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Stevenson’s army, June 26 late edition

Charlie Stevenson writes:

[I try to keep my political opinions in my pocket, but this was too much.]

One of the indicators of how tribal America’s political parties have become is that large numbers of people say they would object if their child wanted to marry someone from the different party. In the 1960s, the figure was about 5%. Now it’s around 30%.

What’s even more troubling is that similar numbers now believe that the other party is a danger to the country. A CBS News poll last January, after the insurrection at the Capitol, found that  more than half of Republicans and more than 40 percent of Democrats tend to think of the other party as “enemies,” rather than “political opponents.”

As a Republican who converted to Democrat, I guess I have been more rational and calculating than ideological and emotional about party allegiance, but I understand how strong partisan feelings have become. And partisanship now embraces more than politics: co-partisans like the same beverages, cars, entertainment, and so forth.

But there should be limits. And some Republican members of Congress are going far beyond legitimate partisanship.

It’s one thing for an opposition party to fight the other side on everything, whether petty or significant. It’s undemocratic, however, for the opposition to reject and undermine legitimate processes and outcomes. When Congress counted the electoral votes for president, 147 Republicans voted against one of more slates, thus overruling a certified election. That’s not consistent with supporting and defending the Constitution.

I agree with the Tom Mann/Norm Ornstein analysis that the GOP moved earlier and much further to the right than Democrats have moved to the left. I also believe that Donald Trump won a hostile takeover of the Republican Party, and that the bulk of its leadership has turned it into a cult, wedded to his whims and outrages.

Some of its members are not only spreading falsehoods, but they are fomenting civil disorder. I was especially outraged by Pennsylvania congressman Scott Perry, a retired brigadier general in the Army national guard [!],calling all Democrats dangerous Nazi-like fascists.

“They are not the loyal opposition. They are the opposition to everything you love and believe in,” Pennsylvania Republican Rep. Scott Perry said of Democrats as he concluded a speech to the conservative Pennsylvania Leadership Conference on June 11. “Go fight them.”

“Ladies and gentlemen, there’s a plan,” he said ominously after accusing Democrats of trying to intentionally destroy America’s economy by causing runaway inflation and oil scarcity. “They’ll tell you they’re patriots. But the patriots like the patriots in this room must acknowledge that things are different now. They want to destroy the country that you grew up in. They want to destroy the country that the founders made. That is their plan. That is their goal. That’s why they’re doing these things.”

When elected members of Congress resort to this kind of language, it does change minds. I now fear that the GOP is a real danger to the country.

My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes this almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I plan to republish here. To get Stevenson’s army by email, send a blank email (no subject or text in the body) to stevensons-army+subscribe@googlegroups.com. You’ll get an email confirming your join request. Click “Join This Group” and follow the instructions to join. Once you have joined, you can adjust your email delivery preferences (if you want every email or a digest of the emails).