8/24/20
When delegates to the shrunken Republican National Convention started shouting the traditional “four more years” on Monday after nominating President Trump for a second term, he made it clear that wasn’t good enough. “If you want to really drive them crazy,” Trump told his supporters, you say ’12 more years.’ ” Dutifully, some delegates started chanting for two presidential terms beyond the constitutionally prescribed limit. It should drive all of us crazy that the friend of authoritarians and despots currently occupying the White House not only wants to be our president forever, but also immediately flipped into groundless attacks against his political opponents. “We caught them doing some really bad things in 2016,” Trump said. “Let’s see what happens.” In Trump’s world, political opponents are more than an opposition. They’re the enemy. Thus, in the opening hours of the first day of the GOP convention, the president ratified the dire warnings that former president Barack Obama offered at the Democrats’ conclave last week. Obama spoke of “how a democracy withers until it’s no democracy at all,” and told the country: “Don’t let them take away your democracy.” Over its long history, the Republican Party had often engaged in spirited battles over ideas, even at the risk of losing elections. Big tax cuts for the rich are not my idea of great policy. But no one could claim that the Republicans didn’t tell the voters exactly what they had in mind (in 2016).
Those who fear Trump’s authoritarianism are not alarmists, nor are they paranoid. And it’s not just his “12 more years” shout. He has something larger in common with autocrats, who typically either create one-person parties of their own. The Republican Party of Abraham Lincoln, Dwight D. Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan has done this to itself. Formally. The day before the convention opened, the Republican National Committee (RNC) approved a resolution announcing there would be no new party platform until 2024. In place of a platform, the committee voted Trump a blank policy check. Putin and other strongmen around the world must have smiled at this endorsement of one-man politics by a political party that once prided itself on being principled. I don’t blame the Republicans for being so defensive. It’s embarrassing for a party to go to the voters with nothing to say. Who really wants anyone noting that your party has placed its fate entirely into the hands of a man who leads crowds in affirming his desire to stay in office indefinitely? You really hope your timidity won’t be compared to the boldness of your forebears. “Having thus set forth our distinctive principles and views, we invite the co-operation of all citizens,” the 1860 Republican platform gallantly concluded. The only thing 2020 Republicans have set forth is their blind and absolute loyalty to Donald Trump.