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Finding signs to worry about the future of American democracy is not hard, but few are quite so painful and acute as the cognitive dissonance displayed by Rusty Bowers this week.

Bowers, the Republican speaker of the Arizona State House, was the star witness during yesterdays hearing of the U.S. Houses January 6 committee. Bowers calls himself a conservative Republican, and he has the record to back that claim up. Like most Republicans, he supported Donald Trump in the 2020 election, but when Trump and Rudy Giuliani tried to pressure him to assist in their scheme to overturn the results of the election in Arizona, where Joe Biden narrowly won, Bowers refused.

He recalled telling Giuliani, You are asking me to do something that is counter to my oath when I swore to the Constitution to uphold it, and I also swore to the Constitution and the laws of the state of Arizona. Speaking slowly and carefully, he later added, It is a tenet of my faith that the Constitution is divinely inspired, of my most basic foundational beliefs. And so, for me to do that because somebody just asked me to is foreign to my very being. II will not do it.

David A. Graham: The paperwork coup

Bowerss testimony was powerful because it was somber, serious, and clearly heartfelt. This is also why it was threatening to Trump, who issued a statement before the hearing even began, attacking Bowers and claiming hed agreed with Trump that the election was rigged. Under oath, Bowers said flatly that Trumps account was false.

And yet in an interview with the Associated Press published yesterday, Bowers also said he would back Trump if he runs for president in 2024. If he is the nominee, if he was up against Biden, Id vote for him again, Bowers said. Simply because what he did the first time, before COVID, was so good for the country. In my view it was great.

Bowers is hardly the first Republican to condemn Trumps coup attempt but also express support for a 2024 run. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell called Trump morally responsible for the January 6 insurrection and crowed to a reporter that Trump had committed political suicide, but now says, I think I have an obligation to support the nominee of my party. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy was initially unsparing in private but quickly prostrated himself before Trump. Former Attorney General Bill Barr, who called Trumps claims about a stolen election bullshit and resigned over them, has said Trump should not be the Republican nominee in 2024 but that he would support him if he were: I believe that the greatest threat to the country is the progressive agenda being pushed by the Democratic Party. Its inconceivable to me that I wouldnt vote for the Republican nominee.

David A. Graham: The tragedy of the Congress

These examples are disheartening but perhaps unsurprising. McConnell has long since proved himself a cynical operator most concerned with building Republican power. McCarthy is a hack out for personal advancement. And Barr, despite his disagreements with Trump on the specifics of the election, subscribes to an authoritarian view of governance that matches Trumps.

But Bowerss ambivalence is more disturbing and perhaps more frightening because his words and actions suggest a greater integrity and seriousness. This is a man who testified that Trump pressured him to break the law and his own religious views in service of an agenda that included, Giuliani told him, lots of theories, but we just dont have the evidence. A man who was subject to threats and intimidation by armed protesters even as his daughter lay dying in his home, and who was falsely labeled a pedophile. A man about whom Trump had lied on the very day of his testimony.

Another of the witnesses yesterday was Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state. Raffenspergers testimony was less personally compellingit largely focused on procedural detailsbut Trump arguably treated him much worse. He not only importuned Raffensperger to commit crimes in service of his fraudulent claims, but he also threatened him with prosecution if he didnt. After Raffensperger refused, Trump launched a campaign to defeat him in a primary, though that failed. Yet Raffensperger last year also refused to rule out supporting Trump in 2024.

Read: Brad Raffensperger gets his revenge

Some courageous exceptions to the ambivalence stand out. Senator Mitt Romney, the GOPs most outspoken and consistent Trump critic, has said he will not support Trump if he runs in 2024, as has Senator Bill Cassidy, who also voted to impeach Trump in his second trial. Representative Tom Rice of South Carolina, who voted for the second impeachment, said this month, The only way I would support him is if he apologized to the country for what he did following the election and leading up to January 6something everyone knows wont happen. Days later, Rice was routed by a Trump-backed primary challenger.

But for each of these, there is a Senator Susan Collins, who cannot bring herself to rule out backing Trump in 2024. Most of these Republicans are not fond of Trump, but they are caught in a collective-action problem, waiting for someone else to finish Trump off and spare them the political pain, just as they have been since 2015 and just like McConnell was in January 2022. They see the fate of Tom Rice and decide theyd rather not risk it.

I can hear the objections already: Arent you really just asking conservative Republicans to back Joe Biden for president? Isnt that an absurd and unrealistic ask? It is true that I find Bowerss claim that what Trump did the first time, before COVID, was so good for the country to be badly misguided. Trump was impeached for attempting to blackmail Ukraine to assist him in his campaign. He fired the FBI director for declining to offer personal loyalty. He repeatedly attempted to obstruct justice by interfering with a probe begun after that firing. He couldnt discern the difference between neo-Nazis and counterprotesters. He coddled and subjugated himself to Vladimir Putin.

Barton Gellman: Trumps next coup has already begun

These are, however, policy disagreements. They are worth debating, and I wish Bowers (and everyone else) agreed with me that the facts show Trump was in most respects a disastrous president, but that we expect voters will disagree in a democracy.

And that last phrasein a democracyis the problem here. Trump tried to subvert Americas system of elections in 2020 and 2021, a wide-ranging and elaborate, if not especially sophisticated, coup attempt. As my colleagues Bart Gellman and Jennifer Senior have reported, Trump and his allies have already begun laying the groundwork for another coup attempt in 2024.

As another of my colleagues, Juliette Kayyem, wrote recently, the January 6 hearings offer an off-ramp to Trump-ambivalent Republicans. But not enough of them are taking it. Many Republican leaders have talked themselves into the position that the policy views of Democrats are so dangerous, or Trumps policies are so good, that it is more important to support him than it is to defend the basic process of democracy.

Yascha Mounk and Roberto Stefan Foa: This is how democracy dies

This is partly a product of an era when the parties are further and further apart on policy; partly a product of an era of affective polarization, in which partisans are driven as much by hatred of their political adversaries as affinity for any cause; and partly a result of diminished attachment to democratic ideals among voters around the world.

Once youve decided that your specific policy planks are more important than ensuring that the fundamental system survives, however, the result sooner or later is a government that has no interest in the will of the people. Imagining this doesnt take much creativity: After the 2020 election, Trump tried to ignore the will of the people and remain in power. He was stopped only by the courage of people such as Rusty Bowers. If even Bowers is willing to back Trump again, despite his eloquent condemnations, the outlook for popular democracy is very bleak.

More:
Rusty Bowers and the Republican Trump 2024 Conundrum - The Atlantic

When the US supreme court this week radically expanded the second amendment and declared most any restrictions on guns to be presumptively unconstitutional, then overturned five decades of reproductive rights and created a likely desert for abortion access all the way from Idaho to Florida, Americas grim new reality became painfully clear.

An extreme conservative majority holds absolute control over the court. They will likely hold this power for multiple generations. They intend to use it to impose a far-right vision that most Americans oppose, twisting the rule of law into whatever they say it is, depending on the ideological outcome they hope to achieve.

It doesnt have to be this way. The US constitution offers no guidance on the number of supreme court justices. While it has stood at nine for some time, it has not always, and need not for ever. If Republicans have hijacked the court to force a minoritarian agenda on the nation, the court must be expanded and reformed to counter a rightwing power play that threatens to remake American democracy and life itself.

The courts hard-right majority has neither popular support for its agenda nor institutional legitimacy. It is the product of a hostile takeover of the courts 50 years in the planning by conservatives who have long understood that unpopular policies that cannot be won at the ballot box can be thrust upon Americans by an unaccountable and unelected judiciary.

Five of the six conservative justices were appointed by presidents who lost the national popular vote. (Republicans have won the national popular vote once since 1988, but appointed 16 of the last 20 justices.) Two of them have been credibly accused of sexual assault. All six were confirmed by a US Senate that overweights the interests of smaller, whiter states, and is therefore regularly controlled by the Republican party even though a Daily Kos study showed that Senate Republicans have not won more votes or represented more Americans than Democrats since the 1990s.

Senate Republicans, of course, have used that ill-held majority to stack and rewire the court, holding a 2016 seat open for nearly a year under a Democratic president by manufacturing a rule about confirmations during an election year, but fast-tracking the appointment of a conservative in fall 2020 even after early voting had already begun.

The courts robed ideologues then return the partisan favor. Republicans engineered the most extreme gerrymanders in modern history during the last decade, awarding themselves a disproportionate edge in swing-state congressional delegations and entrenching themselves in power in state legislatures in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan and other competitive states even when they lose the popular vote by hundreds of thousands.

The Roberts/Alito wrecking crew then closed the federal courts to partisan gerrymandering claims, telling voters to fix at the ballot box what their own representatives have ensured cannot be undone. That obviously disingenuous reasoning was on display in Fridays decision that overturned Roe as well, as the conservative majority pretended they were returning reproductive rights to the people and the political process, knowing full well that they themselves help rig the playing fields in those states to guarantee the anti-majoritarian position they favor.

The political process in Georgia, Ohio, Texas, Florida and so many other states has been severed from the will of the people by the anti-democratic redistricting this court blessed, allowing lawmakers to defy the will of majorities who support abortion rights even in conservative Oklahoma and Alabama.

Lets be clear: this is a court that has been constructed to thwart the will of the people with the help of hundreds of millions in rightwing dark money, by playing brutalist constitutional hardball ripped from the autocrats handbook, and by exploiting the same structural inequities in redistricting, the US Senate and the electoral college that helped protect slavery and then Jim Crow. This supreme court has now placed itself above the people and above the law. Simply because they have the power. Simply because they can.

In a shattered democracy teetering on the edge of what feels like permanent minority rule, a runaway rightwing court unbound by precedent, public opinion or history, one willing to create over two days a new American hellscape of uncontrollable concealed carry and forced pregnancies stands as perhaps the most foreboding challenge yet to rule by and for the people.

Republicans built this anti-majoritarian court by exercising raw political power. Now those partisan justices have begun handing down partisan victories that conservatives have sought for years, dressed in the skimpiest fig leaf of constitutional law, that could not otherwise be won through persuasion or the usual political means because most Americans stand opposed to these policies. It will require the same tough-minded use of political power to undo it.

Alas, much of the Democratic leadership spent Friday sending outraged fundraising emails; Speaker Nancy Pelosi read a poem. It will take more than that. Democrats still control the White House and Congress. They can prioritize court expansion and reform now and run on it this fall or the current court will continue undoing public safety, the regulatory state, voting rights and reproductive health for years to come. If Justice Amy Coney Barrett serves to Ruth Bader Ginsburgs age, she will remain on the court until 2059. Democrats will need a vacancy, control of the White House and a majority in an increasingly anti-majoritarian Senate to ever confirm another justice. Court expansion must be considered a central piece of any plan to protect American traditions of majority rule.

This is not court packing. It is balancing a court that has already been packed. It is not done in service of any partisan agenda; majorities of all political stripes, in all states, oppose this courts agenda on gerrymandering, abortion and guns. It would not suddenly turn the high court into just another partisan political institution. That ship has long sailed. Rather, it would admit that these decisions are political, not neutral wisdom handed down by non-partisan oracles with a direct line to Adams and Jefferson in the afterlife. And it could be done through any number of thoughtful approaches: adding justices for each of the 12 circuits and the US court of appeals, instituting term limits, awarding each president two appointees, broadening the pool of potential justices to the entire federal bench and randomly drawing nine for each case.

Hardball politics determined to remake American through extra-political means created this legitimacy crisis. It will require equal determination and muscle to rescue us all from a closed game were all allowed to play, but only the far right can win.

Read more:
Republicans have hijacked the US supreme court. Its time to expand it - The Guardian

OpEd: The Infamous Mike Z and the Republican Children of the Damned Continue to Destroy the Illinois GOP and Run Billionaire Ken Griffin Out of Town with the Largest Political Ponzi Scheme in Illinois GOP History (Chicago, IL) Ken Griffin announced Thursday that he is moving his headquarters to Miami. His hedge fund and investment firm, both named Citadel, have been in Chicago for 30 years. According to the Chicago Journal, a Citadel spokesman says that the decision has nothing to do with politics. Its crazy to believe that Ken Griffins decision isnt politically motivated as hes been threatening to leave for years to push political goals. Ken Griffin made the announcement 5 days out from a Republican Primary in which he gave $50 million dollars to Aurora Mayor Richard Irvin in the GOP Governors race.

