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Lane Cuthbert, along with his UMass colleague Alex Theodoridis, asked in an op-ed in The Washington Post:

How could the big lie campaign convince so many Republicans that Trump won an election he so clearly lost? Some observers wonder whether these beliefs are genuine or just an example of expressive responding, a term social scientists use to mean respondents are using a survey item to register a feeling rather than express a real belief.

In their own analysis of poll data, Cuthbert and Theodoridis concluded that most Republicans are true believers in Trumps lie:

Apparently, Republicans are reporting a genuine belief that Bidens election was illegitimate. If anything, a few Republicans may, for social desirability reasons, be using the Im not sure option to hide their true belief that the election was stolen.

Al-Gharbi sharply disputes this conclusion:

Most Republican voters likely dont believe in the big lie. But many would nonetheless profess to believe it in polls and surveys and would support politicians who make similar professions because these professions serve as a sign of defiance against the prevailing elites. They serve as signs of group solidarity and commitment.

Poll respondents, he continued,

often give the factually wrong answer about empirical matters not because they dont know the empirically correct answer but because they dont want to give political fodder to their opponents with respect to their preferred policies. And when one takes down the temperature on these political stakes, again, often the differences on the facts also disappear.

One way to test how much people actually believe something, al-Gharbi wrote, is to look out for yawning gaps between rhetoric and behaviors. The fact that roughly 2,500 people participated in the Jan. 6 insurrection suggests that the overwhelming majority of Republicans do not believe the election was stolen, no matter what they tell pollsters, in al-Gharbis view. He continued:

If huge shares of the country, 68 percent of G.O.P. voters, plus fair numbers of independents and nonvoters, literally believed that we were in a moment of existential crisis and the election had been stolen and the future was at stake, why is it that only a couple thousand could muster the enthusiasm to show up and protest at the Capitol? In a world where 74 million voted for Trump and more than two-thirds of these (i.e., more than 50 million people, roughly one out of every five adults in the U.S.) actually believed that the other party had illegally seized power and plan to use that power to harm people like themselves, the events of Jan. 6 would likely have played out much, much differently.

Whatever the motivation, Isabel V. Sawhill, a Brookings senior fellow, warned that Republican leaders and voters could be caught in a vicious cycle:

There may be a dynamic at work here in which an opportunistic strategy to please the Trump base has solidified that base, making it all the more difficult to take a stance in opposition to whatever Trump wants. Its a Catch-22. To change the direction of the country requires staying in power, but staying in power requires satisfying a public, a large share of whom has lost faith in our institutions, including the mainstream media and the democratic process.

Jake Grumbach, a political scientist at the University of Washington, noted in an email that the big lie fits into a larger Republican strategy: In an economically unequal society, it is important for the conservative economic party to use culture war politics to win elections because they are unlikely to win based on their economic agenda.

There are a number of reasons why some Republican elites who were once anti-Trump became loyal to Trump, Grumbach said. He continued:

First is the threat of being primaried for failing to sufficiently oppose immigration or the Democratic Party, a process that ramped up first in the Gingrich era and then more so during the Tea Party era of the early 2010s. Second is that Republican elites who were once anti-Trump learned that the Republican-aligned network of interest groups and donors Fox News, titans of extractive and low-wage industry, the N.R.A., evangelical organizations, etc. would mostly remain intact despite sometimes initially signaling that they would withhold campaign contributions or leave the coalition in opposition to Trump.

Frances Lee, a political scientist at Princeton, took a different tack, arguing that Republican members of Congress, especially those in the Senate, would like nothing better than to have the big lie excised from the contemporary political landscape:

I disagree with the premise that many senators buy into the big lie. Congressional Republicans stance toward the events of Jan. 6 is to move on beyond them. They do not spend time rebuking activists who question the 2020 outcome, but they also do not endorse such views, either. With rare exception, congressional Republicans do not give floor speeches questioning the 2020 elections. They do not demand hearings to investigate election fraud.

