The arc of political movements in this country has never been predictable. That transformation mirrors the narrative that the country likes to tell about the growth of American democracy.
The Republican Party, which had a firmer grasp on that ideal at its outset, rose from a passionate opposition to the spread of slavery to become a redoubt of Confederate sympathizers and racial reactionaries, and home to the twice-impeached former President who cultivated them.
In the past decade, gerrymandering has taken on renewed prominence, especially as software has become more sophisticated and analytical tools make it easier to predict how individual households will vote. The Brennan Center for Justice reported that the redistricting put into effect after the census provided the G.
Holder eviscerated a key provision of the Voting Rights Act, and allowed changes to voting laws which, in the name of preventing voter fraud—something that has repeatedly been proved to be a nonexistent problem—made voting more difficult, particularly for minorities. Those laws were overwhelmingly passed in state legislatures controlled by Republicans. The Brennan Center is tracking more than two hundred and fifty bills, pending in forty-three states, that would restrict voting.
Last Tuesday, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments on an Arizona law that effectively restricts voting access for people of color, in a case that could undermine remaining protections of the Voting Rights Act; the conservative Justices appeared ready to uphold the restrictions.
Michael Steele, the first Black chair of the Republican National Committee, told me that these efforts are a losing strategy. We spoke in mid-January, when the images of the Capitol insurrection were still fresh. Early in our conversation, he pointed to the decades when the Democrats controlled Congress in the middle of the twentieth century as a product of the G.
But what happened? By , that was done. And you could see the trend line heading down 95 into North Carolina, Georgia, bringing it over into the rest of the South.
Between and , about five million African-Americans left the South for industrial centers in Northern and Midwestern states, which were largely Democratic strongholds. The influx changed the political calculus. Conversely, Republicans have moved further away from emerging groups in the electorate, resurrecting political tactics that are reminiscent of the segregation-era South.
Last Wednesday, the House of Representatives passed HR1, a huge reform package that would expand voting rights; no Republicans voted for it. Amid the storm of canards about the Presidential vote tally last year, an easily discernible pattern emerged: the Trump Administration contested the results in Milwaukee, Detroit, Philadelphia, and Atlanta—all of them cities with significant Black populations in states that he lost. We tried to disenfranchise American voters.
We targeted minority voters in Georgia and Michigan and Pennsylvania, trying to overturn democracy in America. Two weeks ago, attendees at the Conservative Political Action Conference convened in Orlando, to rally the right wing of the Republican Party.
When Trump took the stage, on the last day, he was received in a manner typically reserved for politicians who have won an election. According to a recent study conducted by the American Enterprise Institute, nearly eighty per cent of Republicans hold favorable views of Trump, and two-thirds of them believe that there was widespread voter fraud in November, despite clear evidence to the contrary.
The idea that the nation would thrive with two parties was contingent upon both of them holding a shared version of reality. The A. Burr voted to convict Trump in the second impeachment trial. Full steam ahead. The Daily The best of The New Yorker , every day, in your in-box, plus occasional alerts when we publish major stories. Enter your e-mail address. Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment: to empower through understanding.
Financial contributions from our readers are a critical part of supporting our resource-intensive work and help us keep our journalism free for all. Please consider making a contribution to Vox today to help us keep our work free for all. Cookie banner We use cookies and other tracking technologies to improve your browsing experience on our site, show personalized content and targeted ads, analyze site traffic, and understand where our audiences come from.
By choosing I Accept , you consent to our use of cookies and other tracking technologies. Reddit Pocket Flipboard Email. You can read a lightly edited transcript of our entire conversation below.
Daniel Ziblatt I think what was so striking for everyone watching this is just how unfamiliar it all felt and looked — to American eyes. Sean Illing Why are properly functioning conservative parties so essential to the health of democratic systems? Daniel Ziblatt The key thing is that conservative parties are governed by professional politicians who have a stake in the continuation of the political system.
Sean Illing There do seem to be problems today that are unique to our time, or maybe it just seems that way. Daniel Ziblatt One of the most uncanny parallels to the Weimar era is that the leading figure in the German nationalist scene in the mids was this guy named Alfred Hugenberg, who had no political career.
Daniel Ziblatt The need for major institutional reforms has become much clearer in my mind. Delivered Fridays. Thanks for signing up! Check your inbox for a welcome email. Email required. By signing up, you agree to our Privacy Notice and European users agree to the data transfer policy. For more newsletters, check out our newsletters page. The Latest. Why Biden has disappointed on immigration By German Lopez. Some inquired about immigration to Canada.
And millions were newly curious about the Electoral College, which for the second time in recent memory was going to contravene the will of the majority. What was it? Why was it? She also claims bizarrely that the Electoral College thwarts voter fraud. But never mind any of that. The video is short and memorable, with quick cuts, zippy graphics, and cool sound effects. It sucks you in. Since , PragerU has posted nearly similarly digestible videos.
Some of them dabble in topics like parenting or financial advice, but most cover core conservative doctrines. Delivering tidy arguments without the Limbaughesque acid reflux, they have accrued, collectively, just over 1 billion views—nearly million in alone, according to marketing director Craig Strazzeri.
At PragerU, police are not biased against black men , and man-made climate change is debatable. Some presenters, like Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz , are credentialed.
Others, like comedian Adam Carolla , merely speak with the confidence of people who are. Yet a dedicated viewer might walk away with the consistently conservative outlook of a charming, curmudgeonly year-old radio personality who lacks the ratings of his blustery peers—the Sean Hannitys and Mark Levins and Alex Joneses—but boasts a more reassuring disposition.
Despite his chosen profession and Brooklyn upbringing, Prager is no yeller. He welcomes guests with whom he disagrees and is respectful to all callers.
But in a transformation that surprised even some of his peers, genteel Prager has become a die-hard Trump cheerleader , loyally supporting the president and downplaying his boorish conduct. He even went so far as to root for Roy Moore , the disgraced Senate candidate from Alabama. His support for these men is a rational, practical matter, he says. You vote for the guy who votes the way you would—character is secondary. But his other line of reasoning on the subject is both irrational and apocalyptic: Prager is convinced that at this historical moment—not in when he voted for Jimmy Carter, nor in when he was a sanguine Bush supporter, but right now —our society is collapsing, and a liberal Supreme Court nominee could portend the final flood.
These instincts—Prager the Genial Radio Host and Prager the Gloomy Prophet—merge in PragerU, whose videos are too gentle in tone for the Infowars crowd and too conservative for committed liberals. During the day it delivers high-quality real-time news that is essential viewing for the political class. At night, a new crowd comes on air and it morphs into a US Fox News -style lineup of commentators with a conservative bent, known as Sky After Dark, again with limited reach.
The bite-sized videos carry advertising — and Sky shares the revenue with platforms like YouTube. What clearly is doing best on these channels is material that takes on the language of conspiracy thinking to dog-whistle to the conspiracy-minded, using the buzzwords of QAnon and other rightwing groups. Some recent reports are arguably fully down the rabbit hole of conspiracy thinking.
Most politicians see Sky as a niche broadcaster with a relatively small audience. But this ignores the viewership and influence that Sky is winning via digital platforms. Last November, tech journalist Cam Wilson revealed in Business Insider that Sky News Australia had successfully built a Fox News-like online operation in Australia that dwarfs its terrestrial audience numbers. On YouTube, their videos have been viewed more than m times, more than any other Australian media organisation.
As well, data obtained by the Guardian from inside Sky shows that the company got an average of 5.
0コメント