“Last week, a steady stream of House Republicans took to the floor to defend Rep. Paul A. Gosar (R-Ariz.), who posted a video on social media that depicted him killing a fellow member of Congress. (Gosar also continues to wrongly insist that Donald Trump won the 2020 election.) As I watched the debate over censuring Gosar – utterly depressed by the state of American politics – a question gnawed at me: Is there any way to reverse the Republican Party’s lurch toward violent, authoritarian lunacy? For the past decade, I’ve studied the rise of authoritarianism and the breakdown of democracy around the world. Traveling from Madagascar to Thailand and Belarus to Zambia, I’ve tried to understand how despotic politicians and authoritarian political parties systematically destroy democracy. And based on that research, I have some bad news: The party of Reagan and Romney is long dead. The party of Trump is here to stay.”

“What has happened in the United States over the past five years is, in many ways, a classic of the autocratic genre. A populist leader rose to power, attacked the press, politicized rule of law, threatened to jail his opponents, demonized minorities, praised dictators abroad, spread conspiracy theories and lies, and then sought to seize power despite losing an election. When such despotic figures emerge in democracies, their political party has two options: push back against the would-be despot while reasserting democratic principles, or remake the party in his image. Republicans have quite clearly chosen the latter path. The big question now is: Can this be reversed? Can Republicans go back to being a broadly pro-democracy party that operates within democratic constraints and accepts election defeats without inventing false claims? There are a few ways political parties that drift toward authoritarianism can be brought back from the brink. Sadly, none of them can save the modern GOP” – Brain Klaas, Washington Post.