Instead, Lee argued, Many Republican voters still support and love Donald Trump, and Republican elected officials want to be able to continue to represent these voters in Washington. The bottom line, she continued, is that

Republican elected officials want and need to hold the Republican Party together. In the U.S. two-party system, they see the Republican Party as the only realistic vehicle for contesting Democrats control of political offices and for opposing the Biden agenda. They see a focus on the 2020 elections as a distraction from the most important issues of the present: fighting Democrats tax and spend initiatives and winning back Republican control of Congress in the 2022 midterms.

Paul Begala, a Democratic strategist, argues that

Trump lives by Machiavellis famous maxim that fear is a better foundation for loyalty than love. G.O.P. senators dont fear Trump personally; they fear his followers. Republican politicians are so cowed by Trumps supporters, you can almost hear them moo.

Trumpism, Begala wrote in an email, is more of a cult of personality, which makes fealty to the Dear Leader even more important. How else do you explain 16 G.O.P. senators who voted to reauthorize the Voting Rights Act in 2006 all refusing to even allow it to be debated in 2022?

Begala compares Senator Mitch McConnells views of the Voting Rights Act in 2006 Americas history is a story of ever-increasing freedom, hope and opportunity for all. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 represents one of this countrys greatest steps forward in that story. Today I am pleased the Senate reaffirmed that our country must continue its progress towards becoming a society in which every person, of every background, can realize the American dream to McConnells stance now: This is not a federal issue; it ought to be left to the states.

Republican politicians, in Begalas assessment,

have deluded themselves into thinking that Trump and the big lie can work for them. The reality is the opposite: Republican politicians work for Trump and the big lie. And they may be powerless to stop it if and when Trump uses it to undermine the 2024 presidential results.

It is at this point, Begala continued, where leadership matters. Trump stokes bigotry, he sows division, he promotes racism, and when other G.O.P. politicians fail to disavow Trumps divisiveness, they abet it. What a contrast to other Republican leaders in my lifetime.

Like Begala, Charles Stewart III, a political scientist at M.I.T., was blunt in his analysis:

Theres generally a lack of nuance in considering why Republican senators fail to abandon Trump. Whereas Reagan spoke of the 11th Commandment, Trump destroyed it, along with many of the first 10. He is mean and vindictive and speaks to a set of supporters who are willing to take their energy and animus to the polling place in the primaries or at least, thats the worry. They are also motivated by racial animus and by Christian millennialism.

These voters, according to Stewart,

are not a majority of the Republican Party, but they are motivated by fear, and fear is the greatest motivator. Even if a senator doesnt share those views and I dont think most do they feel they cant alienate these folks without stoking a fight. Why stoke a fight? Few politicians enter politics looking to be a martyr. Mainstream Republican senators may be overestimating their ability to keep the extremist genie in the bottle, but they have no choice right now if they intend to continue in office.

Philip Bobbitt, a professor of law at Columbia and the University of Texas, argued in an email that Republican acceptance of Trumps falsehoods is a reflection of the power Trump has over members of the party:

Its the very fact that they know Trumps claims are ludicrous that is the point: Like other bullies, he amuses himself and solidifies his authority by humiliating people, and what can be more humiliating than compelling people to publicly announce their endorsements of something they know and everyone else knows to be false?

Thomas Mann, a Brookings senior fellow, made the case in an email that Trump has transformed the Republican Party so that membership now precludes having a moral sense: honesty, empathy, respect for ones colleagues, wisdom, institutional loyalty, a willingness to put country ahead of party on existential matters, an openness to changing conditions.

Instead, Mann wrote:

the current, Trump-led Republican Party allows no room for such considerations. Representative Liz Cheneys honest patriotism would be no more welcome among Senate Republicans than House Republicans. Even those current Republican senators whose earlier careers indicated a moral sense Mitt Romney, Susan Collins, Richard Burr, Roy Blunt, Lisa Murkowski, Robert Portman, Ben Sasse, Richard Shelby have felt obliged to pull their punches in the face of the big lie and attempted coup.

Bart Bonikowski, a sociologist at N.Y.U., describes the danger of this political dynamic:

In capturing the party, Trump perfectly embodied its ethnonationalist and authoritarian tendencies and delivered it concrete results even if his policy stances were not always perfectly aligned with party orthodoxy. As a result, the Republican Party and Trumpism have become fused into a single entity one that poses serious threats to the stability of the United States.

The unwillingness of Republican leaders to challenge Trumps relentless lies, for whatever reason for political survival, for mobilization of whites opposed to minorities, to curry favor, to feign populist sympathies is as consequential as or more so than actually believing the lie.

If Republican officials and their voters are willing to swallow an enormous and highly consequential untruth for political gain, they have taken a first step toward becoming willing allies in the corrupt manipulation of future elections.

Continued here:
Opinion | Why Millions Think It Is Trump Who Cannot Tell a Lie - The New York Times

Nevertheless, Bundy dismissed McGeachins governor-for-a-day anti-mandate orders as a political gimmick. The only one they benefit is her. What would he have done in her place? I would have done what I did do, rally the people. I would have used the office of the lieutenant governor to unite the legislature to end the [governors] emergency order. As governor, he added, he would focus on downsizing the executive agencies and restoring power back to the legislature, where it belongs. But without appearing to see a contradiction, he said he would do so by executive fiat: I think I could spend four years doing that and not have to deal with the legislature at all.

In Idaho as elsewhere, Republicans tend to extol local control rather than high-handed state and federal directives. But that principle tends to hold only as long as local governments do what conservatives want. Boise, for example, elected its city councilmembers at large, which reinforced its Democratic-leaning majority. So in 2020 Republican legislators passed a law ordering all cities with more than 100,000 residents which then meant only Boise to hold district elections, in hopes of capturing some seats. This may have unintended consequences: Two Republican-dominated cities in the Treasure Valley, Meridian and Nampa, have since passed the 100,000 threshold.

Bundy, however, leapfrogs over this contradiction. When I asked him if local control meant school boards and cities should be free to adopt Covid restrictions, he responded in classic libertarian fashion: The primary local control is the individual, over his own life and body. ... Theres no role of a city to come in and say, you cant come out of your homes unless you wear a mask.

Still, theres something inconsistent about his Keep Idaho Idaho slogan. He proposes to restore the original Idaho, to rescue it from the likes of third-generation Idahoan rancher Brad Little. But Bundy himself only moved to Idaho six-and-a-half years ago; he grew up on his fathers ranch in Nevada, then lived in Phoenix. The city had grown up around us there, he explained. I just didnt want to raise my children in the city. He and his wife visited state after state seeking a new home that, as he put it, still believes in freedom. But, he laments, the whole West is changing. I grew up in Nevada. I never thought it would be predominant Democrat. Even Utah has its struggle right now. Its converting over. In Salt Lake theres a gay mayor. Which is fine, but

When the Bundys reached Emmett, they knew it was the place we needed to be. Idaho is a beautiful land, but its also a beautiful idea. ... Idaho is basically what the United States was.

No one seems to expect him to win the primary; according to one political operative, an unreleased Republican poll showed him with single-digit support, McGeachin in the low 20s (pre-Trump endorsement) and Little above 60 percent. Bundys brother Ryan, running as an independent for governor of Nevada in 2018, won just 2 percent of that vote.

Even if Bundy were somehow nominated, he might not get help from the party. Weve got to unite around whoever wins the nomination, Luna told me. Even if its Bundy? Lunas expression darkened. Hes not a Republican.

Hes right, Im not the Republican they are, that is for danged sure, Bundy responded. I never will be. Im going to give the people of Idaho a decision are you Republican or are you conservative? Cause theyre not the same thing, especially in Idaho right now.

