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Where do Americas two leading political parties go from here?

How might things change as the presidency and the U.S. Senate shift from Republican to Democratic control?

And how, after the violent events of Jan. 6 at the U.S. Capitol, can we return to even marginally more civil dialogue and bipartisanship?

Those were some of the questions on the virtual table in a Wednesday night panel discussion hosted by the University of Virginias Center for Politics. The all-star panel included Jamelle Bouie, a New York Times columnist and UVA alumnus; Chris Krebs, former director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and another alumnus; David Ramadan, an executive and international consultant and former member of the Virginia House of Delegates; and Tara Setmayer, a CNN political commentator, ABC News political contributor and former GOP communications director on Capitol Hill. All four are visiting scholars at the Center for Politics, with Krebs as the newest addition.

The event was part of the centers national, yearlong Civility Project, announced in January as an effort to promote civic engagement and civil dialogue. The hope, Center for Politics Associate Director Ken Stroupe said Wednesday, is to use national, state and local partnerships, events and scholarship to lower the temperature in politics by focusing on what unites Americans of goodwill, rather than what divides us.

Our system is adversarial by design, but the events of Jan. 6 underscore that the partisanship and negative partisanship have reached levels that have already threatened the American republic and may continue to do so unless there are concerted efforts by every American of goodwill to try to change this trajectory, Stroupe said. As we kick off this series, we thought it important to look at the state of Americas two political parties and where they might be headed in the future.

All four panelists careers have afforded them an up-close look at Americas often-cantankerous two-party system: Bouie as a journalist, Setmayer as a commentator and former GOP consultant who formally left the Republican Party in 2020 after 27 years, and Ramadan as a Republican elected official and consultant with a reputation for working across the aisle.

Krebs, however, has perhaps the most experience with the personal costs of bitter partisanship. The senior cybersecurity officer responsible for securing the 2020 presidential election, Krebs was appointed to that position by former President Donald Trump in 2018 and then fired by Trump in November after asserting that the election, contrary to Trumps protests, was in fact secure.

Bringing all of those experiences to the discussion, the four panelists explored everything from the consequences of the filibuster rule in the Senate to the possibility of a three-party system.

Here are some key takeaways from their discussion. You can also watch the full event here.

Both parties are facing identity questions.

On the Republican side, panelists agreed, the key question is what Republicanism looks like now that Trump is no longer in office and the Democratic Party controls both the White House and congressional majorities.

Ramadan and Setmayer both pointed to members of the Republican Party who did not embrace Trump, or who questioned his claims that the 2020 election had been rigged, such as U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney or U.S. Sen. Ben Sasse. However, they also acknowledged that the majority of the party has continued to support Trump. Setmayer cited one recent poll showing that although 25% of Republicans no longer supported the former president, 75% remained confident in him.

Bouie also pointed out that aspiring Republican presidential candidates, including Texas U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Florida U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio and others, appear to be fashioning political personas in Trumps image.

They are clearly interested in making a run for the White House, and they are not walking away from Trump. If anything, they are trying to find what part of his political persona or style they can use to win votes, Bouie said. That, to me, is the clearest indication that, to the extent that there is a civil war in the Republican Party, its already over. The direction the party is going is the direction that Trump has forged.

On the Democratic side, panelists said, there is a divide between the most progressive wing of the party and more centrist elements. Bridging that divide and keeping both groups happy will be a key challenge for President Joe Biden and his administration. Questions about student loan forgiveness offer one current example, as Biden has refused to commit to canceling up to $50,000 in student debt per borrower, but proposed canceling up to $10,000.

I have a hunch that we will consistently see the Biden White House under-promising and attempting to over-deliver, Bouie said. He has voiced support for forgiving $10,000 in student debt, for example, which is not $50,000, but is a big change from the current approach. That is the dynamic we will see with Biden, pressing against the maximalist version of something, but pushing or endorsing something that is still pretty progressive relative to past Democratic presidents.

Setmayer warned Biden against catering too much to the progressive wing of his party.

Joe Biden was not elected to be a progressive president. He ran as a moderate, she said. I think progressives trying to put too much in a COVID relief package, or pushing favorite policies so soon, are setting themselves up for failure later, because it is not showing goodwill in areas that have to be addressed first [such as COVID relief].

National partisanship is trickling down to state and local politics.

Ramadan, himself a veteran of state politics, remained confident that bipartisanship is possible at the state and local level, though he saw some concerning trends.

We still had real debate in Richmond, to a certain extent, Ramadan recalled, remembering his friendship with Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe. They would often criticize each other harshly, he said, but then reunite over a beer, building a relationship despite their differences.

But I did see some partisanship carry over from D.C. to Richmond, said Ramadan, who served in the House of Delegates from 2012 to 2016. Our local politics were infected, I would say, with national partisanship, and that is a problem.

Krebs also pointed out concerns about the politicization of the election process at the state and local level.

I think we need to look carefully at the role of politics in the administration of elections, he said. The majority of our secretaries of state who actually administer elections are independently elected; they are politically affiliated. That, in my view, if left unchecked or without appropriate engagement, can lead to less-than-ideal political outcomes.

One example is currently happening in Georgia, Krebs said, a swing state in the recent election where state lawmakers recently introduced bills that could limit absentee voting, vote by mail and other voter access measures.

To me, we are going down the wrong track, Krebs said. Democracy should be based on access, and it seems to me we are not headed toward more access. We are actually headed the other way.

Structural obstacles in the Senate could inhibit cooperation.

Panelists spent a chunk of the event talking about gridlock and obstructionism in Congress, particularly in the U.S. Senate.

Krebs noted that power seems to have increasingly coalesced at the top of the House and the Senate, leaving many members with little power and little incentive to cooperate.

One thing that has struck me over the last several years is the consolidation of political power, particularly in Congress in the leadership ranks, almost disenfranchising rank-and-file members, he said. If they cant actually contribute to the political process, these members turn into more performative politics players as they speak to the media or rile up constituents.

That creates a less-than-helpful environment, and allowed a lot of the disinformation and misinformation we have seen over the last several years to go mainstream, particularly on some of the networks, Krebs said.

Bouie also spoke about the filibuster rule in the Senate, which allows members to delay a vote on a bill until 60 senators vote to the end the debate. Effectively, it means that major legislation often has to have a 60-vote majority, instead of a simple majority of 51 votes.

I think the biggest obstacle right now to conservative policy being passed into law is the filibuster, Bouie said. If you have to have a supermajority to pass legislation, it is not worth your while to try to build 51- or 52-vote coalitions.

He cited U.S. Sen. Mitt Romneys ideas about child benefits and ending child poverty as an example. Many Democrats like Romneys ideas, Bouie said, but they know that he cannot persuade enough Republicans to join him to reach a 60-vote majority.

If you need 60 votes and Romney cant bring nine Republicans with him, there is no point, Bouie said. But if you only needed 51 votes, there would be some room for [cooperation].

A third-party system would require major structural change.

With questions of identity rising on both sides, it is tempting to consider what would happen if particular wings of the Republican or Democratic parties broke off to form their own party. However, Wednesdays panelists largely agreed that a three-party system would be very difficult to form or sustain.

I do not think a three-party structure would work, Krebs said. If you spend a lot of time in politics or Washington, D.C., he said, you realize that everything is binary it is hard to hold three disparate ideas in discourse at the same time. Its unfortunate, but things break down to yes or no, right or left.

Structurally, Bouie said, it would be hard for a third party to get candidates on the ballot successfully, and pull enough votes from either Democrats or Republicans to actually win an election.

We would need major change to the electoral system to have a viable third party, he said. There are clear divisions where you could imagine a multi-party system developing, but the rules and the structure we have dont really provide incentives for the parties to consciously uncouple their various coalitions.

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What's Next for the Democratic and Republican Parties? - UVA Today

Whos a good boy? Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images

On the evening of January 6, after a Trumpist mob had stormed the Capitol, Senator Lindsey Graham stood on the Senate floor and finally detached himself from the president he had so obediently served: Count me out, enough is enough.

But the thing about Lindsey Graham running away is that he always comes back. After his brief and apparently unpleasant experience with independence, Graham has returned to his familiar, comfortable place at Trumps feet. I think hes going to be a viable leader of the Republican Party, he gushes. Hes very popular. And hes going to get acquitted.

Graham might be the most overtly comic illustration of his partys turnabout on impeachment, but he is also perfectly representative of its dominant faction. The post-Trump GOP is split three ways. The partys tiny, small-d democratic wing on its left has fully broken with the authoritarian former president (Representative Adam Kinzinger continues to urge conviction). The partys far-right wing, with members like Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene, is sinking deeper into the Trump personality cult. In the middle are the soft authoritarians, whose initial and genuine revulsion at the violent insurrection has given way to weary cynicism.

