On the trail: GOP divided over party’s growing anti-democratic drift

President TrumpDonald Trump Kelli Ward dismisses audit request of GOP Arizona race Gun sales on the rise amid pandemic uncertainty, Biden’s vow for gun reform Trump’s best impeachment advocate , Bowers, quits his team: MORE reportsThe unprecedented efforts to undermine the clear and conclusive results of the presidential election have provoked a startling backlash from supporters – from the angry mob that attacked the Capitol to senior state lawmakers across the country.

Days after Trump left, Republicans in the state introduced a series of measures that would give lawmakers the power to reverse the will of voters, both in the 2020 presidential election and in future elections.

Some bills target the 2020 presidential election.

In Pennsylvania, State Senator Cris Dush (right) introduced a resolution declaring his state’s presidential election illegal and void and the results invalid. Dush’s legislation would have revoked the certification of presidential voters promised to President Biden and replaced them with a list elected by the Republican-controlled General Assembly.

Others would give legislatures the option of revoking certification of the results of future presidential elections in their states.

In Arizona, State Representative Shawnna Bolick (right) introduced a bill last week that would allow the state legislature to decertify the results of a presidential election if they are not agreement with the certification issued by the Secretary of State.

Other efforts are unrelated to the presidential elections but would modify or undermine measures approved by a majority of voters.

In November, 61% of Florida voters approved a constitutional amendment that would raise the minimum wage from $ 8.56 an hour to $ 15 an hour by 2026. This week, Sen. Jeff Brandes (right) introduced a law to change this amendment, allowing employers to pay less than minimum wages to workers under the age of 21, workers previously convicted of a crime and those belonging to undefined categories of “other difficult people to hire ”.

In the same election, 54% of South Dakota voters approved a constitutional amendment allowing the legalization of recreational marijuana. Gov. Kristi noemKristi Lynn Noem Idaho Advances Constitutional Ban on Legalization of Marijuana in State, SD Governor Challenges Amendment Legalizing Recreational Marijuana Eric Trump Warns of Key Challenges for Republicans Not Opposing election results LEARN MORE (R) ordered the State Highway Patrol to sue to overturn the amendment, after Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg (R) refused to intervene.

None of these measures are offered by backbench bankers.

Bolick chairs the Arizona House Ways and Means Committee. Dush heads the Pennsylvania committee that oversees local government. Brandes chairs the Florida Senate Judiciary Committee. Noem is considered a potential presidential candidate in 2024.

The new efforts are part of a trend that could accelerate amid a wave of misinformation about the 2020 presidential election.

In recent years, the Florida legislature has undermined Amendment 4, a constitutional amendment purported to restore the right to vote for felons who had served their sentence. The amendment was approved by voters and 64% supported it.

Missouri lawmakers who opposed an independent voter-approved redistribution commission with 62 percent of the vote in 2018 put another version – which restored the heavily Republican legislature’s control over the process – to the ballot in 2020 This repeal was adopted with 51% of the votes.

Former Maine Gov. Paul LePage (right) refused to implement the Medicaid expansion, even after 59% of his voters approved a 2017 voting measure accepting the expansion under the affordable care law.

The efforts of a growing faction of prominent Republicans worry those who once led the Grand Old Party, but now find themselves adrift and marginalized.

“There has always been a dark side to the conservative movement, the Republican Party. You’ve always had the Know Nothings, America Firsters, John Birch Society, Pat Buchanan guys. But they weren’t in charge. Those responsible were Bush, Dole and McCain, ”said Chris Vance, a former president of the Washington state Republican Party and a member of the center-right Niskanen. “The extremists would be in the corner of the room, but they weren’t in charge. Now they are in charge.

The rebuke of democratic values ​​stems from an increasingly grim view of the confrontation that defines modern American politics, a fueled source of the pulpit and the podium among conservative evangelicals and increasingly far-right politicians which lead the descent of the GOP into populist nativism. To hear them say it, the more traditional Democrats and Republicans are not just the opposition, they are an existential threat to the future of the American experiment.

Trump has served and serves as a voice that validates the darkest corners of conspiratorial republicanism. He called Democrats – especially women, and more specifically black women – “dogs,” “crazy,” “sick” and “savage,” amid a litany of other slurs. In 2017, her son Eric said, “To me, they’re not even people” in an interview with Fox News.

“Many Republicans today see Democrats the way their McCarthyian grandparents saw Communists,” said John Pitney, a political scientist at Claremont McKenna College and a former member of the Republican National Committee. “For them, Democrats are not legitimate adversaries they want to defeat, they are mortal enemies they must destroy.

Even those who initially won the post of movement conservatives in the pre-Trump era have been trained. In conversations over the past few weeks with legislative leaders, who all ask that their names not be disclosed when asked about the darker fringes of their base, a speaker of the House of Representatives and a chair of the committee elections have both expressed a sense of desperate exasperation at their own inability to control those who reject reality and threaten democracy.

Both of these lawmakers have publicly acknowledged that Biden has won their states. But both have also claimed that their separate efforts to revisit electoral integrity stem from concerns of their constituents – concerns that their own camp has embraced and ignited.

“They are ready to do anything to retain power. I mean anything. I expect them to keep doing this stuff. I expect them to introduce bills across the country to cancel the mail when voting. I expect them to attack the Electoral College, ”Vance said. “The only thing keeping them in the game is our very strange system that allows the minority to rule.”