What unites Trump's apologists? Minority rule

[dajoki]

What unites Trump’s apologists? Minority rule.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/what-unites-trumps-apologists-minority-rule/2019/11/24/152c5d06-0d6c-11ea-97ac-a7ccc8dd1ebc_story.html?utm_campaign=first_reads&utm_medium=Email&utm_source=Newsletter&wpisrc=nl_rainbow&wpmm=1

Two questions are asked again and again: How can white evangelical Christians continue to support a man as manifestly immoral as President Trump? And how can congressional Republicans refuse to condemn Trump’s thuggish effort to use taxpayer money to intimidate a foreign leader into helping his reelection campaign?

The answer to both relates to power — not just the power Trump now enjoys but also to the president’s faithfulness to a deal aimed at controlling American political life for a generation or more. Both evangelicals and Republican politicians want to lock in their current policy preferences, no matter how much the country changes or how sharply public opinion swings against them. As a party, the GOP now depends on empowering a minority over the nation’s majority.

This is reflected in its eagerness to enact laws restricting access to the ballot in states it controls. Rationalized as ways to fight mythical “voter fraud,” voter-ID statutes and the purging of voter rolls are designed to make it harder for African Americans, Latinos and young people to vote. The new electorate is a lot less Republican than the old one. The GOP much prefers the old one.

The party’s stout defense of the electoral college is also part of this minority-rule strategy. Even models that give Trump a chance to prevail in 2020 show he could lose the popular vote by even more than he did in 2016.

What does a crisis for U.S. democracy look like? A Trump popular-vote defeat of 5 million votes or more combined with a two-vote margin in the electoral college. Yes, he could eke out this narrow advantage even if he lost Michigan and Pennsylvania as long as he held on to all the other places he carried the last time. A large U.S. majority could be disempowered and yet still face pressure to declare such an outcome “legitimate.”

<<snip>>

[Unclephil]

1. Republicans

believe they have the divine right to rule. Democrats believe in governing.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

3. +1

And other minorities don't matter when they're in control.

[Vogon_Glory]

2. So the Rethugs want to hang on by retaining the stares he won last time?

We should respond not only by trying to win them back, but also by trying to flip some of the states Donnie thought were safe.

I am coming to the conclusion that while the Good Guys (aka Democrats and Progressives) have a good chance st taking back Michigan and Pennsylvania, our chances for Wisconsin are iffy.

I fear Florida is lost to us this go-round.

IMO, Democrats should make efforts to take Arizona, North Carolina and make some effort towards taking Texas and see if enough LDSers in Utah are sufficiently repulsed by Donnie to consider voting for Team Donkey.