Newcomer that he is, Bundy represents a demographic trend that is transforming politics and life in the Gem State. Call it right flight. From the 1950s through the 1980s, California was what would now be called a purple state; it elected Republican governors half the time and voted R in nearly every presidential race. Since then, California has turned deep blue; Republicans loss there has been red Idahos gain. Fueled by migration from California and, to a lesser extent, Washington and Oregon, Idahos population has soared since 2015, rising faster than any other states.

This growth has been concentrated in Boise and the sprawling, conservative suburbs and exurbs west of it places such as Star, population 11,000, roughly twice what it was 10 years ago, and Meridian, the states second-largest city, which grew 1,157 percent, from fewer than 10,000 to nearly 120,000 residents, between 1990 and 2020. Population has also surged in the far northern Panhandle, which stretches up to the Canadian border. In the heyday of unionized mining and timber industries, the north was the states most Democratic region. Now its an incubator of armed militias and fiercely ideological local politics and the center of the decade-old Redoubt Movement, which promotes the Inland Northwest as a conservative Christian refuge.

Republican migrants to Idaho outnumber Democrats about two-to-one, according to a statewide annual survey of public attitudes conducted at Boise State University. Rather than importing the liberal politics of the coastal cities theyve left, many bring smoldering resentment of government regulation and socialism. They want to make sure people here know how evil liberals are, says Alicia Abbott, a political independent in Sandpoint, the largest town in far-northern Bonner County. Shes doing voter outreach for 97 Percent, an effort to counter the Three Percenters armed extremism.

Those who fear and those who cheer the effects of right flight agree on one point: The newcomers are pushing Idaho politics farther to the right. Like Bundy, they bring a converts zeal for the hallowed rugged individualism of their new home. New to Idaho, true to Idaho, proclaims the influential Idaho Freedom Foundation, which vets legislation and legislators for their conservative correctness. Are you a refugee from California, or some other liberal playground? Did you move to Idaho to escape the craziness? its website says. Welcome to Idaho.

A thriving local preparedness real estate industry is cashing in on right flight. One broker, Todd Savage of the PATRIOTS ONLY real estate firm Black Rifle Real Estate and a self-proclaimed conservative libertarian refugee from San Francisco, had to revise a listing that read, This property is for sale to Liberty / Constitutional Buyers ONLY because the Multiple Listing Service thought it suggested bias against immigrants. No big deal, Savage told me: Business is fantastic! This whole pandemic thing has really fueled land ownership in rural areas. A lot of my clients are in police, fire, and medical fields. They are coming here in droves. They dont care about real estate prices. They have money to burn.

Luna likewise speaks of sending out the political welcome wagon to these new Idahoans, to make sure they dont get the wrong idea about Republicans: We want to make sure the first time they hear about the Idaho Republican Party, its from one of our volunteers, not on TV or in the newspapers.

The question is, which Republican Party? The power centers in Boise and the Panhandle are not moving in step. The rift opened publicly in July when the Kootenai County Republican Central Committee unanimously passed an effusive resolution endorsing the John Birch Society and urged the state party to adopt it too. (It refused.) The Kootenai resolution also urged those who do not support our party platform to follow the example of Bill Brooks, and voluntarily disaffiliate from the Idaho Republican Party. Brooks, a Kootenai County commissioner, quit the party to protest its cozying up to the Birchers, though he still considers himself a staunch conservative. He sees it as symptomatic of a broader shift: We came here 20 years ago because it was the closest thing we could find to Norman Rockwell, he told me. Now people come looking for George Lincoln Rockwell the founder of the American Nazi Party.

Candidate lawn signs dot the side of the road. | Eric Scigliano

The newcomers may denounce the cities theyve left, but they bring a combative, impatient post-urban edge to once-mellow Idaho, an impatience that shows in politics as in the increasingly congested traffic in Idahos fast-growing cities.

