On a few occasions here, I have shared some video clips and/or recent thoughts by comedian Bill Maher. Maher, of course, has his own show, Real Time. I actually preferred his older show, Politically Incorrect, which ran from sometime in the early to mid-nineties until just after September 11th, when Maher made some controversial comments that effectively took him off the air. He landed on his feet, though, getting this newer show. Politically Incorrect, if memory serves correctly, aired nightly, and featured celebrities and political pundits and other notable personalities, if you will. The new show airs once a week. It is a similar format to the original show, although it has a much more formal, modern feel to it. Politically Incorrect, by contrast, felt almost like a living room discussion, although it was televised in front of a live audience that sometimes reacted wildly. The new show also is in front of a television audience, but again, it looks and feels more like a conventional, modern talk show.
While I do not agree with everything that comedian Bill Maher says, in this short video clip about the modern day Republican party and the seeming disdain with which they hold American democracy, he seems right on the money. Indeed, the GOP in particular has been growing ever more hostile to democracy and free elections for a long while now.
Now I will admit to being one of those people who struggled more and more over the years to see any real difference between the two major parties. I never considered myself a Republican, and can honestly claim never to have voted for a single one on any level, either on a national, state, or local level. There was a time when I considered myself a Democrat, but to put a long story short, Bill Clinton cured me of that. By the end of his administration, I was tired of both major parties, and championed a third option. At least a third option, if not many more.
Still, the reality in this country is that politics is and has long been dominated by these two major parties. And yes, while I personally dislike both of them, the Republicans seem particularly repugnant to me. The Democrats are a very flawed and, frankly, depressing party of out of touch elitists, but at least they largely still seem to abide by some limits, at least when it comes to the general election. That said, their own presidential primaries to establish who the official party nominee will be seems to actually not be all that democratic, and reflects the party's elitist, pro-corporate tendencies.
By contrast, Republicans seem more and more willing to actively flirt with an end to our American democracy. Maher cited some specific examples, which I will share with you here in print, although I would welcome anyone to watch the show video clip above.
Here is something that Utah Senator Mike Lee infamously said in 2020:
“We're not a democracy. Democracy isn’t the objective; liberty, peace, and prosperity [sic] are. We want the human condition to flourish. Rank democracy can thwart that.”
That sure seems to be an outright questioning of our democratic principles.
Rachel Hamm, yet another Republican critic of democracy, seems to want to attack the idea of the right to vote.
"I want to make it hard (to vote). I want it to be a privilege to vote."
Here's the thing: she does not get to say. It does not matter what Rachel Hamm "wants." After all, it is the RIGHT TO VOTE. It is not some minor flaw in our democratic system, but rather, is fundamental. And it is protected by the Constitution, for that matter.
Maher pointed to yet another Republican who can apparently be added to the growing list of Republicans who sure do not seem very friendly to the concept of democracy. Loren Culp said that democracy amounts to "mob rule."
He apparently sees no irony in supporting Trump, a man who infamously tried to get a mob to rule in what amounted to an attempted coup. That kind of mob rule - a literal mob rule, in other words, is not a problem for him.
But democracy?
Evidently it's too dangerous.
Of course, he is both a supporter of, and endorsed by, Donald Trump. And Trump s notoriously questionable when it comes to his commitment to American democracy. He swore to uphold the Constitution of the United States when sworn into office. Then, in quite typical fashion, he seemed to do almost everything that he could to undermine it. He did it in what can also be described as his trademark fashion, often claiming to be joking when, in fact, it felt more like he was testing the waters to gauge how people would react to it. His commitment to American democracy, and to his own promise to be a president "for all Americans," seemed questionable at best a number of times, from seemingly refusing to condemn Nazis and calling some of them good people, championing the idea of a national registry of all Muslims within American borders and a ban on all Muslims immigrating to the country, calling Mexicans murders and rapists, posting a short video clip of one of his supporters shouting "White Power!" just months before the 2020 election He also "joked" about how great the idea of a "president for life" would be and suggested that we should look into that here i the United States. He then repeatedly hinted at the possibility that he would not only get a second term but a third term and beyond, suggesting that his supporters might demand that he get a third term. Of course, he did not win a majority in the first election, and lost decisively in both the popular vote and the Electoral College race in 2020. Yet, he still felt like he should serve, and so he concocted lies about some massive voter fraud, and did everything that he could to undermine the democracy that he once promised to protect and defend when he first officially became president.
Of course, Trump's commitment to the idea, let alone the reality, of democracy has long been suspect. This was alarming when he was running for the White House, but it as now become very alarming since he won the White House and the Republican party then seemed to become the de facto Trump party. If Republicans in particular seemed to be more critical of democracy in a more subtle fashion before Trump, they now seem to be testing the waters on the idea of suspending our democracy in a similar fashion to their leader, King Con Don. And it sure feels like since the rise of Trump in particular, our democracy is more in peril than it ever was before.
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