That GOP Governors race has been utter disaster. The campaign run by Mike Zolnierowicz, better known as Mike Z, has alienated Black Republicans throughout the GOP primary. The Z Team is responsible for the loss of Rauner the second time, the loss of Mark Kirk, and now the disgraceful loss that Irvin will take come Tuesday.

The Z team should have never been in charge of electing the first Black governor of Illinois, as he has no Black people on his team. His team of young white men that I will hereafter refer to as the Republican Children of the Damned have been messing up Republican elections in Illinois for years now, and it has to stop. We even heard that they have infiltrated all four of the top GOP Governors campaigns and have their minions everywhere. Its been rumored that they have infiltrated Baileys campaign.

Any time that any campaign team believes Black voters arent important during a GOP primary, that team has a serious problem and will continue to lose elections in Illinois. Mike Z and his Republican Children of the Damned received a huge payoff of $30,000 each back in May as they were exiting the disaster that they created. Brian Alexander, who at one point was the lone black person working on the campaign, got a measly $1,250 in March. To compare, one Kaylee Carlson received payroll payments of $13,044.19 on February 4th, $7,112.71 on February 16th, $7,112.71 on March 1st, and $7,112.71 on March 15th. Irvins full campaign expenditures list through March 2022 can be found here: Committee Expenditure Report

Mike Z, who was previously Rauners chief of staff during his first term, and again showed his disdain for Black Republicans. If youre active in Illinois Republican politics, we could probably name off a list of about 10 to 15 very well known and active Black Republican leaders, none of whom were offered a place in Rauners administration because of Mike Z.

Mike Z and his Republican Children of the Damned will probably try to blame Irvins loss Tuesday on racism in the Illinois GOP. But it was not the racism in the party that lost the primary for Irvin, it was the infamous Mike Z and his goons that have a disdain for Black people and ran an uppity campaign that disrespected Republican voters across this state. Mike Z thought his campaign was too good to allow voters to speak to Irvin. Mike Z didnt think Black people mattered. Mike Z didnt believe that Irvin should talk to the media. Mike Z foolishly tried to trick Republican voters into believing that a strong conservative like Bailey was actually a liberal. Mike Z and the Republican Children of the Damned pulled off a Ponzi scheme and lined their pockets at the expense of Ken Griffin and Richard Irvin.

Does this look like they were trying to elect Richard Irvin or fleece a billionaire like they did Rauner? They had experience on how to fleece a billionaire because they just did it to Rauner. They should return that money and give one of the only Black people on the campaign the same as they paid the white campaign people.

These are some young spoiled little brats and the parents of these Republican Children of the Damned should pull their belts out and spank their little tails and at least put them out of the Republican Party.

OpEd: The Infamous Mike Z and the Republican Children of the Damned Continue to Destroy the Illinois GOP and Run Billionaire Ken Griffin Out of Town with the Largest Political Ponzi Scheme in Illinois GOP History

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OpEd: The Infamous Mike Z and the Republican Children of the Damned Continue to Destroy the Illinois GOP and Run Billionaire Ken Griffin Out of Town...

Many may know that Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) lost his right eye after he was hit by an IED blast in Afghanistan. What may not be as well known is that he also temporarily lost sight in his left eye. Or that once he regained sight on the left, a miracle in and of itself, he returned to military service.

And yet, Tucker Carlson mocks that injury on Fox News with little resistance from its conservative viewers or from elected officials.

What a time: Watching Republicans shift away from a platform defined by support the troops is tripping me up more than Drakes foray into house music. And this isnt just about Crenshaw or even President Trumps rivalry with the late Sen. John McCain, though that was certainly a flashpoint. This is something much bigger: a sign that the Republican Party isnt just in transition. Its lost.

Opinion Columnist

LZ Granderson

LZ Granderson writes about culture, politics, sports and navigating life in America.

Growing up in the Reagan era wasnt great, but at least most everyone understood what the rules were. Democrats painted Republicans to be the party for some combination of rich, old and white. Conservatives accused liberals of being godless, big spenders and weak on crime. Political absolutes are rarely productive, but they do make for great TV.

Anyway, for the most part since the Reagan era, liberal messaging hasnt changed unfortunately. On the flip side, since the rise of the tea party in 2010 conservatives have been in the midst of the biggest ideological shift since Reagan and the Christian Coalition coalesced their powers 40 years ago.

Before we dig into the substance, I must say the style isnt changing so radically. Even today, as the nation continues to grieve the victims of the mass shootings in Buffalo, N.Y., and Uvalde, Texas, many conservatives employ Reagans brand of disingenuous problem solving to avoid talking about gun laws. Although nearly 12% of the nation was living under the poverty line in 1976, Reagan was out testing his welfare queens rhetoric on the campaign trail. When his conservative heirs are asked about a school shooting in Texas, they say, What about Chicago? in an effort to talk about urban street crime instead. But we all know that hammering Democratic mayors on crime is less about being thoughtful and more about using racist tropes to change the subject.

The left could borrow that same style to redirect any conversation toward a tempting target. Imagine what that would look like: No matter what the reporters at a news conference asked Biden, hed point out that most of our poorest states are run by Republicans. Mississippi, for example, has more than a fifth of its population living below the poverty line, and conservatives have controlled that state since 2012. Republicans have run South Carolina since 2003, and its in the top 10 as well. I could go on, but that would be petty (Tennessee) and unproductive (Alabama). Besides (Oklahoma, Arkansas and West Virginia), you get the point: Changing the subject and oversimplifying to score cheap points doesnt solve problems.

For Republicans, the reflex to pivot like this has finally turned in on itself. Theyre attacking their own. Even those hailed as military heroes.

Crenshaw faced taunts of eyepatch McCain last week from attendees at the Texas State Republican Convention, echoing the jab Carlson made last month. This is not politics as usual. Neither is the Republican response to the Jan. 6 hearings.

We are not used to seeing conservatives behave so indifferently toward the sound of police officers pleading for help. It was less than two years ago when the countrys largest police union endorsed Donald Trump for president. The Fraternal Order of Police said it was proud to endorse a candidate who calls for law and order across our nation. We now know that on Jan. 6, 2021, Trump called for no such thing, leaving the overwhelmed Capitol police officers to fight for their lives for hours.

Thats not the behavior of someone whos leading the law-and-order party. In fact, congressional Republicans are treating the officers who were wounded in the Capitol attack like pariahs.

Seems like the gender of a gingerbread cookie was met with more concern than the deadly attack on police.

And the outcry against Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) must truly mark the end of Republicans support the troops era. This Air Force veteran dared to back the Jan. 6 investigation and stand up for truth even as his wife and baby are threatened with execution and for that sort of integrity he is accused of treason.

Democrats and Republicans have both consistently supported first responders and the military, but until recently the GOP had made that position central to its identity. Now the party is identifying itself in other ways, and Im not quite sure where thats going. More concerning, I dont think they are either. There is a campaign video featuring a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate, Missourian Eric Greitens, and a team of men carrying guns, dressed in tactical gear, breaking down a door and using smoke bombs as they tell you they are hunting faux Republicans.

This feels more substantial than just convenient positions taken by followers of one former president who hope hell have a political future. When the most popular host on Fox News makes fun of a Republican soldier who lost an eye fighting for the U.S., and viewers side with the host, that blue line might as well be fuchsia.

When Trump and McCain exchanged barbs, that seemed unique, perhaps just a little tremor inside the party. What the Capitol Police, Kinzinger and Crenshaw are encountering feels more like shifting and colliding of tectonic plates.

@LZGranderson

The rest is here:
Granderson: Today's Republican Party is not about 'support the troops' or 'law and order' - Los Angeles Times

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The Texas Republican Party on Saturday voted on two new party platform planks aimed at barring the teaching of sex and sexuality in schools while simultaneously calling on Texas schools to teach the dignity of the preborn human and that life begins at fertilization.

One policy proposal called on state lawmakers to prohibit the teaching, exposure, and/or discussion of sexual matters (mechanics, feelings, orientation or gender identity issues), as well as remove related books or materials from schools.

