Lawrence R. Jacobs - Democracy under Fire The Rise of Extremists and the Hostile Takeover of the Republican Party.

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ISBN 9780190877248

eISBN 9780190877262

DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190877248.001.0001

For Julie Schumacher

My soulmate who lifts me with her grace, intelligence, humor, and tenacity

I have accumulated many debts of gratitude. The University of Minnesotas Humphrey School of Public Affairs and Walter F. and Joan Mondale Chair provided generous support. My Visiting Fellow year at All Souls College at Oxford University created a remarkably stimulating environment.

Graduate students at the University of Minnesotas Department of Political Science and Humphrey School have been energetic and diligent in tracking down my many questions and requests over a number of years. In particular, I thank Jonathan Spiegler and Carissa Kemp. I am most grateful to Penny Thomas, who toiled on this project for four years with good cheer and terrific research skills. I wrote this book while balancing other responsibilities; directing the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance was infinitely more manageable due to the calm and brilliant leadership of Lea Chittenden.

David McBride at Oxford University Press read an early chapter and then the entire manuscript with a keen eye. Emily Mackenzie Benitez skippered the manuscript through the production process with efficiency and attention to detail and Bob Land copy edited this book with skill.

Barbara Mikulski and Walter Mondale generously talked with me about Democratic Party politics in the 1960s and 1970s. Vin Weber was a valuable sounding board about the Republican primary system and the hurdles facing significant reform of either partys primaries.

Democracy under Fire delivers a stinging diagnosis of contemporary American politics that is rooted in more than 250 years of contentious history. Conversations and written feedback from many colleagues were enormously helpful in sparking thought-provoking questions and bracing challenges. Rob Mickey, Bob Shapiro, and Michael Minta offered sharp observations after reading sections of the manuscript. Lisa Disch inspired me to rethink democratic theory, and Suzanne Mettler fed my alarm about the threats to American democracy. Steve Skowronek invigorated my thinking about the Progressive Era. I am particularly grateful to Theda Skocpols collaborations and feedback over a number of years, stimulating my thinking about macrohistory, contemporary American politics, and their linkages. Desmond King generously contributed to this project through years of back-and-forth exchanges on its themes and a meticulous reading of the entire draft manuscript.

January 6 was a disgrace, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell solemnly intoned at the end of Donald Trumps second impeachment trial on February 13, 2021. American citizens attacked their own government... to try to stop a specific piece of democratic business they did not like. As to the culprit, the US Senates Republican leader declared that there is no question that President Trump is practically and morally responsible... [by unleashing] the growing crescendo of false statements, conspiracy theories, and reckless hyperbole which the defeated president kept shouting into the largest megaphone on planet Earth.

Trumps disgraceful dereliction of duty on January 6 was a singular threat to American democracy, but his disdain for the rules, procedures, and norms of representative governance was well known before he even ran for president. In the third debate with Hillary Clinton, he refusedas he would four years laterto commit to conceding the election if he lost. He spewed unconstitutional and illegal threatstaking away citizenship or imprisoning flag-burners, reopening the closed investigation of his Democratic opponents use of a private email server, and suing the media for news reports he disliked. His disdain for Americas rule of law was accompanied by racist and vulgar comments including his boast during an Access Hollywood tape about grabbing [women] by the pussy and pressuring married women into having sex.

Anticipating Trumps disregard for American law and the Constitution, prominent Republicans in Congress as well as former Trump also accelerated the accretion of presidential power at the expense of Congress by defying its oversight and subpoenas and ignoring its power of the purse by unilaterally spending money to build a southern wall. Even after losing the election and Bidens inauguration, Trumps unfounded charges of vote fraud soiled the legitimacy of elections and spurred misguided Republican efforts to tamper with state election procedures and laws.

Given the clear-eyed assessment of candidate Trump by Republican leaders, why did the party nominate him as its presidential candidate in 2016? Why did his contempt for democratic rules, procedures, and norms fail to disqualify him as its presidential candidate? Is there no filter in Americas representative system of government to block a dangerous renegade from seeking entry to the Oval Office?

Much of the attention paid to Trumps rise to power has focused on his corrosive personality and divisive style of governing. Missing has been an examination of the structure of politics that acquiesced in his rise.

The ascendance of Trump is not an aberration but a predictedindeed, recurrentresult of a nomination process that sidelined party officials and senior officials and deferred to a relatively small number of ideologically motivated party activists, interest groups, and donors. Worse, the system that handcuffed party leaders from stopping a known renegade is considered democratic.

Will government of the people, by the people, for the people,... not perish from the earth, as Abraham Lincoln intoned on the blood-drenched soil of Gettysburg? It is vulnerable and there are few, if any, reliable protections against the future nomination of dangerous candidates by either major political party. The scheme of representationas James Madison put it in Federalist Paper 10does not extend to party nominations to filter out candidates who threaten the Constitution. It must be erected if democratic political representation is to endure.

How did genuine democracy become so vulnerable? Researchers and informed observers frequently point to the Democratic Party reforms in 19691970 that triggered the adoption of presidential primary elections to select candidates.realize the Declarations promise of political equality. The fourth critical juncture was the quixotic push during the early twentieth centurys Progressive Era to restore democracy by establishing direct primaries to end boss control over the party convention.