Keep your eye on this bright idea
Paul Waldman takes a look at one insane item in the Texas GOP platform. It’s a doozy:
The whole Texas GOP platform is insane but the piece that jumped out to me was the endorsement of a state-level electoral college, eliminating one person-one vote in favor of a system they could gerrymander so that the votes of white rural Republicans will count more.
This is not the first time this has come up. Not long ago a Colorado GOP governor candidate offered such a plan; an analysis found it would give 2,000 voters in three rural counties twice as many electoral votes as 761,000 voters in three urban counties.
This is a road test: Does the base like this? How much blowback does it get? Based on the results, more and more Republicans will probably start advocating the same thing in their states.
The GOP is now in a stage of radical experimentation. They’re feeling so empowered that they’re throwing around ideas that two years ago they’d never have spoken aloud because they’re so radical. Now there are literally no limits.
Eliminating democracy is THE KEY to every other ideological goal. If you can engineer the system so you always have power no matter what, the voters can’t stop you and all your darkest fantasies can be realized.
They’re still figuring out the shape of this new program; calling it 21st century fascism isn’t totally inaccurate, but we may need a new word to describe it. Either way, it’s impossible to overstate how dangerous it is.
Originally tweeted by Paul Waldman (@paulwaldman1) on June 20, 2022.
But sure, let’s just put our fingers in our ears and sing la-la-la-la in hopes that it all just goes away. Because sure, what’s the worst that could happen?
The right has found that they no longer have to even give lip service to the idea of democracy or even the constitution. They can literally do whatever they want and their followers will cheer (and the government will apparently do nothing to stop them.) The most insightful comment Donald Trump ever made was: