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A Quinnipiac University poll conducted in late August found that 67 percent of U.S. adults think the nations democracy is in danger of collapse. That is what President Biden said in Philadelphia, many of you would respond, when he called out MAGA Republicans for an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic.

But in the Quinnipiac poll, Republicans were as likely as Democrats to say that democracy is in trouble (69 percent of each party, and 66 percent of independents). In fact, large majorities of every demographic groupno matter the age, gender, race or education levelagreed with this dire assessment. Does this mean we have achieved a consensus without realizing it?

Unfortunately, no. The more convincing explanation is that Americans are so divided in how they define democracy that they can reach the same conclusion for radically different reasons. So after Mr. Biden said that supporters of Donald Trump promote authoritarian leaders and fan the flames of political violence, many Republicans countered that it was Mr. Bidens speech that was a threat to freedom (as if Mussolini and Hitler got together, as Donald Trump Jr. put it).

[Related: Why Bidens speech on MAGA Republicans failed.]

Based on how different candidates in this years midterm elections talk about our political system, I can see four distinct definitions of American democracy. All of them will still have adherents after November, but the election results may give one or more of them momentum toward the next presidential election.

1. Democratic Party democracy. The Democrats are now pretty much united on what makes a functioning democracy, which was not always the case for the political party that was once strongest in the Deep South. Todays Democrats want to make voting as easy as possible, and they support the one person, one vote principle that says each vote in an election should be of equal worth, and each citizen should have equal representation in government. They generally want government to be quicker in responding to the demands of voters and responding to crises like gun violence and climate change.

And, as of now, they also support the principle of majority rule. This principle became more popular among Democrats after they lost two presidential elections despite winning the most votes, but there has been ambivalence about it. Many civil rights leaders opposed run-off primaries when they had the effect of knocking out Black candidates who could only win pluralities, and many supporters of Bernie Sanders were fine with the idea that he could get the Democratic nomination in 2020 by getting only a plurality of primary votes in a crowded field.

2. Traditional Republican Party democracy. Think of people like Liz Cheney, Mitt Romney and Bill Kristol here. Republicans have traditionally favored democracy with guardrails; that is, they dont want government acting too hastily in response to public opinion, and they worry about mob rule and a tyranny of the majority eroding individual rights. They dont always support the strict application of one person, one vote, and they defend the rules of the U.S. Senate, including the filibuster, as preventing more urban and populous states from dominating national government (though there is no equal mechanism to prevent a rural majority from dominating national government).

In normal times, Republicans would oppose Democratic Party attempts to maximize the power of the majority through such reforms as abolishing the Electoral College, expanding mail-in voting, and giving statehood to the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. But this year many never-Trump Republicans are allied with the Democratic Party because, as Mr. Kristol puts it,

If we dont have two reasonably healthy parties, the unhealthy party has to be defeated.

The results of Republican Party primaries over the past six years, including the defeat of Ms. Cheney in her congressional primary in August, make it clear that traditional Republican champions of democracy are on the defensive within their own party.

[Related: Liz Cheneys ouster from Republican leadership is bigger than politics. Its a fundamental attack on truth.]

3. Stop the steal democracy. Most Trump Republicans do not agree that the Democrats are defenders of democracy. Mr. Trump himself, along with hundreds of Republicans running for statewide office this fall, claim without proof that President Bidens victory in 2020 was stolen or rigged. On the surface, they support the small-d democratic process in the United States, but their insistence that certain election results cannot be trusted inevitably erodes confidence in the legitimacy of all elections. (Some Democrats say that certain election laws, such as purging people from voter rolls when they miss elections, have led to unfair election outcomes, but very few have questioned the counting of ballots or the validity of official election results.)

The stop the steal movement does have various remedies for what it sees as a corrupt system. One is to give state governments the power to accept or reject election results (the thinking behind the attempt on Jan. 6, 2021, to nullify Mr. Bidens victory); similarly, there is an effort to get the Supreme Court to rule that state legislatures should have the sole authority to set election rules. Another strategy is to more tightly control voter participation by imposing ID requirements and registration deadlines, limiting the times and places where one can vote, and challenging the validity of individual votes as they are cast. Along with the prosecution of rare voter fraud cases even when fraud does not seem intended, these efforts could have a chilling effect on voter participation, but maximum voter turnout is not a goal of stop the steal partisans. Tellingly, 67 percent of Republicans in a Pew Research Center poll from 2021 said that voting is a privilege that comes with responsibilities and can be limited; only 21 percent of Democrats agreed, with most saying instead that voting is a fundamental right for every citizen and should not be restricted.

4. A republic, not a democracy (with an emphasis on the second part of the phrase). A smaller number of Republican and independent candidates say outright that democracy is not always a good thing, at least at the national level. (They may think it is OK at the local levelas in neighborhoods deciding what kind of housing is permitted, or parents deciding on a school districts curriculum. Call it subsidiarity without solidarity.)

Some think the problem is that voters ask too much from the government, and thus give the government too much power to tax citizens and regulate behavior. Democracy is a soft form of communism that basically assures bad and dangerous people will be in power, said Jeremy Kauffman, a Libertarian candidate for the U.S. Senate from New Hampshire, in an email interview with the Boston Globe.

But some voters in both parties seem to be disenchanted with democracy because it results in a government that is too weak. In an Axios/Ipsos Poll conducted in early September, 33 percent of U.S. adults (including 42 percent of Republicans and 31 percent of Democrats) agreed that strong, unelected leaders are better than weak elected ones. For years, Mr. Trump has echoed this sentiment by praising and even seeming to envy anti-democratic leaders like Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin, and this year he seemed to get carried away in a conference-call rally with the Republican nominee for governor of Massachusetts. Geoff Diehl will rule your state with an iron fist, Mr. Trump told residents of the state that brought us the Boston Tea Party and the Battle of Bunker Hill, and hell do what has to be done.

Attacking democracy is a dicey strategy for winning elections, so most Trump allies running for office this year maintain that, yes, democracy is a good thing (even if they think it is easily corrupted). But there are occasional statements to the contrary.

Senator Mike Lee, a Republican from Utah, controversially tweeted that were not a democracy in 2020, adding We want the human condition to flourish. Rank democracy can thwart that. A spokesperson for Mr. Lee said that the senator was merely advocating republican checks on democratic passion, but the tech mogul Peter Thiel, a major donor to Republican candidates, has been more blunt, once writing for the libertarian Cato Institute that I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.

There is a big difference between grousing about democracy and actively trying to replace it with another form of government. Its also uncertain that there can be a lasting alliance between those who think democratic government is too strong and those who find it too weak. But the lack of consensus on what democracy is, and on what it should be, could end up doing away with democracy altogether.

[Read next: Abortion, student loans and the Republican weakness for nostalgia.]

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Republicans and Democrats agree that democracy is in trouble. They just don't agree on its definition. - America Magazine

Republicans want to ban abortion nationwide, and they have the nerve to claim that this is a compromise. This week, Senator Lindsay Graham, of South Carolina, introduced a bill to ban all abortions everywhere in the United States at 15 weeks. Abortion is already banned before 15 weeks in 15 states.

It is banned outright in Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and Wisconsin. Indianas ban on abortion went into effect just this Wednesday. It is banned at six weeks in practice a total ban in Georgia and Ohio. West Virginia passed an abortion ban, too. It wont be the last.

The Republican national 15-week ban that Graham has introduced will do nothing to help the women in these states, who will not have their rights restored. Its not a floor for abortion legality: it is a ceiling. The goal is to ban abortion in blue states. Currently, 58% of American women of childbearing age live in states that are hostile or extremely hostile to abortion rights, according to the Guttmacher Institute. Republicans want to raise that to 100%.

One way that we know that the Republicans will ban abortion nationally as soon as they get the chance is because they keep saying that they want to. This is the sixth time Graham has introduced a national abortion ban bill. The previous five were, by his standards, less extreme: they all banned abortion at 20 weeks. That Graham has pushed his ban back earlier in pregnancy is a sign of the rapidly lowering standards for American women.

Were now told that 15 weeks is a compromise. But 15 weeks is not a compromise. It is the very beginning of the second trimester before fetal abnormalities and other health risks are detected, before many women in red states, burdened by poverty and travel and the medically needless burdens imposed by their states, can get an abortion at all. And there is no stage of pregnancy where a woman deserves the indignity of a ban. There is no point at which she becomes unworthy of controlling her own life and health; there is no point at which a legislator knows more about whats best for her than she does. Any ban is unacceptable; a national ban, like the kind that the Republicans are now pursuing, is abhorrent.

This was always their plan. The anti-choice movement, and their servants in the Republican party, have long understood the overturning of Roe v Wade the long-desired goal that they achieved this summer, on 24 June, when the US supreme court issued its decision in Dobbs v Jackson as just the opening salvo in their assault on womens rights.

Their real goal is a national ban on abortion, beginning with the kind of legislation introduced this week by Graham. They have made no secret of this: anti-choice groups announced their plan for a national ban even before the Dobbs decision was officially released. They dont have the votes for it now, but they could get the votes in the future. And when they do, a combination of factors, including pressure from fundraisers and their base and what seems to be a genuine hatred for abortion and the freedom that it provides to women, combine to make a political certainty: the next time Republicans hold both houses of US Congress and the White House, they will ban abortion nationwide.

It is time for liberal Americans, and all American women, to face this reality: there will soon be no safe states, no place in America where abortion is legal. In the future, we will come to see this horrible era the time after Roe fell, but before abortion was banned nationally as an interregnum, when the suffering and loss enforced on women by abortion bans was only confined to red states.

As horrible as this state of affairs is, one day we will look back on it fondly. As women bleed for days, and little girls are pushed out of school, and thousands of dreams are abandoned to forced birth even these, eventually, might come to seem like the good old days.

Because though the Republicans will certainly ban abortion nationally at their first opportunity, they may not even need to wait for an electoral victory to do so. A group calling itself Catholics for Life has already asked the supreme court to declare fetuses and embryos to be persons under the 14th amendment, a move that would grant them constitutional rights. From there, its a short step to saying that laws allowing abortion are unconstitutional because they deny equal protection to those persons that are unborn human beings, the Berkeley Law School dean, Erwin Chemerinsky, told Ms magazine. I believe that there may be a majority on the Court to take that position. The unelected, lifetime-appointed judges on the court could extend their assertion in Dobbs that its legal to ban abortion, and instead say that its actually illegal to allow it. To get that outcome, the Republicans dont need to win even one more vote.

These are the stakes of every election now, for the rest of our lives. A national abortion ban will be on the ballot every time Americans vote for congressmen and senators; it will be on the ballot every time they vote for president. In previous years, while Roe was still in place, voting for a governor or state legislatures could affect practical abortion access within a state quite substantially. Red states were able to cut funding, impose labyrinthine requirements, up the cost for patients and impose uniquely onerous burdens on providers. But Roe preserved a bare-bones floor for abortion rights: no state could ban abortion before viability.

Now, any state or the United States at the federal level can ban abortion as early as they want. There is no bottom, and Republicans are determined to keep pushing further and further back, dragging the rights and dignity of American women further and further down into the dirt. This is the possibility that we have to resist every time we vote. Its also the possibility that Democrats accept every day that they do not expand the court.

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Republicans wont stop until abortion is banned across America. And it could be - The Guardian

Joel Benenson, Democratic Strategist:

Well, I will take the last point, you will meet about the generic ballot being dead-even. If you look back historically, that's not a good number for Democrats.

Republicans have done much better at the state levels. They have been able to gerrymander districts to their benefit, just as Democrats do to ours when we're in power. But it gives Republicans an upper hand. And so I think that the House is going to be very, very difficult to hold at this point.

And I think the Senate, we have no margin for error as Democrats. We are 50/50, with the vice president comprising the deciding vote there. And there are tough races all over the country. Now, I think both of them, both parties right now have about 40 safe seats up. So there are going to be a handful of competitive districts that are going to determine the outcomes there.

In some of them, Republicans look good. Some are very close. States like Georgia, the incumbent, Reverend Warnock, is in a tight battle with Herschel Walker. I think he will pull it out. I think Colorado, Senator Bennet will hold his seat. I think Maggie Hassan will hold her seat in New Hampshire. Then you got tossups in North Carolina. I think we're in for a wild night on election night.

And there could be some surprises either way here. But I think Neil is right in his assessment. And I but I also think Democrats holding here is going to be a tough thing in both houses.

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Republicans may not get red wave they hoped for in midterms - PBS NewsHour

NEW BRITAIN Republican candidates and supporters clapped and whooped in a standing-room-only rally with Ronna McDaniel, chair of the Republican National Committee, who flew in Wednesday afternoon for the event at the storefront Republican National Committee center on West Main St.

If youre not sure, the red wave is coming to Connecticut, Ben Proto, chair of the Connecticut Republican Party, told the energized crowd, as he introduced the speakers.

Candidate George Logan, who is running against Democrat Johanna Hayes for the 5th district Congressional seat, read the beginning of his speech in Spanish, followed by its English translation.

As I stand here the day before the start of Hispanic Heritage Month, its an exciting time here in the fifth district when we celebrate all cultures, all folks, all different ways of thinking, different backgrounds, said Logan.

I am proud to stand here in New Britain, Connecticut, U.S.A., as the son of Guatemalan immigrants who came to this country to live the American dream he said, as the audience clapped and cheered. And today I stand here as your nominee for Congress, the U.S. House of Representatives. Isnt America great? This is what its all about.

