‘Can’t take democracy for granted’: History has told us where we could be headed

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‘Can’t take democracy for granted’: History has told us where we could be headed
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‘Can’t take democracy for granted’: History has told us where we could be headed
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Voters this Tuesday will pass judgment on an existential emergency facing the nation. Despite the efforts of some Democrats to normalize the historic trend favoring the minority party in midterms, the code blue alarm bells this year have a chillingly different resonance.

Warning signs are everywhere.

MSNBC‘s Rachel Maddow this week summed up the convergence of election denial, how prominent Republicans, especially those aligned with former President Trump, mitigated the attack on Pelosi, and increased acts of violence by their most fanatic followers.

“You’re telling us what you want your side to be able to do instead of politics to your political opponents. That is the other option if we’re not going to have elections anymore,” Maddow said. “It’s either elections or it is force and violence.”

A New York Times editorial echoed the warning, citing “the embrace of conspiratorial and violent ideology and rhetoric by many Republican politicians during and after the Trump presidency, anti-government anger related to the pandemic, disinformation, cultural polarization, the ubiquity of guns and radicalized internet culture, and the insurrection…Taken together, these factors form a social scaffolding that allows for the kind of endemic political violence that can undo a democracy.” The Times undercut the “both sideism” rhetoric cited by the right as justification, noting 26 of 29 extremist-related homicides last year were committed by right-wing extremists.

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