The purpose of impeaching Trump is to hold him accountable for his effort to undermine the election and secure a second, unelected term, essentially putting an end to the republican experiment. That scheme began months before the election with his efforts to discredit mail voting, continued with his blatant lies about the election outcome and attempts to pressure various state officials to disregard the vote, and finally culminated in summoning a mob to the Capitol and goading them to violence.

The soft authoritarians supported Trumps plot until the end, when it exploded into disorder that threatened their own safety. But as their anger with Trump dissipated, and they realized the partys voters did not share their disgust, they calculated that repudiating his autogolpe did not serve their interests.

As they have worked through their feelings, first rebelling against Trump and then suppressing their own rebellion, they have redirected their anger away from Trump and toward the Democrats. Trumps actions may have been wrong, even impeachable, but it is also wrong for Democrats to try to impeach him.

The whole thing is stupid, complains Marco Rubio. I know this: Nothing we do next week on that floor is going to help people get vaccines or more people keep their jobs. We should be focused on that instead. Rubio himself does not seem to be focused on either goal. He did not join the ten Republicans trying to negotiate a bill to speed vaccinations and restore jobs. Nor has he developed any alternative efforts to do so. What he means is that he would rather be sending out tweets and press releases attacking Democratic plans to speed vaccinations and restore employment than have to take a position on Trumps crimes.

Their curious reasoning is that, since Republicans wont vote to convict Trump, impeachment wont punish him. As the Wall Street Journal editorial page, which previously conceded that Trumps actions were an impeachable offense, argues today, Democrats say it will deter future impeachable acts late in a Presidents term, but that is unlikely if Mr. Trump is acquitted, as he likely will be.

This is true! If Republicans vote to acquit Trump, then future presidents will be encouraged to commit more Trump-like crimes. One might take this simple cause and effect relationship as a reason to convict Trump. Instead, the Journal uses it as an argument against holding a trial at all.

The soft authoritarian Republicans consider their unwillingness to break with Trump and offend his voters a fixed and nonnegotiable fact of political life. Forcing them to confront Trumps crimes therefore serves no purpose other than embarrassing them.

As the very brief rebellion of the Republican elite recedes further into memory, Trumps control over its rank and file has tightened. Trumps inner circle is confident both of his acquittal and that hell come out of the trial with his influence over the Republican party all but cemented, reports Politico.

If Republicans decided to send a message that Trumps plot against the republic was unacceptable, they could do so. Instead, they have reasoned tautologically that theyre going to vote against it because it is going to fail.

The Republicans obviously have reasons to acquit Trump deeper than the merely circular. But they and their voters dont wish to repudiate his authoritarianism. While some of them might rue its final violent spasm, their main regret is not that he tried to steal the election, but that he failed.

Analysis and commentary on the latest political news from New York columnist Jonathan Chait.

Continued here:
Republicans: Trump Cant Be Impeached Because He Cant Be Impeached - New York Magazine

Recent studies show the Republican party is losing voters after the riots on Capitol Hill last month.

SAN DIEGO COUNTY, Calif. Recent studies show the Republican party is losing voters after the riots on Capitol Hill last month. Five people lost their lives and dozens of people were injured including police officers, after attending a rally held by former President Donald Trump.

Voting experts at the University of Florida say thousands of voters are no longer registered with the GOP. They say far more Republicans than Democrats are changing their registration, and its happening here in San Diego County too.

The insurrection at the United States Capitol on January 6th is something most people thought theyd never witness. Now political research says the fallout from that day shows thousands of registered voters fleeing the Republican Party.

These Republicans are rejecting Trumpism, a brand that they see continue to lead the party, even after his defeat, said Laura Fink, a Political Analyst.

In California, the Secretary of States office shows over 33,000 voters have left the GOP since the riot at the Capitol. In San Diego County, more than 4,700 Republicans have defected.

I think this isnt just a temporary blip. This is an acceleration of the long-term declining fortunes of the Republican Party in California broadly and in San Diego in particular," said Thad Kousser, a UCSD Political Science Professor.

"This was a city that not that long ago, just over a decade ago, had a long string of Republican mayors, very competitive City Council, and a County Board of Supervisors that was all Republican, Kousser said.

He says now Democrats have a majority, and the change can be seen across the Countys political landscape.