Chris Fillios, who serves with Brooks on the Kootenai County Commission, feels the heat. Unlike Brooks, hes stayed in the Republican Party, even though he says hes been called communist, Marxist, socialist. Its not his politics that have changed, suggests Fillios, whos lived in Idaho for 21 years and spoke at the first local Tea Party rally. Its the party. Its a psychological mass movement. People are coming here for freedom, thinking, I dont have to mask, I dont have to be nice.

Most people dont understand that we control only the county departments budgets, he continued. They think were legislators. They want to know where we stand on gun rights and abortion. They want us to reflect their values.

Fillios succinctly summed up his partys paradoxical predicament: Weve become so politicized with this single-party dominance.

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Why Theres a Civil War in Idaho Inside the GOP - POLITICO

Glenn Youngkin waves to the crowd at his inauguration on Saturday Jan. 15, in Richmond, Va. Scott Elmquist/VPM hide caption

Glenn Youngkin waves to the crowd at his inauguration on Saturday Jan. 15, in Richmond, Va.

Businessman Glenn Youngkin was sworn in as the 74th governor of Virginia on Saturday in Richmond, the first Republican to hold the office in nearly a decade.

"No matter who you voted for, I pledge to be your advocate, your voice, your governor," Youngkin said in his inaugural speech, offering a message of unity that, at times, was absent from the campaign. "Our politics have become too toxic. Soundbites have replaced solutions taking precedence over good faith problem-solving."

But during his speech, the crowd was loudest, and many stood on their feet, when Youngkin spoke about "removing politics from the classroom." On the campaign trail, he frequently talked about parents' rights to say what is taught in school.

Two history-making Republicans also took the oath of office. Former state Delegate Jason Miyares was sworn in as attorney general, the first Latino elected to statewide office. And former state Delegate Winsome Sears is now lieutenant governor, the first Black woman to hold that title.

Youngkin began leaving his mark shortly after the inauguration when he signed several executive orders. His first executive order bans what he calls "divisive concepts" including critical race theory from teacher diversity trainings, as well as "all guidelines, websites, best practices, and other materials" produced by Virginia's Department of Education, and orders a review of school curriculum for CRT-related content. Youngkin campaigned heavily on the notion that school equity programs designed to address systemic racism had gone too far. Critics noted CRT does not appear in Virginia's K-12 curricula and accused Youngkin of stoking racial resentment.

Another order attempts to fast-track Virginia's removal from a regional carbon cap-and-trade program. Youngkin also ordered an end to a mask mandate for public schools and scrapped a vaccine or weekly testing mandate for state employees put in place by outgoing Gov. Ralph Northam. Several school districts, including Arlington and Richmond, said they would keep their mask mandates in place.

Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond, says some of the policies were likely to be met with legal challenges.

"I think he's pushing the envelope," Tobias says. "And I think the General Assembly will be unhappy with some of it, too."

Youngkin's victory in November shocked Democrats who after President Biden's 10-point margin in the state were hoping former Gov. Terry McAuliffe would be able to return to the governor's mansion and continue the party's grip on an office.

But Youngkin's campaign turned out many voters in rural Virginia and made inroads in suburban areas of the state. The former private equity CEO framed his lack of political experience as an asset.

In addition to seizing control of all three statewide offices, Republicans also hold a 52-48 majority in the House of Delegates after flipping seven seats in the 100-member chamber. During their brief time in the majority, Democrats raised the minimum wage, abolished the death penalty, expanded access to voting and legalized marijuana.

Republicans are hoping to work with the new governor to roll back some of the more progressive elements of those new laws. But they'll have to cajole or compromise with Democrats in the state Senate, where Democrats still hold a 21-19 edge, with broader margins on key committees.

Republican Winsome Sears waves to supporters just before taking the oath of office for lieutenant governor in Richmond on Saturday. Scott Elmquist/VPM hide caption

Republican Winsome Sears waves to supporters just before taking the oath of office for lieutenant governor in Richmond on Saturday.

