[T]he GOP’s Midwest power grabs are indicative of a broader strategy for immunizing conservative power from the whims of an increasingly hostile public.
Republicans’ dominance in rural areas has allowed them to retain significant power in statehouses and the Senate. And the GOP is working doggedly to consolidate the former by restricting access to the ballot, while using gerrymanders to dilute the clout of Democratic constituencies it can’t disenfranchise. Meanwhile, control over the White House and Senate is enabling Donald Trump to fortify the conservative movement’s grip over the federal judiciary — which is to say, over the principle check on state-level voter-suppression efforts.
The Republican Party’s few bright spots on November 6 testified to the efficacy of these gambits: The conservative Supreme Court majority’s gutting of the Voting Rights Act enabled Brian Kemp to win Georgia’s governor’s race with the aid of voter suppression, while the Florida GOP’s success in formally disenfranchising more than 20 percent of the Sunshine State’s voting-age African-Americans allowed Rick Scott and Ron DeSantis to eke out razor-thin victories.
Demographic change might very well give Democrats a durable edge in national elections over the coming decade. But by exploiting (and creatively exacerbating) our political system’s structural biases toward rural voters — and the extraordinary powers of our federal judiciary — Republicans can plausibly retain a “floor” of power high enough to frustrate progressive reform without expanding its existing coalition, or moderating ideologically. And in a two-party system, if the GOP can maintain power in the courts — and remain (at the very least) in perpetual striking distance of a Senate majority — then it would only ever take one ill-timed recession for Republicans to regain unified control of the federal government.
All of which is to say: The GOP does not have a plan for remaining electorally competitive in a democratic United States. But it doesn’t necessarily need one.
The GOP’s 2018 Autopsy: Democracy Is Our Enemy, Part 2
Published
Sebastion Cooper 