By Theda Skocpol, James Madison Lecture | American Political Science Association, September 6, 2024
I am greatly honored by receipt of the James Madison Award and thankful for this opportunity to engage with so many thoughtful colleagues. From the moment I was notified, I realized the Award is not just a passive honor; it requires preparing a lecture to address pressing public challenges, in the proud tradition of previous honorees. I delayed my presentation from last year’s convention partly in the hope that the challenges facing U.S. democracy – my subject – would clarify by now. Little did I realize how stark the clarifications would turn out to be – above all, once a partisan Supreme Court majority voted to overturn the anti-monarchical core of the U.S. Constitution (Shane 2024a), shortly before one of America’s two major political parties nominated an ethno-nationalist, would-be authoritarian for president.
Today, I therefore grapple with the pressing question before us as social scientists and as citizens: How and why have U.S. politics and governance arrived at the present juncture where longstanding Constitutional practices and democratically responsive governance are very much at stake? My answer focuses on what I see as the prime driver of the current crisis: the recent radicalization of the Republican Party and its allies, as they have pursued two forms and phases of antidemocratic politics. The first version involves maximum use of legal hardball steps that stretch existing laws and rules to disadvantage partisan opponents (I also call this approach “McConnellism” in honor of its chief practitioner, outgoing GOP Senate Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky). The second approach targets political competitors and government operations with extralegal harassment, threats of violence, and even actual violence. Drawing on my own research with many collaborators, as well as from many excellent studies by colleagues in political science and beyond, I will dissect the elite and popular roots of recent Republican embrace of both forms of antidemocratic politics….
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