Youngkin will also have to face an issue that he didn't talk about on the campaign trail: figuring out how Virginia's new marijuana industry will work. Democrats legalized marijuana in small amounts, but the system for retail sales still hasn't been established.

Youngkin's cabinet includes a mix of political newcomers as well as veterans of state and federal government, including staffers who worked under former President Donald Trump. That includes natural resources secretary nominee Andrew Wheeler, a former coal lobbyist and administrator of Trump's Environmental Protection Agency who rolled back protections passed by former President Barack Obama.

Wheeler's nomination sparked immediate outcry among Senate Democrats in Virginia, who are hoping to block his nomination. The fight over Wheeler's nomination could be an early test of Youngkin's ability to work his way through delicate political situations. Youngkin has so far ignored those protests, calling Wheeler "incredibly qualified" in an interview with member station VPM on Tuesday.

Northam, the outgoing Democrat, has said he's unlikely to run for office again. He faced widespread calls to resign in February 2019 after reporters surfaced a racist photo on his medical school yearbook page. Northam ultimately denied he was in the photo, stood down those calls and went on to sign sweeping policy changes pushed by Democratic majorities. The pediatric neurologist is set to resume seeing patients on Monday.

Ben Paviour covers state politics for member station VPM; Michael Pope works as a reporter for Virginia Public Radio.

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Republican Glenn Youngkin is sworn in as the governor of Virginia - NPR

Rep. David ValadaoDavid Goncalves ValadaoEach state's population center, visualized Jarring GOP divisions come back into spotlight Trump allies target Katko over infrastructure vote MORE (R-Calif.), one of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach former President TrumpDonald TrumpMcCarthy says he won't cooperate with 'illegitimate' Jan. 6 probe McEnany sits down with Jan. 6 investigators Hillicon Valley YouTube takes some heat MORE last year, announced on Wednesday that he would be running in California's newly drawn 22nd congressional district.

Ill continue to be an independent member of Congress who will stand up to the divisive partisanship in Washington D.C., get things done to grow our local economy, and deliver more water for our farmers and communities, Valadao said in a statement. Im excited to earn the vote of old friends as well as new voters across Kern, Kings, and Tulare Counties.

Valadao currently represents the 21st congressional district in California, which includes Kings County in addition to parts of Kern, Fresno and Tulare Counties.

The former president was impeached in the House last year for his role in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. Trump was eventually acquitted in the Senate.

Several House Republicans, including Reps. Adam KinzingerAdam Daniel KinzingerMcCarthy says he won't cooperate with 'illegitimate' Jan. 6 probe On The Trail: Retirements offer window into House Democratic mood House GOP members introduce legislation targeting Russia over Ukraine MORE (R-Ill.) and Anthony GonzalezAnthony GonzalezOn The Trail: Retirements offer window into House Democratic mood Lessons learned from 1990s internet commerce regulation: First, do no harm GOP's Rice says he regrets Jan. 6 vote against Biden's election MORE (R-Ohio), who voted to impeach Trump announced last year that they would not be seeking re-election, indicating there is less room within the Republican Party for those who spoke out against the former president to continue their political careers.

However, the situation is different in the Senate. Sen. Lisa MurkowskiLisa Ann MurkowskiNYT columnist floats Biden-Cheney ticket in 2024 Schumer, McConnell clash over filibuster amid voting rights push Trump rips GOP senator who called 2020 election 'fair' MORE (R-Alaska) one of seven senators to vote to impeach Trump announced she would be running for re-election last November.

Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), the chairman of the Senate GOP campaign arm, said in November he would help her reelection efforts despite the fact that Trump already endorsed her GOP primary challenger.