Not only have you seen voters leaving the Republican Party, but some prominent San Diego Republicans have left the Party, Kousser said.

Research shows that a large number of defections after this presidential election isnt typical.

The majority of voters leaving the Republican Party are anti-Trump. That said, there may be a handful of them that are so pro-Trump, they feel that the Republican Party is not Trump enough, Fink said.

Both Fink and Kousser say Republican voters will continue to be torn between supporting Donald Trump or moving in a different direction with the Party.

CBS 8 reached out to the Republican Party of San Diego County and no one was available for comment.

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Researchers say voters are leaving the Republican Party - CBS News 8

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly on Tuesday denounced a Republican plan for cutting Kansas income taxes as unthinkable during the COVID-19 pandemic and proposed an alternative that would pay for its relief by taxing online music, movies and streaming services.

Kelly outlined her proposal just hours before the Kansas Senate was set to debate the GOPs measure, which is aimed at providing $423 million in relief over three years to businesses and individuals paying more to the state since an overhaul of federal tax laws in 2017. The Senates top Democrat, Minority Leader Dinah Sykes, said she would offer Kellys proposal as an amendment to the Republican bill.

The governors proposal appeared unlikely to pass in its entirety with Republicans in control of the Legislature, because many of them oppose the provision to impose the states 6.5% sales tax on digital products, such as online music and streaming services. Kellys plan is designed to avoid costing the state any net revenues and to provide its relief to a broader group of individual taxpayers and no relief for businesses.

Top Republicans contend theyre trying to help the people and businesses whose higher state tax bills have generated unexpected revenues for the state, comparing the windfall to finding someones lost wallet full of cash on a sidewalk. But Kelly vetoed two similar GOP bills in 2019, arguing that they would undermine funding for public schools and critical state services.

It would be bad enough to introduce this bill in a normal year, but this year makes it particularly irresponsible, Kelly said of the GOP plan during a Statehouse news conference. It is unthinkable that legislative leadership, during a health and economic crisis the likes of which we havent seen for 100 years, when we are trying to steer Kansas toward recovery from the pandemic, that they would even consider such action.

Kellys comments signaled that she is likely to veto the GOP tax plan if lawmakers passed it, though she stopped short of a public promise. Republican leaders didnt have the two-thirds majorities necessary in 2019 to override Kellys vetoes, but elections last year made the GOP supermajorities in both chambers more conservative.

Senate approval of the GOP plan would send it to the House, where a committee already has been reviewing tax issues. Republican leaders have made cutting income taxes a top priority.

We need a balancing act, said Senate tax committee Chair Caryn Tyson, a Parker Republican. We need a level playing field, and that is what I am trying to do.

The federal tax changes in 2017 were championed by former President Donald Trump and discouraged people from claiming itemized deductions on their federal returns. Kansas law does not allow people to itemize on their state returns if they dont on their federal returns, resulting in larger state tax bills for some.

The GOP plan would allow individuals to itemize on their state returns even if they didnt on their federal returns and allow them to do so even for last year. Thats the majority of the relief provided by the bill over three years, but about 45% of the savings for taxpayers would go to businesses.

Kellys plan is focused solely on individuals and would increase the states standard income tax deductions for individuals by 35% over two years. She and fellow Democrats argued Tuesday said the governors plan would not only provide relief to more people but help low-income and working-class families more than the GOP plan.

That part of Kellys plan could appeal to some Republicans as something to add to the GOP plan. Senate President Ty Masterson, an Andover Republican, said increasing the standard deduction does help people.

But Republicans have derided the idea of imposing the sales tax on online music, movies and streaming services as a Netflix or Baby Yoda tax that will hit families stuck at home because of the pandemic. Kellys plan also would require websites like Amazon, eBay and Etsy to collect the states tax when they sell other businesses goods to Kansas residents.

Kelly and other Democrats argued that those provisions merely modernize the states tax laws, but the changes would raise about $101 million a year.

___

Follow John Hanna on Twitter: https://twitter.com/apjdhanna

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Kansas governor offers rival to Republican tax-cutting plan - Associated Press

In his inaugural address, President Biden described America as in the midst of an uncivil war that pits red against blue, rural versus urban, conservative versus liberal. His invocation of a civil war and the American Civil War was provocative. It was also accurate. There is no formal definition of an uncivil war, but America is increasingly split between members of two political parties that hate each other.