The issue of gender has nothing to do with education, said Cindi Castilla, president of the Texas Eagle Forum and who served on the party platform committee. Education is about reading, writing, math, science, history and fine arts. Maybe some foreign language and PE. Schools arent the social educators of our kids.

Elsewhere, the GOP platform also added that Texas students should learn about the dignity of the preborn human and that life begins at fertilization.

That goes back to biology, back into teaching sex as biology, said Julie Pickren, who told The Texas Tribune that sex education has a place only if it follows state health education standards and is age appropriate. If it has a heartbeat, it's a human, right?

Pickren, a Republican, is running for the State Board of Education District that represents Southeast Texas. Incumbent Matt Robinson is not running for reelection.

The platform plank does not specify which grades should get these lessons, except to say that high school students should read the Womans Right to Know booklet. Critics say that booklet, written by the state, includes scientifically unsupported claims and shames women seeking abortion care.

The platform plank also states that students should witness a live ultrasound and watch a Miracle of Life type video. The 1982 film documents the human reproductive process from conception to birth.

Kristen Ylana, executive director of The Texas Womens Health Caucus, said the push to teach public school students that life begins at fertilization represents a broader push by the Texas Republican Party to broadly establish a legal foundation to claim a fetus is a person with constitutional rights.

They want to get to the point where we can say, Well, no, this is a person. So they require legal protections, criminal protection, constitutional protections. They have rights that are just as valid and equal. So therefore, you cant do certain things, Ylana said.

During the last regular legislative session, Rep. Steve Toth, R-The Woodlands, filed a bill that defined personhood at fertilization and would provide due process to a fetus. The bill died in committee.

The State Board of Education recently wrapped up its review of health curriculum standards, which include requirements to teach about fertilization in fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth grades.

My thought is to leave well enough alone. What we put in the standards is factual and balanced, Patricia Hardy, a Republican board member from Fort Worth, told the Tribune Saturday after the platform vote.

Many delegates at the convention argued that young children dont need to learn about issues of gender and sexuality, including conversations and lessons about people who are transgender. Those delegates said Saturday they prefer such conversations happen at home. Under Texas law, parents currently must provide written consent for their children to attend sex education classes, which are required to emphasize abstinence.

Some womens health advocates and public education leaders criticized the policies as harmful and discriminatory and questioned the legality of barring the teaching of gender and sexuality in schools.

The Texas GOP is out of step with the majority of Americans who believe in equality, said Zeph Capo, president of the Texas chapter of American Federation of Teachers. Capo said the platform plank banning the teaching of sexual matters appears to violate Title IX, which protects against sex-based discrimination, including discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

Parents may try to restrict what their own kids read or who they love, but they do not have the right to restrict others, Capo said, not in a truly free society.

The newly approved Texas GOP party platform broadly places the culture wars at its core, as the party adopted a slew of new platforms that shift the party further to the right on Saturday.

Delegates Saturday voted on 275 platform planks, which will now need to be tallied and certified in Austin. It is rare for a plank to be rejected, Texas GOP party spokesperson James Wesolek said. In addition to the platform, the delegates voted to choose 8 among 15 legislative priorities to be shared with Republican lawmakers ahead of the legislative session that starts in January. Which 8 were selected will not be known for several days.

Party platforms are often more aspirational than practical and, in Texas, they have long reflected the opinions of the most activist wings of the parties. Elected officials are not bound to adhere to their parties platforms.

The additions to the state GOP platform related to teaching Texas students about sex and sexuality come months after Gov. Greg Abbott directed the Department of Family and Protective Services to investigate parents who provide gender-affirming care to their transgender children as child abuse. The state also has seen a push from far-right lawmakers and conservative parents to remove obscene content from school libraries and classrooms. The book bans often have targeted young adult literature with racial and LGBTQ+ themes.

The platform also calls for lawmakers to remove an exemption in the Texas Penal Code that allows children access to harmful, explicit or pornographic materials under the guise of educational materials.

Castilla said the exemption allows schools to use educational materials she considers to be obscene pornography.

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Texas GOP platform calls for ban on teaching sexual matters, while requiring students to learn about dignity of the preborn human - The Texas Tribune