No red lines

The biggest threat to our democracy and our Republic is mindless conformity, blind devotion. and cowardly ambition.

I don’t believe that Donald Trump is about to start building concentration camps, locking up political enemies for thought crimes, and executing immigrants en masse. But if he did, I’m pretty sure almost every Republican elected official and GOP operative would support him. They have no red lines. The biggest threat to our country and freedom is their mindless conformity, blind devotion, and cowardly ambition.

So far, they’ve indulged all of his authoritarian impulses, justifying them with whataboutism and lies. Trump used his pardon power to exonerate people who attacked the Capitol and our democracy, putting thugs and sex abusers back onto the street and into our neighborhoods. Less than four months into his second term, he’s selling pardons for loyalty and personal profit.

The GOP once described overzealous federal law enforcement officers as “jack-booted government thugs.” Today, they’re supporting masked men in tactical gear hauling families out of their homes, workplaces, and schools. They defend shipping people to gulags in foreign countries without due process.

In Los Angeles, Trump’s calling out the National Guard to usurp the power of local and state law enforcement. The modern GOP was built on Southern Democrats who left their party over the question of states’ rights. They howled when the federal government sent National Guard troops to enforce the integration of public schools. Now, their ideological descendants are cheering Trump’s show of force and they’re silent as Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth threatens to deploy Marines against American citizens.

Here in North Carolina, we’ve seen up close how far Republicans are willing to go to end democracy. Four justices on the Supreme Court of North Carolina, the highest court in the state, voted to change the rules of an election after it was over to deliver victory to a losing GOP candidate. The only thing that stopped them was a Trump-appointed federal judge who’s order mocked them. It’s still shocking—and chilling.

Next week, Trump is planning a military parade in the style of tinpot dictators and authoritarian brutes. Republicans who know that the militaristic show is wrong will either pretend to approve or sheepishly look away. The ones who embrace Trump’s anti-democratic, authoritarian instincts will outright cheer him on. I fear that much of the American public will call the spectacle patriotic.

This year, we’ve seen how countries slip into authoritarianism. Threatened by a vocal minority of angry fanatics and extremists, once-responsible party leaders give in to fear, cynicism, and cowardice, refusing to hold bad behavior accountable. They place loyalty to a leader over loyalty to their country, watering down the rule of law and eroding individual rights. Many justify their actions by rationalizing that they are better than the alternative, when, in reality, they’ve become the alternative, following the party, as Republican Representative Don Bacon said, “off a cliff.”

In 2016, Donald Trump told America, “I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters.” He wouldn’t lose any Republican Members of Congress, either.