I can’t stop quoting How Democracies Die!
If, twenty-five years ago, someone had described to you a country in which candidates threatened to lock up their rivals, political opponents accused the government of stealing the election or establishing a dictatorship, and parties used their legislative majorities to impeach presidents and steal supreme court seats, you might have thought of Ecuador or Romania. You probably would not have thought of the United States.
Yeah.
For most of the twentieth century, American parties were ideological "big tents," each encompassing diverse constituencies and a wide range of political views. The Democrats represented the New Deal coalition of liberals, organized labor, second- and third-generation Catholic immigrants, and African Americans, but they also represented conservative whites in the South. For its part, the GOP ranged from liberals in the Northeast to conservatives in the Midwest and West. Evangelical Christians belonged to both parties, with slightly more of them supporting the Democrats— so neither party could be charged with being "Godless."
Unimaginable.
Together with black enfranchisement, immigration has transformed American political parties. These new voters have disproportionately supported the Democratic Party. The nonwhite share of the Democratic vote rose from 7 percent in the 1950s to 44 percent in 2012. Republican voters, by contrast, were still nearly 90 percent white into the 2000s. So as the Democrats have increasingly become a party of ethnic minori-ties, the Republican Party has remained almost entirely a party of whites.
Yeah.
OK, now I’m on the Trump chapter. Gonna have to stop myself to avoid unseemly Saturday Anger.