With Trump in crisis and not on the ballot this year, the democracy-hating autocrats in the group are offering everybody else a simple formula for holding onto their wealth, fame, and power: rig elections.
While the idea would have been blasphemous just a few decades ago even in GOP circles (which accounts for the Lincoln Project-types of Republican defectors), it's now embraced across what's left of the Party.
When the Supreme Court legalized voter roll purges in 2018, every Republican-controlled state jumped on the bandwagon.
Estimates for the number of Democratic voters who'll discover themselves purged from the rolls this fall range from a low of 3 million to a high of 15 million (10 million is probably a reasonable guess). Democratic voters in Texas, Georgia, Ohio, and Arizona will be hit particularly hard.
While Democrats have devoted themselves to registering people to vote for decades, Republicans have been persistently removing voters from the rolls with no consequence whatsoever. Having discarded democracy from your governing philosophy makes rationalizing such behavior not only easy but attractive.
So, where will this lead the GOP and America?
Some argue that America today is much like Italy in 1929 or Germany in 1934, but both Mussolini and Hitler had clear governing philosophies. Both countries were united by their leaders around a genuine (if toxic) sort of nationalism.
But it's a highly imperfect analogy.
Both autocrats expanded the social safety net in both countries (including free university and free healthcare), and began massive public works projects like Germany's autobahn and Italy's infamous on-time train system.
By 1938 Hitler was on the cover of TIME magazine for a second time and was arguably the most popular politician in the history of Germany. Mussolini engendered a similarly fanatical following.
Neither leader would have countenanced party members embracing foreign leaders the way Republican politicians like the 57 House and 11 Senate Republicans who openly rejected aid to Ukraine and instead embraced Vladimir Putin.
The simple reality is that today's GOP, having abandoned Eisenhower's "moderation" and depending on hate and fear to animate its base, is in a crisis.
Being this close to having the power to destroy American democracy may appear to belie that fact, but it's true.
If Democrats beat Republicans in a blowout next month, will the GOP reform itself?
Will it devolved into a rump party?
Or, like the Nazis in the early 1930s when they suffered electoral setbacks at the hands of the socialists and communists, will the bigots and authoritarian followers among the GOP base be double-energized, leading to a resurgent and even more fascist-leaning Republican Party?
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