Paul Krugman makes a good point in this excellent column.
The Banality of Democratic Collapse
America’s democratic experiment may well be nearing its end. That’s not hyperbole; it’s obvious to anyone following the political scene. Republicans might take power legitimately; they might win through pervasive voter suppression; G.O.P. legislators might simply refuse to certify Democratic electoral votes and declare Donald Trump or his political heir the winner. However it plays out, the G.O.P. will try to ensure a permanent lock on power and do all it can to suppress dissent.
...
...The Big Lie about the election didn’t well up from the grass roots — it was promoted from above, initially by Trump himself, but what’s crucial is that almost no prominent Republican politicians have been willing to contradict his claims and many have rushed to back them up.
...the fundamental problem lies...with the careerists...
...
...the predominance of craven careerists is what made the Republican Party so vulnerable to authoritarian takeover.
... decades as a monolithic, top-down enterprise have filled the G.O.P. with people who will follow the party line wherever it goes.
So if Trump or a Trump-like figure declares that we have always been at war with East Asia, well, his party will say that we’ve always been at war with East Asia. If he says he won a presidential election in a landslide, never mind the facts, they’ll say he won the election in a landslide.
The point is that neither megalomania at the top nor rage at the bottom explains why American democracy is hanging by a thread. Cowardice, not craziness, is the reason government by the people may soon perish from the earth.
I’m tellin’ ya, this is a column that people are going to be talking about for a long while.