Logan said that 40 years of Democratic rule in Connecticut and one-party rule in Washington had resulted in all-time high inflation and gas prices, increased crime and declining student test scores.

I will advocate for school choice and ensure that the money follows the child, he said.

He said he would support American energy independence to help lower energy costs and that he would support police funding.

Next up was Leora Levy, who is running to unseat Sen. Richard Blumenthal. Like Logan, she read parts of her speech first in Spanish and then in English. Levy, who is originally from Cuba, said that if elected, she will be the first female senator and the first Hispanic senator to represent Connecticut.

Levy said that the Biden Administration had allowed an invasion at our border that had let in fentanyl, gangs, terrorists and human traffickers, flooding the U.S.

Theyre flying them to Connecticut, she said.

She said she would say no to indoctrination of our children and no to those who want to teach Critical Race Theory and gender fluidity, rather than teaching them real history, real math, science, reading, civics, and most importantly, American exceptionalism.

Levy said she would stand up for parental rights and medical freedom and for the next generation, as members of the crowd clapped and shouted, Thank you.

She urged the audience to end the Blumenthal Blight and make Connecticut affordable for all families.

Next at the lectern was McDaniel, who pinned the current challenges facing the country on the Democrats, the party in power.

We dont like playing the blame game but they have put us in the situation to where families are hurting the average Connecticut family right now is paying $700 more a month. Thirty-five percent of children in Connecticut did not go back to school last year. Hartford just had the most overdoses since 2003, she said. Thats what the Democrats are doing they dont care.

She said it was time to flip Connecticut and send a message.

This is the American-people-first election, she said. Republicans are going to go in and fight for families and our kids and our neighbors. It isnt about Democrat versus Republican, its about common sense versus greed, communism and crazy.

Proto, Logan, Levy and McDaniel urged the crowd to participate in the campaigns by knocking on doors, making phone calls, delivering yard signs and raising funds,

The opportunity is there, its about our children, our grandchildren, said Proto.

Maureen Zollo of Naugatuck said she came to the event to meet local candidates and support the Republican party.

Locally, its the schools. My granddaughter is in first grade and there are unacceptable things being taught, she told CT Examiner.

She said the economy and inflation are high on her list of concerns. She said she wanted to see policies enacted that will show up as savings for consumers, especially in the cost of gas and food.

Tracy Sparmer, of Berlin, said he came to catch up with the candidates and to keep the momentum going for election day. He said he was concerned about clean voter rolls at the state level. He said the diesel fuel tax is affecting the prices of groceries and building materials.

Everything has to get there and that takes diesel fuel, he said.

He said that by closing drilling fields and pipelines, Washington, D.C. is spurring higher energy prices and speculation driving the price of fuel.

Theyre going to kill carbon fuels so nobody will invest and that adds to the pricing. Work doesnt get done, the price goes up, theyre creating a shortage, he said.

Christine Rebstock of Middletown said she is a conservative transgender woman and serves as on the LGBTQIA+ Commission in Middletown. She said she is an unaffiliated voter.

Rebstock said she opposes SEL social emotional learning which includes gender issues.

She said she agreed with Bob Stefanowskis Parental Bill of Rights. Rebstock also said she opposes teenagers, ages 14 to 17, receiving medicated hormone replacement without parental consent.

Thats child abuse, she said. This belongs in the home and with parents, doctors and therapists. Help is available at the LGBTQIA+ Center, the Pride Center and with PFLAG.

She said the centers can help trans teenagers with social transition until they are 18 and then they can decide whether to use hormone therapies.

She said she wanted to see the money from the SEL redirected to the support centers that support trans children.

The rest is here:
'The Red Wave is Coming,' Say Republicans at Rally with National Committee Chair in New Britain - CT Examiner

Americas vulnerability comes precisely from its strength, its wealth, its power and its modernity. Its the usual story of the dog chasing its own tail.

Oriana Fallaci

After using Roe as a wedge issue for so long, Republicans finally caught their tail and have no clue what to do with it. Its a perfect storm! Women motivated by theDobbs rulingand extreme restrictions on access to healthy abortions appear to be fired up and ready to turn out in historic numbers.

Add in ridiculously bad Republican Senate candidates like Dr. Mehmet Oz, Herschel Walker and J.D. Vance, and watch Republicans tank Minority Leader Mitch McConnells (R-Ky.) chances at recapturing the majority and holding onto the Senate.