You had said you're going to support all incumbents. And I'm just curious, does that include Lisa Murkowski, where the former president has endorsed a primary challenger? And when you say you support, does that mean you will financially support Lisa Murkowski and actually help run a campaign against a primary opponent? Meet the Press hostChuck ToddCharles (Chuck) David ToddFormer Biden adviser says US won't get more than 70 percent vaccinated 'without a mandate' Raskin: Grisham told Jan. 6 panel about 'names that I had not heard before' Lightfoot calls Chicago Teachers Union walkout 'illegal' MORE asked Scott last November.

Absolutely. ... We support all of our incumbents, Scott answered. And fortunately for us, we've got great candidates running in our primaries. And fortunately for us, we've got Bernie SandersBernie SandersOvernight Health Care CDC won't change mask recommendation Briahna Joy Gray: Voting rights advocates 'frustrated' with Biden The Memo: Biden's overpromising problem MORE candidates on the other side in many primaries, and so we're going to be in a great position in 22.

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Republican rep who voted to impeach Trump running for reelection | TheHill - The Hill

After President Joe Biden delivered a speech imploring the Senate to pass a voting-rights bill, an angry Mitt Romney took to the Senate floor to denounce him. Biden accused a number of my good and principled colleagues in the Senate of having sinister, even racist inclinations, he complained. (Imagine! Racists! In the Republican Party! In this day and age!)

But more troubling, Romney continued, was Bidens description of Republican voting restrictions as part of a scheme to turn the will of the voters into a mere suggestion. Here Romney unsheathed his sharpest insult, comparing Biden to Donald Trump: And so, President Biden goes down the same tragic road taken by President Trump casting doubt on the reliability of American elections.

Romney speaks for an important faction of Republican elites who may abhor Trumps naked authoritarianism (either openly, like Romney, or more often in private) but also believe fervently in their partys policy of voter suppression. Romneys position holds the pivotal point in the U.S. Senate: Anti-Trump, pro-voter-suppression Republicans like him are the key impediment to passing any voting-rights bills.

The Trump strain and the Romney strain have crucial differences. Trump is willing to support almost any measure, legal or extralegal, in order to maintain power. Romney abhors violence and venerates rule-following but shares Trumps belief that the franchise is more privilege than a right, and supports his partys blizzard of voting impediments to keep the Democratic hordes at bay.

Romneys allies in the Republican partys non-insurrectionary wing see their stance as the antithesis of Trumpism. What they seem unable to grasp is the degree to which his crude and even violent brand of authoritarianism is a product of their refined elitist version.

Traditional Republicans generally subscribe to some or all of the following three propositions:

First, Democrats habitually engage in wide-scale, undetected vote fraud, especially in large cities. (A leading congressional Republican once confided at an off-the-record event that he doubted the legitimacy of Bill Clintons 1996 election, which Clinton won by 8.5 percent of the vote, owing to presumptive vote-padding.)

Second, even if the votes are technically legal, the geographically concentrated nature of Democratic voting reduces its legitimacy. This is a belief expressed by the ubiquitous conflation of maps showing red occupying most land space with Republican majorities. This belief is the only way to make sense of otherwise bizarre comments, like Robin Vos,the Republican Speaker of the Wisconsin State Assembly, casually asserting, If you took Madison and Milwaukee out of the state-election formula, we would have a clear majority.

And third, elections would be better if the electorate was refined by winnowing out uninformed or unmotivated voters. Conservative pundits proudly and openly write lines like this, from National Review in 2016: We must weed out ignorant Americans from the electorate. And Republicans occasionally blurt out comments like this, by the Republican chair of Arizonas Government and Elections Committee: Everybody shouldnt be voting Not everybody wants to vote, and if somebody is uninterested in voting, that probably means that theyre totally uninformed on the issues. Quantity is important, but we have to look at the quality of votes, as well.

These convictions inspire voting restrictions that bring together pro-Trump and Trump-skeptical Republicans alike. Republicans, with little to no intraparty dissent, have passed laws to winnow the electorate of voters who are either illegal or, in Republican eyes, undeserving. These measures include reducing the hours of voting or the locations where votes can be cast, requiring voters to jump through bureaucratic hoops (separate registration and acquiring papers or identification, often at different buildings open only during working hours), or even (in Florida) to pay back fines in order to vote.

