Why have Republicans become anti-democratic?

“So that while they [the Republican Party] don’t openly say it, or even admit to themselves, they are basically creating a system in which they can’t afford to lose an election.

They can’t afford to be in a position when the Democrats could do to them what the Republicans are doing to the system now by all of the enhanced powers of the presidency. So I think tacitly and by implication, they simply don’t see another presidential election in which they don’t win.”

They’re trying to figure out how they can have elections that do not hold them accountable, that they’re guaranteed to win.” (Fascism? Authoritarianism? Nazi Germany expert assesses Trump’s actions,” The News Tribune)

This quotation is by Scott Walsh, opinion editor of the Idaho Statesman, in an interview with Christopher Browning, an expert on German fascism and the Holocaust, and professor emeritus of UNC Chapel Hill and PLU. Walsh speaks to the question: “Why have the Republicans given up on democracy?” Let’s try to answer this question.

To do this, we need to return to the creation of the U.S. Constitution in 1787. There were three major issues that divided the framers:

1) How do you create a strong central government with the ability to put down anarchy and avoid invasions and yet still guarantee individual rights?

2) How do you balance the power of big population states against the weakness of small population states?

3) How does the nation allow equality for all when southern states want to continue slavery?

If these issues had not been resolved, there wouldn’t have been a United States of America.

The answer to question No. 1 was partially resolved with separation of powers where no one individual or group had all the power.

Question No. 2 was resolved by creating two houses of Congress, the House, based upon population, and the Senate, based upon two senators per state no matter the size of the state. This was called the “Great Compromise”.

Question No. 3 was “resolved” by the 3/5 Compromise. 3/5 of the slaves were to be counted for population, but slaves had no rights. These compromises gave a great deal more political power in Congress to the South. The Electoral College also gave disproportional power to smaller states when electing the president since they got two votes, no matter their size.

The inequality of power continues with us today. Today, Republicans have greater power in electing presidents and controlling Congress because of these two compromises. Republicans are concentrated in rural states, while Democrats are concentrated in urban areas with greater populations.

Republicans don’t really believe in equality, although they will deny it. They don’t like immigrants, racial minorities, or equality for women. Republicans favor white Christian males. As a result, they have found ways to deny power to minorities and women through gerrymandering, voter suppression, and ending Roe v. Wade. Texas has recently unconstitutionally redrawn voting districts to give Republicans control of the U.S. House of Representatives in 2026.

While federal district and appeals court judges have consistently ruled against actions of the Republican president and deemed those actions illegal and unconstitutional, the Republican SCOTUS justices have increased the power of the Republican president with “temporary” shadow docket decisions.

The Republican-controlled Congress has not exercised its power of the purse, nor its power of confirmation of executive officials, nor the power to impeach. Instead, they have ceded their powers to the president and have remained silent to his clearly unconstitutional actions.

Republicans in Congress have openly blocked publication of the Epstein files and delayed the swearing in of a recently elected Democratic congresswoman who will vote to publish those files. They have lied about the loss of medical benefits to 17 million Medicaid recipients who are primarily poor, female, and minorities. They blame the Democrats for the government shut down, even though the Republicans control both houses of Congress, POTUS, and SCOTUS.

The Republicans are acting like they will never lose another election, as Scott Walsh observed in the introduction. Perhaps they are right. We will undoubtedly have elections, but like Russia under Putin, Turkey under Erdogan, or Hungary under Orban, the elections will be a sham where Republicans continue to control power.

Walsh compared the actions of Republicans with these concluding words:

“That’s the discouraging part that it’s a very long runway for him [the president] to get off the ground, and he’s only less than one quarter of the way down the runway, so whether one can keep him from going airborne is really difficult to guess. I’m pretty much in a 50/50 position right now.”