In the same speech, Biden warned of the dangers of a rise in political extremism, white supremacy, domestic terrorism. This too was accurate. Biden was delivering his address exactly two weeks after a group of supporters of then-President Trump, riled up by his false claims about voter fraud, stormed the Capitol to try to overturn the results of a free and fair election, an act of political extremism and domestic terrorism carried out by at least some people who believe in white supremacy.

[Related: Storming The U.S. Capitol Was About Maintaining White Power In America]

Biden didnt explicitly say that the extremism, domestic terrorism and white supremacy is largely coming from one side of the uncivil war. But thats the reality. In Americas uncivil war, both sides may hate the other, but one side conservatives and Republicans is more hostile and aggressive, increasingly willing to engage in anti-democratic and even violent attacks on their perceived enemies.

The Jan. 6 insurrection and the run-up to it is perhaps the clearest illustration that Republicans are being more hostile and anti-democratic than Democrats in this uncivil war. Biden pledged to concede defeat if he lost the presidential election fair and square, while Trump never made such a pledge; many elected officials in the GOP joined Trumps efforts to overturn the election results; and finally, Trump supporters arrived at the Capitol to claim victory by force. But there are numerous other examples of conservatives and Republicans going overboard in their attempts to dominate liberals and Democrats:

We could also compile a long list of anti-democratic and hostile actions taken by Trump himself against Democrats. At the top of that list would be his attempt to coerce the Ukrainian government into announcing it would investigate the Biden family essentially a scheme for Trump to use the power of his office to tilt the upcoming presidential election in his favor.

Its important to be specific here, however. Many of the most aggressive actions against liberals have been taken not by Republican voters but largely by Republican officials, particularly at the state level.

Many Republicans do not accept Democratic governance as a legitimate outcome of elections, said Thomas Zimmer, a history professor at Georgetown University who is writing a book about political divides in America. America is nearing a crisis of democratic legitimacy because one side is trying to erect one-party minority rule.

Gretchen Helmke, a political scientist at the University of Rochester who studies the state of democratic governments around the world, said, There is a marked asymmetry between the two parties, with Republicans more engaged in playing constitutional hardball and taking actions that are still within the letter of the law but [that] may violate the spirit of the law or common-sense ideas about fairness and political equality.

Those types of actions are much harder to find on the Democratic side. There is no campaign by Democratic elected officials to disenfranchise white evangelical Christians, a constituency that overwhelmingly backs GOP candidates, just as Black voters overwhelmingly back Democratic candidates. There was no widespread, systematic attempt by Democratic officials four years ago to disqualify the votes that elected Trump or to spur Democratic voters to attack the Capitol to prevent the certification of his presidency. While the left-wing antifa movement has violent tendencies, it isnt an organized group nor is it aligned with Biden or Democrats. And at least right now, national security experts describe right-wing violence as a much bigger danger in America than any violent behavior from the left. In an October 2020 report, the Department of Homeland Security called violent white supremacists the most persistent and lethal threat in the Homeland.

And, of course, Democrats did not embrace an anti-democratic figure like Trump as their standard-bearer. There are no Democratic politicians in Congress implying that conservative politicians are such dangers to the country that they should be killed.

[Related: The GOP Might Still Be Trumps Party. But That Doesnt Mean Theres Room For Him.]

The GOP is a counter-majoritarian party now, every week it becomes less like a normal party, said Jay Rosen, a journalism professor at New York University who has written extensively about the radicalization of the Republican Party. The GOP has to make it harder to vote and harder to understand what the party is all about. Those are two parts of the same project. And it cant treat its white supremacist and violent wings as extremists who should be isolated because it needs them. They provide motor and momentum.

The GOP has radicalized (and is still radicalizing) on its willingness to break democratic norms and subvert or eliminate political institutions. Dont expect restraint where youve seen it in the past, said Charlotte Hill, a Ph.D. candidate at the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley, who conducts research on election and voting laws.

Because of this deep conservative antipathy for the liberal version of America, Joanne Freeman, a professor of history and American studies at Yale University, has compared the state of America today to the 1850s, right before the U.S. Civil War.

Mass violence in Congress seemed possible in 1850. Now, 171 years later, its in the national mindscape once again. And for good reason. The echoes of 1850 are striking. Were at a moment of extreme polarization when outcomes matter, sometimes profoundly, Freeman wrote in a recent essay in The New York Times.

