Former US president Donald Trump (Image: AP)
Former US president Donald Trump (Image: AP)

Donald Trump told the truth. In March 2020, the US president declared on his favourite program Fox & Friends: “They had levels of voting that if you ever agreed to it you’d never have a Republican elected in this country again.”

His observation was startling — not for its insight, but for its raw honesty. Republicans know their ideas are not supported by most Americans. That isn’t a secret. However, few of them blurt it out.

By now it’s easy to recite what Republicans want: lower taxes; conservative judges; deregulation of big business; cheap labour; more money for the police and the military; healthcare only for those who can afford it; an abortion ban; repeal of laws protecting LGBTQ rights; ending affirmative action; religious preferences in favour of their version of Christianity; more guns.

Despite these being minority positions among the population, Republicans have been remarkably effective at imposing them. How do they do it?

They pick their voters

Since America’s founding, conservatives have opposed universal suffrage. Throughout the 20th century, presidential election turnout never exceeded two-thirds of qualified voters. From 1972 to 2016, turnout didn’t reach 60% meaning that in any given election, at least 40% of potential voters didn’t have their say.

2020 saw record voter turnout, prompted by strong sentiments for and against Trump, as well as expanded voter access in multiple states in response to the COVID-19 pandemic: 159 million voters out of 168 million registered cast their ballot. That’s a turnout rate of 95% of registered voters, which belies the claim that many Americans are too apathetic to vote. Even so, 63 million people who were not registered — more than a quarter of the electorate — went unheard.

Far from seeing their exclusion as a flaw in the world’s oldest democracy, Republicans embrace it. As Trump acknowledged, more voters make it harder for Republicans to win. While the US constitution grants the vote to all citizens over18, it leaves considerable leeway for state lawmakers to meddle with this right. Southern Democrats exploited this deficiency during the Jim Crow era to block Black voters with sinister subversions such as literacy tests, poll taxes, and jellybean counts. 

Their Republican successors use more modern techniques. They make voter registration cumbersome. They purge electoral rolls. They implement selective voter identification laws. They close polling stations in unfriendly precincts, and leave others understaffed resulting in hours-long queues.

They also gerrymander districts using sophisticated computer modelling. Every decade the US conducts its national census, after which federal and state legislative boundaries are redrawn. In most states partisan lawmakers and officials are in charge. But although both Democrats and Republicans engage in gerrymandering, Republicans have proved far more aggressive. They crack and pack voters to preordain election outcomes. The resulting electoral boundaries would make Elbridge Gerry blush. 

Gerrymandering helps Republicans win legislative majorities in federal and state elections even when they receive a minority of the popular vote. It also makes party primaries the real contest to decide who gets elected. Since most primaries draw only diehard voters, this can permit extremist candidates to win the nomination and subsequent election. In many Republican districts, political extremism is an advantage in the primaries.

Follow the money

Deep Throat issued his famous dictum “follow the money” to The Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein during the Watergate investigation in the early 1970s. His advice holds true today. The cost of democracy in America has long been eye-watering. After the 2010 Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United, which effectively permitted unlimited campaign spending, the sums have skyrocketed.

In the 2020 elections, $14 billion was spent on the presidential and congressional races — $90 for everyone who voted. However, since most voters reside in safe districts and solid states, the real spending impact was even more concentrated in competitive races. And this doesn’t include cash spent on state and local elections.

All this money doesn’t come without strings attached. It’s not usually as naked as outright bribery. That’s not necessary. Donors’ interests typically align with the views of their endorsed candidates. What it does buy is access and influence. It means the special interests have a seat at the table behind closed doors when decisions are being made. These include industry lobbyists, corporations, ultra-wealthy donors and ideological advocates.

The last of these are a special category in Republican politics. There is an entire ecosystem of hundreds of activist groups, from high-profile outfits like the Heritage Foundation, the National Rifle Association and the Federalist Society, to lesser-known affiliates such as Americans for Prosperity, the State Policy Network and the American Legislative Exchange Network (ALEC).

ALEC is one of the country’s most powerful organisations, yet few people have heard of it. Its primary role is to serve as a legislative factory, drafting and pushing model bills for Republican politicians. This helps Republicans enact their agenda nationwide.

Americans for Prosperity is one of dozens of outlets backed by the Koch network, the biggest whales in the conservative donor landscape. Using astroturfed fronts like this with innocuous sounding names, the Kochs (the world’s third-richest family) have shaped Republican politics since the Nixon era. The Tea Party, a supposedly grassroots right-wing movement that emerged after Barack Obama’s victory in 2008, was secretly bankrolled by the Kochs among others. Similar hidden sponsorships from dark money funders are driving the backlash against school boards and vaccine mandates across the nation.

Separation of powers

America’s founding fathers believed concentration of power in the hands of a single person or authority was the greatest threat to individual liberty. They devised a system to separate powers between the legislative, executive and judicial branches of government. In this way they hoped a system of checks and balances would safeguard their democratic experiment and protect the rights of citizens.

For good measure they divided authority between federal and state governments. This was driven as much by pragmatism as by idealism. Many of the founders were staunch defenders of state sovereignty and sceptical of federal rule. Without this concession, the new constitution would probably have been rejected.

While these overlapping powers have helped restrain authoritarian impulses, they have also made the status quo the default mode of governance. It is easier to obstruct reform than to implement it. It is easier to provoke gridlock and paralysis than to drive progress.

The federal-state divide provides additional opportunities for Republicans to prosecute their agenda. In many states Republicans dominate politically, and would do even without stacking the deck. Although their opinions may be out of step with the majority of the country as a whole, in some regions their constituents agree wholeheartedly.

This allows Republicans to cut taxes, loosen regulations, oppose wage rises, resist healthcare expansion, restrict abortion access, promote gun ownership, and push their religious preferences on a state-by-state basis.

The whole ball game

All these activities are sustained and reinforced in Republican ranks by a conservative media echo chamber. From Fox News to Breitbart to talk radio across the land, Republicans have excommunicated themselves from mainstream America. They are the minority party, and they know it. Trump’s “big lie”, the January 6 insurrection and the ongoing rolling coup reveal their increasing desperation.

In a functioning democracy, a sane political party unable to command majority support would adapt its policies. Republicans have rejected that — doubling down on minority rule. Their methods outlined above, while far from an exhaustive catalogue, have kept them in the hunt until now.

There is an antidote. Republicans know it. Democrats know it. Automatic voter registration is the whole ball game.

The missing 63 million voters in 2020 far outnumber the 9 million registered who didn’t vote. Of course, not all these missing citizens would vote if registered. But millions would. And while those who did wouldn’t all vote for Democrats, the fact that Republicans are pulling out all stops to prevent them voting tells you what they think would happen.

Automatic voter registration was first adopted in Oregon in 2015. Now 20 states and the District of Columbia have enacted similar rules. Eighteen of those plus Washington DC voted for Joe Biden last November. Of the 40 US senators representing those states, only four are Republicans.

Last week the Senate rejected debate on the Freedom to Vote Act. All 50 Republican senators voted against even discussing it. Automatic voter registration for all eligible adults is a key plank in the bill. If it becomes law, American politics will change overnight.

Next: this is a pivotal moment for US democracy. What happens next will affect not only America, but the rest of the world.