The Delusionalists

 Every year, CPAC happens and we point and laugh at things like the Trump Golden Calf or whatever stupid stupidity the stupid people do. Meanwhile, this year there is a concurrent white supremacist convention happening down the street. Roy Edroso wonders if they have a shuttle bus. 

Then you read things like this survey. Only 42% of Republican policy makers believe the election was legitimate AND THAT'S THE GOOD NEWS. That number collapses to 22% among the general Republican electorate. We have entered into a doom cycle on the right, where every election is proof that things are being rigged against them, because they keep losing elections. At no point will they admit that their really unpopular policy ideas or repellent personal views or behavior is to blame. It must be because the system is rigged.

Look at Texas, plunged into a preventable catastrophe by a fetish for deregulation. That SHOULD make people in Texas vote for Democrats, and if it does, that will simply be another example of how the system is rigged against Republicans, rather than force them to examine their crappy policy preferences. Joe Biden HAS created bipartisan support for his Covid relief package, just not among Republican office holders. So every Republican in the House is on the record for opposing Covid relief. Ideally, this would lead to them losing elections, because people want this to pass. It won't in most cases, however. When it does, it will be a sign of a nefarious plot against white people Americans.

This is why Republicans - faced with electoral peril - have simply lapsed into a cult of personality around a grifting reality TV star. This is why they have convinced themselves to support someone who is a raging narcissist and a moron and lazy and unfit in every way for public service: because he "stands up for them" by hating on "liberals" like he does. 

The single greatest current threat to American democracy is the Republican Party as currently constituted.

UPDATE: Nancy LeTourneau has a similar, more comprehensive take on how the GOP has simply given up on it's generations-long fight against the New Deal. Ending the rein of the Paul Ryan-type Republicans is..fine? Except all that leaves the GOP with is a desire to hold power to...wage war against the New Deal. And it hold power, they have to lean into white supremacy and grievance.