The Republicans, she continued, whose ironclad grip on the Senate has dominated the federal government, feel entitled to that power and increasingly threatened; they know theyre swimming against the demographic tide in a diversifying nation. They have proven themselves ready and eager for minority rule; voter suppression centered on people of color is on the rise and has been for some time. And some of them are willing to protect what they deem right with threats of violence.

To be sure, only a very, very small fraction of conservative Americans participate in acts of domestic terrorism. Most rank-and-file Republicans would likely describe themselves as opposed to individualized acts of racism (a workplace not hiring Black employees, for example) as well as systemic racism and white supremacy. Most Republican voters are not directly participating in moves by GOP officials to make it harder for people of color to vote. And there are a lot of Republican elected officials who have not tried to have the 2020 election results disqualified or promoted laws and rules to make it harder for people of color to vote.

At the same time, Republican voters have stuck with the party despite its recent shift toward move overt and aggressive anti-democratic behavior. This stuff seems not a deal-breaker to the vast majority of Republican voters, said Zimmer.

[Related: How Trump Changed America]

Susan Hyde, a political scientist at University of California, Berkeley, who studies democracy and democratic backsliding both in the U.S. and abroad, said that Republican voters tolerated the partys anti-democratic tendencies because the partys elites signaled that it was OK to do so. Republican politicians have been lying to their own voters, and they need to stop doing that if we are going to have peace, said Hyde, who was referring specifically to the false belief among a large bloc of Republican voters that Trump won the election.

The war is not completely one-sided, however. Liberals and Democrats are trying to enact what amounts to an equality agenda to create a new America where LGBTQ Americans can openly participate in any institution; women can join and lead any institution; and women, Black people, Native Americans and other traditionally marginalized groups can have as much power, wealth and representation as the shares of the population they represent.

Through legislation, lawsuits and other means, liberals and Democrats are pressing this agenda aggressively, over the objections of conservatives. Same-sex marriage has been legalized, and some legal protections have been extended to transgender Americans. Liberals are trying to outlaw the death penalty while trying to enshrine into law the right to use marijuana. They are pushing for a dramatic rethinking of American institutions, including the church and the police, and in some ways a rethinking of America itself.

And liberals and Democrats, believing that their equality agenda is right and just, increasingly cast those who oppose it in very negative terms like racist and sexist. Views held by even many Democrats a decade ago opposition to same-sex marriage and skepticism that racial discrimination is a major barrier to Black advancement in America are now sharply criticized. These criticisms are at the root of conservative complaints that American culture is too politically correct or that those who dissent from the liberal view must be canceled. And in some instances, liberal pressure does result in conservatives being denied platforms: Twitter suspended Trumps account, for example, and Simon and Schuster canceled a book deal with Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley.

Of course, some conservative behavior, like trying to make it harder for Black people to vote, probably should be both shamed and called out as racist. That said, its important to understand that some liberal and Democratic policies will require conservative Christians in particular to live in a changed America that they simply do not wish to live in. And the liberal focus on ideas like systemic racism and white supremacy has left many conservatives feeling that their individual behaviors and choices are being unfairly cast as racist.

Conservatives are reacting to something real, said Zimmer. Their version of Real America a white, Christian America is under threat. Republicans are convinced they are waging a noble war against the demise of Real America. Conservatives think their backs are against the wall.

[On the left] there is a demand for more redistribution and laws and programs that help some people and not others, said Vasabjit Banerjee, a political scientist at Mississippi State University who studies political conflicts. For example, he described Black Lives Matter as a form of status redistribution, that might be threatening to non-Black Americans because the movements goal is to, in effect, make Black people truly full citizens in America, equal to white Americans.

Reflecting on the actions of both sides, you can see why conservative attacks on liberals are much more problematic than the inverse. And thats why it is hard to imagine Biden being able to unify America or end this uncivil war his side is not the one feeling most aggrieved and taking anti-democratic, even violent, measures to win.

In his inaugural speech, Biden said, We have learned again that democracy is precious. Democracy is fragile. And at this hour, my friends, democracy has prevailed.

He didnt quite say why we had learned that democracy is precious, why it is fragile, or who or what it had prevailed against. But the reality is that some Republicans in America are so intent on defeating liberals that they are willing to erode Americas democracy, or even end it, along the way to victory.

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In Americas Uncivil War, Republicans Are The Aggressors - FiveThirtyEight