American democracy is unravelling fast, says Andrew Sullivan in The Weekly Dish. Just look at the Republican leadership. No serious figure in the party has challenged the notion that the 2020 election was rigged and stolen. Instead, Republican strategy is aimed at undermining the democratic process. The Democrats are no better. Last week, Democrat legislators unveiled a plan to add four seats to the Supreme Court, giving them immediate control. They also want to add two new states to the Union to guarantee a majority in the Senate. This “is a case study in how republics collapse”. The factions stop fighting over issues and start plotting how to exclude the opposing party from office. There’s not even an attempt at bipartisanship – “it’s Roman Republic stuff”.
Against this backdrop, people in public life are no longer just brutally questioned, they’re “demonised” and subjected to vicious personal attacks. Social media deepens the illiberalism and anger – “a hideously destructive combination” – while organisations that used to promote liberal values promote the opposite. So Americans now have an invidious choice of the woke left, who “have a chokehold on every cultural institution in America”, and the radicalised, Trump-supporting extremists who challenge them. And between “the white nationalist right and the anti-whiteness globalist left, I really, really don’t want to pick”.
Read the full article here.