MAGA 'authoritarians' are still set on tearing down democracy — even after taking a beating in the midterms

On Wednesday, writing for The Daily Beast, political and national security analyst David Rothkopf warned that Trump's "authoritarian" allies and followers still have grand designs of dismantling American civil institutions and killing democracy — and while the GOP's underperformance in 2022 was a setback, it was by no means the end of their ambitions.

"Yes, many prominent election deniers lost their races, but a disquieting number of them won at both the national and local levels. And the GOP supermajority on the Supreme Court isn’t going anywhere — which means more fundamental rights are threatened, and partisans will have friends in high places should they want to distort election results in the future," wrote Rothkopf. "We must look at the would-be contenders to carry the GOP banner during the 2024 presidential campaign and understand that, like the last Republican president, they are drawn like moths to the authoritarian flame. Their goal is to incinerate checks on presidential power and to suppress the will of all those who may oppose them."

Voters stopped the "red wave" last week, driven largely by anger over the loss of abortion rights and fear about efforts to undermine democracy — but, wrote Rothkopf, there's still plenty of institutional power Republicans have to flex.

"The House and the Senate are now left roughly evenly divided between the party that favors majority rule and the one still fighting for minority rule," wrote Rothkopf. "So, too, are statehouses. While many proponents of the Big Lie lost, and Donald Trump was revealed as toxic to many of those who defended him, hundreds of others — including Sen. Ron Johnson and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene — retained or gained high office. The GOP also made important inroads in once deep blue states like New York. And many of the victories celebrated by Democrats were excruciatingly close."

The Supreme Court, he wrote, is also still captured and still considering many dangerous cases: "Some of SCOTUS’ decisions will address arcane issues — like the ability of legislatures to determine which votes in a presidential election are counted and which may be ignored. Some will be efforts to block funding for departments and functions that are vital to protecting the integrity of our government. And some will be subtler still, like ongoing GOP efforts to make it easier to fire government officials who choose to honor their oaths of office and serve the Constitution rather than follow the directives of one politician or his or her party."

"At each and every level that Trump and his authoritarian-minded acolytes threaten the fundamental principles on which the United States was founded, we must identify the threat, fight to repel it, and in the end preserve what we value most," concluded Rothkopf. "Fortunately, we will have dedicated public servants doing the same, as well as trusted political leaders who are committed to the same goals. It is this coalition upon which the future of our democracy will ultimately depend. Last week’s election showed the strength of that coalition, now we must all work to ensure its long-term success."