Extremism Threatens to Destroy America, Is There a Realistic Way to Stop It?

There is something particularly nasty about China’s Xi Jinping and Russia’s Vladimir Putin licking their lips in their arrogant and absolute certainty of the rapid downfall of the United States. They and other malign states (e.g., North Korea, Iran, etc.) are not above pushing America over the edge by identifying fears and biases in US voters (data is instantly available with minimal online data scraping) and spreading mis- and dis-information through social media and simple robotic emails that self-tailor to those biases. They love conspiracy theories sent to the vulnerable with predispositions to believe them.

Clearly, China and Russia favor MAGA supports because the GOP leadership seems to admire restrictive autocrats and favors US withdrawal from international involvement at almost every level. Hence, most of this election interference aimed at the United States – although they are doing similar interference in voting systems everywhere – heavily against Joe Biden and Democrats… and Republicans who support aiding Ukraine.

For example, as Hungary's prime minister, Viktor Orbán, increased his illiberal “reforms,” crushing the opposition press and championing right-wing Christian nationalist policies, he skates perilously close to getting Hungary ousted from the European Union. But Orbán is wildly popular with MAGA Republicans, who have both sent an admiring delegation to Budapest and have even invited him as a keynote speaker at the GOP’s Conservative Political Action Conference's annual gathering in Dallas last August. His speech was repeatedly interrupted with cheers and applause. Orbán is notoriously close to Putin, hesitant in supporting aid to Ukraine and exceptionally harsh to those who oppose his right-wing policies. No wonder China and Russia are pushing against Biden toward MAGA candidates.

To challenge democracy even more here in the US, a 2010 Supreme Court ruling (Citizens United vs FEC) effectively took the cap off independently controlled campaign contributions. This enabled right-wing extremists to pour millions and millions of dollars to support their exceptionally radical issues. This in turn moved what were once long-shot marginal candidates to embrace those extremes in order to garner massive contributions to their own campaigns. The result was that candidates who once could not get elected are now overwhelming and taking over the GOP. The left was nowhere near this level of funding. Hence, the digging in their heels, for example, the GOP House Freedom Caucus blocked the debt ceiling vote with policies seriously out of step with most voters. The funding enabled by Citizens United is illegal in almost every other democracy in the world, buying elections with massive contributions is just not allowed. The recent spate of 6-3 right-wing Supreme Court rulings was enabled by candidates with elections with that funding.

We’ve seen “ranked choice voting” in some mayoral elections, but Alaska is the first state to apply the procedure to state elections (last year). Harder for extremists to get elected. It is an election system that places all candidates on the same ballot. Implementing this structure is still controversial, especially where extremists are in control. Writing for the July 3rd Los Angeles Times, Mark Z. Barabak explains how ranked-choice balloting works: “In a typical election, the candidate with the most votes wins. Under the ranked-choice system, if no candidate receives a majority of first-choice votes, a new round of tabulation begins. The candidate with the poorest showing is eliminated and those votes are awarded to their supporters’ second pick. The process continues until someone receives a majority.

“The notion is that by competing en masse not just to finish first but also to be voters’ second choice, successful candidates will have to appeal to a broader segment of the electorate… As experts recently explained in the Anchorage Daily News, ‘Encouraging politicians to take more extreme views ... [makes] our legislatures increasingly dysfunctional. Instead of meeting in the middle to find solutions both sides can live with, they drive legislators further apart and make it harder to agree.’

“The most recent session of the Alaska Legislature proved instructive… There was less reflexive partisanship and more cooperation across party lines, those experts said, attributing the change to the state’s revamped voting system. They cited the budget lawmakers passed and, in particular, the agreed-upon disbursements from the state’s Permanent Fund, an account that pays residents annual dividends from Alaska’s oil wealth.

“Writing in the Anchorage paper, political scientists Glenn Wright, David Lublin and Benjamin Reilly noted the dividend was smaller than many Republicans would have liked, but that left more money for education and programs that others preferred… ‘A classic political compromise,’ they called it, suggesting that ‘rather than spending their time bashing the other party,’ lawmakers chosen under the new system reached across the aisle and bargained to reach a consensus…

“It worked splendidly… Sen. Lisa Murkowski, a relatively moderate mainstream Republican, won reelection in November by defeating a MAGA fundamentalist trying to avenge Murkowski’s vote punishing President Trump for the Jan. 6 insurrection… The state’s sole House seat was captured by Mary Peltola, a relatively moderate mainstream Democrat, who thwarted a comeback bid by the far-right pugilist Sarah Palin.” Or we can continue catering to the desires of right-wing strongmen, our obvious and declared enemies, who delight in watching America self-destruct from toxic polarization where extremists have bought and elected politicians who have vowed never to compromise.

I’m Peter Dekom, and as extremists push hard to keep voters who oppose them from having an impact on elections, the only losers are… all Americans who believe in democracy.