this post was submitted on 13 Nov 2024
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Thank you for the reply: because we can go back even further to Hunter S Thompson with Fear and Loathing on the campaign trail 72, where he makes the same observation about every election cycle being "the big one".
It's just that I do think the GOP has gotten more extreme in many ways, and the right wing media sphere is a major part of that. At least in my experience over the last few decades. Looking back at what the John Birch folks said back then, it's a lot more mainstream. Just some of the demographic groups targeted are different
As for the elections: it's going to be interesting, since you're absolutely correct...the right showed up to vote, and enough of the Democrats stayed at home that the GOP might take that as a sign they don't need to ratfuck so much. I'm just not as confident that the anti democratic sentiment isn't just rhetoric meant for political theatre. Hopefully I'm wrong, but the mainstream right seems to be trending toward authoritarian more than libertarian these days.
They ate the Dixiecrats, who were already openly white nationalist. But it's the same extremism, just migrated from one party to the other by way of the oil and automotive industry barons.
The Birchers were mainstream. They got Goldwater in '68 and Reagan in '80. The Tea Party and the MAGA movement can trace straight lines back to Bircher organizers and funders.
The problem is that most of the damage is already done. The VRA has been shredded. House seats are heavily gerrymandered. Systematic disenfranchisement is institutionalized. Media is captured by corporate interests loyal (or at least amenable) to the party. There's not a whole lot left to dismantle. Republicans have heavily entrenched, functionally unassailable state level majorities across the country.
The real threats the GOP face are from within - business and paleocon wings feuding over orthodoxy like 12th century Popes.
And democracy at least keeps this kind of fighting civil. Which is its purpose. Give people a non-violent outlet for civic participation, but limit the terms of debate to what the elites desire.
Nobody currently winning wants that system to change.