One more thought on the broader context of this: Many of the loudest pundits who oppose the idea of disqualifying Trump fundamentally reject the entire framework of describing Trump and his enablers in the Republican Party as a threat to democracy. They are dangerously wrong. 1/ - ThreadSky

thomaszimmer.bsky.social • 365 days ago

One more thought on the broader context of this: Many of the loudest pundits who oppose the idea of disqualifying Trump fundamentally reject the entire framework of describing Trump and his enablers in the Republican Party as a threat to democracy. They are dangerously wrong. 1/

Reposted from Thomas Zimmer

Exactly! All this “let the people decide” talk is remarkably backwards. The people decided in November 2020: Trump lost, and attempted an auto-coup in response. That is the sole reason why the insurrection clause came into play at all: January 6 was the anti-democratic part.

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thomaszimmer.bsky.social•365 days ago

Consequently, they reject the idea that the system is justified in treating the ex-president and MAGA extremists accordingly. Remember, for instance, the visceral reaction from people like Ross Douthat to Biden’s “soul of the nation” speech in Philadelphia in September 2022. 2/

thomaszimmer.bsky.social•365 days ago

The critique of the idea that politics was defined by a conflict between democratic forces, uniting behind the Democrats and against MAGA candidates across the country, and anti-democratic forces dominating the GOP previously peaked around the 2022 midterm elections. 3/

thomaszimmer.bsky.social•365 days ago

Another prominent voice in the camp of those who opposed what they diagnosed as liberal or leftwing “alarmism” was Shadi Hamid, who has since become a columnist and a member of the Editorial Board at the Washington Post. 4/

thomaszimmer.bsky.social•365 days ago

Hamid offered what he called “democratic minimalism” as an alternative framework. In essence, Hamid demanded we regard democracy as just a set of procedures, not as something that entails any substantive commitments – in essence reducing it to, first and foremost, elections. 5/

thomaszimmer.bsky.social•365 days ago

And since there are, in this understanding, by definition no bad outcomes resulting from democratic procedures, any election result would therefore also have to be considered good from a democratic point of view. 6/

thomaszimmer.bsky.social•365 days ago

According to Hamid and Douthat, if Americans were to make Trump president again via an election, then that is not only something all (small-d) democrats need to accept, but consider a normatively positive democratic outcome. 7/

michaelalbert.bsky.social•365 days ago

Hamid in 2020 said he did fear Democrats rejecting a Trump victory, so he clearly thought that would be a problem. But apparently only if Democrats did it.

timhenke.bsky.social•364 days ago

Maddening how many people are concerned about democracy only in the most theoretical way, but never seem concerned about people who are clear about their intention to be a concrete threat to it

Democracy, like so many other things, was hollowed out to nothing more than a cheap rhetorical device

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