “coastal elites,” government bureaucrats, pedophiles, women, secularists, Muslims, liberals, Democrats, and Satan.

In the 1990s, Newt Gingrich saw an opportunity to build the Republican Party around similar lies and conspiracy theories. Gingrich’s efforts attracted the first group of modern crackpot candidates into the GOP.

Starting in 2016, Trump attracted another group, even wackier than the previous one.

It’s become a doom loop. As both the demand and the supply of these lies, conspiracy theories, fear-mongering, and racism have grown, the Republican Party’s base has ventured farther from reality. Meanwhile, sane Republicans have left, reasonable people have drifted away, and normal Republican officials have been purged or voted out.

If Trump loses the 2024 election, the Republican Party won’t change, because its base is filled with this poison. So it will continue to attract more crackpot candidates loaded with even more venom; it will nominate them, and some of them will win.

In the current election cycle, the poison doesn’t begin or end with Trump. It includes a Republican vice presidential candidate who calls women who choose not to have children “childless cat ladies,” claims Haitian immigrants are eating people’s pets, won’t concede that Trump lost the 2020 election, and won’t commit to be bound by the outcome of the 2024 election.

It’s produced a slew of Republican candidates for Congress saying similar things. In Ohio, Senator Sherrod Brown’s Republican opponent, Bernie Moreno, is parroting the same racist lies about Haitian immigrants.

In Arizona, the Republican candidate for Senate, Kari Lake, has denied the outcome of the 2020 election, tried to overturn the governor’s race she lost in 2022, appeared at QAnon and white nationalist-tied events, and has a history of violent rhetoric.

Republican Rep. Jen Kiggans of Virginia has called abortion “elective surgery” and compared it to a “Hollywood nose job.”

Wisconsin Republican Rep. Derrick Van Orden, who was at Trump’s January 6 rally and appears to have been among the insurrectionists who breached police barricades at the Capitol, calls abortion “genocide.”

Arizona Republican Rep. Eli Crane is promoting conspiracy theories about the assassination attempts on Trump — blaming a mole within Trump’s Secret Service detail and saying that the FBI can’t be trusted to “give us the truth”; that the shooter in Butler, Pennsylvania, didn’t act alone; and that the gunman behind the second attempt is an “asset” of a foreign adversary — despite evidence contradicting all these theories.

Back in North Carolina, Michele Morrow, the current Republican candidate for superintendent of public instruction, has been warning voters about a network of child traffickers and pedophiles that, she says, torture and kill children to harvest their blood for an anti-aging elixir known as adrenochrome.

Morrow says the plus sign in LGBTQ+ “includes PEDOPH*L*A!!” She claims that transgender therapy is “a disgusting plan of Big Pharma to make our children unable to reproduce” and that the World Health Organization has been using vaccines to sterilize people and kill children. She says Satan is “in cahoots” with Democrats, globalists, the “one world order,” the United Nations, China, and Russia “to take down the United States of America.”

Morrow discourages parents from sending their kids to public schools, which she refers to as “indoctrination centers” and “socialism centers.” She was on the Capitol grounds on January 6, 2021, and proposed then that Trump invoke the Insurrection Act, which, she said, “completely puts the Constitution to the side and says, ‘Now the military rules all.’”

Despite all this, Morrow has an even chance to become the state’s top educator. A poll by Raleigh-based WRAL last month found that she is in a statistical tie with her Democratic opponent.

You see the problem. When the base of one of our two political parties both fuels and is fueled by crackpots, some of those crackpots get elected.

The only way forward is with an entirely new Republican Party that rejects and detoxifies the old one and puts an end to this doom loop. Will Liz Cheney, Mitt Romney, and some as yet unknown young politicians lead the way?

Ken Burns on the ‘incredibly dangerous’ party that the GOP has ‘morphed’ into

 

MSNBC

7.36M subscribers

#kenburns #republicans #gop

In bestowing Ken Burns with its 2024 Liberty Medal, the National Constitution Center called him “America’s history teacher,” and he spoke to Ali Velshi about the “echoes” and “rhymes” between the current political moment and other periods in America’s history. “We’re dealt a certain hand of cards right now which we have to respond to,” he says. Burns also remarks on how the Republican Party has “morphed” into an “incredibly dangerous” group that needs to be reformed. “It’s going to be difficult for the Republican Party to figure out a way to escape the specific gravity of the darkness that engulfs it.” » Subscribe to MSNBC:    / msnbc   Download our new MSNBC app for the latest breaking news and daily headlines at a glance: https://www.msnbc.com/information/dow... Follow MSNBC Show Blogs MaddowBlog: https://www.msnbc.com/maddowblog ReidOut Blog: https://www.msnbc.com/reidoutblog MSNBC delivers breaking news, in-depth analysis of politics headlines, as well as commentary and informed perspectives. Find video clips and segments from The Rachel Maddow Show, Morning Joe, The Beat with Ari Melber, Deadline: White House, The ReidOut, All In, Last Word, 11th Hour, and Alex Wagner who brings her breadth of reporting experience to MSNBC primetime. Watch “Alex Wagner Tonight” Tuesday through Friday at 9pm Eastern. Connect with MSNBC Online Visit msnbc.com: https://www.msnbc.com/ Subscribe to the MSNBC Daily Newsletter: https://link.msnbc.com/join/5ck/msnbc... Find MSNBC on Facebook:   / msnbc   Follow MSNBC on Twitter:   / msnbc   Follow MSNBC on Instagram:   / msnbc   #kenburns #republicans #gop