An age of minority rule?

That’s what Republicans are shooting for, which is why some of them have been arguing democracy is bad. Utah. Sen. Mike Lee arguing, for instance that “Democracy isn’t the objective; liberty, peace, and prosperity are. We want the human condition to flourish. Rank democracy can thwart that.”

This is, of course, a classic authoritarian argument: we take care of the people better than if they voted for their rulers! It’s also an acknowledgement that Republicans are now a minority party, relying on the electoral college and voter suppression to keep them in power rather than reaching out beyond their core WASP base. Instead we get former Never Trumper Rich Lowry arguing Republicans should vote Trump for one reason: to piss off liberals.

The Supreme Court is solidly anti-voting rights when it gets in Republicans’ way. Like this And this. And this. Republicans have been working on that for years. And minority rule becomes self-reinforcing: senators representing a minority of the country appointed Barrett, who will I’m sure dance with the president that picked her — remember, she won’t even commit to saying Trump has to leave office if he loses.

Trump, however, sees the crisis of the moment as being that the media reports bad stories about the Trump Virus which he thinks should be an election law violation. Besides, it’s already over. Conversely he  fully expected the Wall Street Journal to run a story about Hunter Biden’s laptop but it didn’t happen (“The editors didn’t like Trump’s insinuation that we were being teed up to do this hit job.”)

Of course they don’t “want the human condition to flourish.” Their human condition, sure, but their alternative to the majority stripping rights from a minority is to have their minority strip rights from the majority. That’s actually worse. Particularly for the people they really hate: “Imagine surviving Jim Crow and having to deal with White supremacy’s court jester in this stage of life. Knowing that your children and grandchildren not only have to contend with so many of the same problems you endured decades ago, but perhaps even worse realities should he be reelected. It must be so tiring to have to watch history repeat itself so often.”

And of course there’s the Republican seeming inability to pronounce foreign names. I doubt they’d be as cavalier about British names like Smythe or Bruttenholm.

And “no system that elected Donald Trump and his congressional enablers, and kept them in office for four years, “works.” Liberal democracy may survive for the moment, but it very well may not the next time.” — Paul Campos on what needs to be done if we take the House, the Senate and the White House.  But some on the left are still insisting that democracy isn’t at risk, even if Trump wins.

Putin, however, has done very well from having Trump in office.

We’ll have a lot of work to do. Evangelical Christianity is now Republican Christianity and it’s getting worse. Some Catholics are just as devoted to Trump. And a lot of the right wing believes NRA myths about how gun control caused the Holocaust.

How will it all play out? Tomorrow — or whenever enough votes are counted — Trump could have won the electoral college again despite losing the popular vote. Or maybe Barrett, Gorsuch and Kavanaugh will deliver a “who cares what the vote is?” verdict to save his butt. Or maybe Biden will win by enough that they can’t rationalize it away.

Deliver us from evil …