One indication of the depth of Republican unanimity on voting restriction is their complete unwillingness to entertain any protections against abusive voter suppression. In November, Senator Joe Manchin proposed a compromise voting-rights bill. His plan would have allowed voter identification requirements, but required states to allow an array of legitimate acceptable identification, including utility bills. (States like Texas recognize gun permits, but not student identification, as legitimate ID.) It would combine automatic vote registration with measures to clean up voting rolls, make Election Day a national holiday, let volunteers provide water and snacks to voters waiting in long lines, accept provisional ballots from registered voters who appear at the wrong precinct, and other modest proposals to make voting less burdensome.

The only Senate Republican to show any interest in Manchins compromise is barely-a-Republican Lisa Murkowski. The rest of the caucus has taken the view that restricting the electorate as it sees fit is a matter of states rights.

It is important to understand that many Republican advocates of voter suppression hold Trump in at least equal contempt as advocates of voting rights. Georgia governor Brian Kemp may represent the archetype of the anti-Trump vote suppressor. In 2018, while simultaneously running for his office and serving in a job overseeing elections as secretary of State, Kemp closed 200 polling locations, primarily in minority neighborhoods, and purged hundreds of thousands of people from the voting rolls, many of the victims merely for failing to cast a vote in the previous election.

Its impossible to tell whether these restrictions played a decisive role in his narrow win. (Precisely how many people were deterred from voting, and how many of them would have voted for his opponent, is a matter of conjecture.) But Kemp was perfectly clear beforehand that he saw minority turnout as a primary threat to his success, telling supporters, You know the Democrats are working hard, and all these stories about them, you know, registering all these minority voters that are out there and others that are sitting on the sidelines, if they can do that, they can win these elections in November.

Yet Kemp also bravely defied Trumps efforts to undo the 2020 election results in the state, making himself a target of a Trump-backed primary that threatens to end his career. Its important to understand that many advocates of these laws hold Trump and liberal supporters of voting rights in at least equal contempt. From their standpoint, they occupy the midpoint between two equally noxious populist threats: to their left, Democrats who would open the floodgates to illegal or unqualified voters and delegitimize any outcome those restrictions produced, and to their right, Trump supporters who push to overturn elections Democrats win in spite of Republican-designed voting restrictions.

None of these Republicans seem to have contemplated how their assumptions about Democratic perfidy directly inspired Trumps response. Trumps most powerful appeal to the Republican base has always been to cast the partys leadership as weak losers who passively accept defeat.

If Its Not Close, They Cant Cheat is the title of a book by conservative talk-show host Hugh Hewitt. The book is not dedicated to uncovering Democratic vote fraud it provides barely a wisp of evidence for any but, rather, assumes its pervasive existence as a starting point. Hewitt reasoned that, since Republicans cant stop Democrats from cheating at the polls, their best recourse is to win elections by overwhelming margins. That book came out in 2004, before Republicans responded to Barack Obamas election by emphasizing vote-suppression measures. Two years later, he wrote a book making the case for Romney as the partys presidential nominee.

Trumpism offers a more intuitive response to the assumptions Republicans like Hewitt have long held. If it is true that Democrats always cheat, why should Republicans have to win by huge margins every time? Why not fight fire with fire?

The approach to elections of a Romney or a Kemp is not as dangerous as Trumps, not by a long shot. It is, at least, peaceful and stable, lacking the reckless Trump lurch into total systemic collapse virtues we cannot take for granted. But it also falls far short of the democratic ideal Americans have taught themselves as a shared creed. You might even call it sinister.

Analysis and commentary on the latest political news from New York columnist Jonathan Chait.

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Republican Voting-Rights Opponents May Be Better Than Trumpists, But Theyre Not Good - New York Magazine