The Republican War On Democracy

There has been plenty of talk about the Republican war on science and war on women. We are also faced with a Republican war on the basic principles of democracy. There was opposition to Medicare before it first passed and became the law of the land. Once Medicare passed Republicans might have still complained but they didn’t have forty-two House votes to try to defund it. It has only become a recent event that House Republicans supported changes which would destroy Medicare. Past Republicans certainly didn’t threaten to shut down the government and harm the economy by having the government default on its debts. Steve Benen wrote about how if Republicans are allowed to have their way elections would not have meaning:

It may seem like ages ago, but about 10 months ago, the United States held national elections. One party, the Republican Party, ran on a fairly specific platform, near the top of which was a promise to destroy the Affordable Care Act in its entirety. Their rivals, the Democratic Party, also had a platform, which included preservation of the Affordable Care Act.

The “American people” were asked to make a choice. And they did.

At the presidential level, the Democratic candidate won with relative ease, and became only the sixth presidential candidate in American history to win 51% of the popular vote twice. In the U.S. Senate, Democrats not only held their majority for the fourth consecutive election cycle, they also unexpectedly added seats. In the U.S. House, Democratic candidates collectively won 1.4 million more votes than Republican candidates.

These are not minor details. We have a constitutional system of government and free national elections in which we, the people, help set a course for our country. GOP candidate made their case, lost, and forfeited their claims to a popular mandate.

And yet, when it came time to govern, Republicans decided it was still time to pursue an aggressive, right-wing agenda, predicated on manufactured crises, extortion politics, a misguided culture war, and non-negotiable demands.

We’ve all heard the “elections have consequences” adage many times, but let’s be clear about what we’re witnessing in 2013: Republicans are very clearly telling the country, “No, actually, elections don’t have consequences. We’re still going to do as we please.”

Democracies aren’t supposed to work this way.

Unfortunately this is not the only example of the Republican war on democracy. Republicans abuse the system when they changed use of the filibuster to require sixty votes for virtually everything. Voter suppression has become a major Republican tactic. Even the Republican strategy of spending fortunes to spread misinformation is contrary to what we would desire in a democratic nation where an informed electorate chooses its leaders.