Republicans couldnt be in a worse position. They run on whatever Trump tells them and they say whatever he tells them because if they dont, a twice-impeached dictator, who was the subject of an FBI raid, will somehow destroy their political lives. To them, his staying in office at all costs is more honorable than his willingness tolose an electionfor telling harsh truths. We see you, Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.).

Becoming a member of Congress is no small feat. It takes a certain kind of person to be able to do what it takes to win. Anyone whos had any interaction with members of Congress knows that many of them can be a little bit narcissistic, mixed with a type of insecurity that includes a desperate need for applause.

Weve witnessed from people like Rep. Elise Stefanick (R-N.Y.) Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Sen. Josh Hawley (Mo.) that nothing is short of embarrassing. It is because of their politically expedientsupportof Trumpthat Republicans now find themselves defending defund the FBI or Trumps coup attempt onJan. 6, 2021. They know better. They are intelligent people who understand exactly what theyre doing when they peddle falsities and play on the cheap seats because the alternative requires courage. They want to win, regardless of who gets hurt or the damage it does to our democracy.

For decades, Republicans have wanted to overturn Roe. The irony is that now it will most likely cost them the majority in 2022 and the White House in 2024. The Jim Jones strategy isnt a strategy at all, but more like the rebirth of the now defunct Whig party intent on being relegated to the history books.

Republicans abandoned their ideology, their principles and their common sense, all to end up supporting Dr. Oz and Herschel Walker. What began as a transactional relationship with Trumpism has turned into political hostage-taking, and the consequences couldnt be clearer. Trump lost the White House and cost Republicans the Senate. Why would the midterms be any different? The cakewalk that was supposed to be the midterms looks more like lemmings jumping off a cliff. This wasnt how it was supposed to be, and even McConnellsees the writing on the wall.

Without a doubt, Democrats have had a strong and productive summer. Passing the Inflation Reduction act was historic in its own right, but coupled with passing gun legislation, the CHIPS bill, the bipartisan infrastructure bill, significant climate actions and the American Rescue Plan, President Biden looks like Steph Curry warming up. Even with those historic successes, this should still be the Republicans year to flip Congress.Historically, the out-of-power party almost always outperforms the party controlling the White House. Republicans are doing everything in their power to break that cycle.

If Trump announces early and makes the last month of the race about him, Republicans could be in for a long night. If more indictments of the Trump inner circle or even Trump himself come down, the Republican Partys control will be over, diminished. Given their cultish way of praising the former president and tripping over themselves to be the most clownish in their Republican circus, they risk further alienating those very college-educated and suburban voters who fled Trump in 2020 and cost him a second term.

Theres an irony to it all. Trump was never supposed to win in the first place. The very people who mocked his candidacy and distanced themselves when the Access Hollywood video came out have now tied themselves to the most unpredictable, selfish man in politics and that says a lot. Trump wouldnt just burn down the Republican Party, hes proven already that he will not hesitate to torch the Constitution, our democracy or any and everyone who stands in his way. This is thefront runnerfor the Republican nomination for president in 2024. This is the man who has promised to seekrevengeon his enemies and bring chaos back to Washington.

Republicans got exactly what they wanted. A brash politician who stood for nothing and would say anything for the right amount. They stood behind him and defended him, shamelessly repeating his lies without hesitation. In return, he appointed the justices and a court that is hellbent on fundamentally changing our individual rights. But at what cost?

Were at an inflection point.A majority of Americansunderstand that Donald Trump, with the aid of Republicans, attempted to install himself as president after losing a democratically run election. He didnt succeed but given a second opportunity, who knows what could happen. Thats why voters are scared. Thats why Republicans are breaking away from the party.Evidently, tax breaks may not be enough to support a wannabe autocrat. This isnt an election about opposition parties or checks on the party in power. This is an election about a party who finally got what they wanted and now doesnt know what to do with it. It was never about policies; it was always about culture wars and wedge issues.

Republicans are struggling to appease their dear leader, while also failing to make cogent arguments to the actual voters who put them in office. Democrats, however, are seizing the moment. Following the overturning of Roe vs. Wade, in at least 10 states, women made up ahigher share of newly registered voters. After years of Republicans perfecting the culture wars, Democrats have finally embraced their inner culture warrior and found a winning issue.

Republicans are being taught a tough lesson. Political expediency may result in temporary gratification, but principles are forever. What should be a cakewalk for Republicans, looks to be more like the slow-motion disaster that we expected in 2016.

Republicans got exactly what they thought they wanted, and now theyll get what they actually deserve. They have caught their tail.

Michael Starr Hopkins is a founding partner at Northern Starr Strategies.

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GOP wins on abortion and Trump have sown the seeds of its undoing - The Hill