Zack Beauchamp writes:

The Republican Party is the biggest threat to American democracy today. It is a radical, obstructionist faction that has become hostile to the most basic democratic norm: that the other side should get to wield power when it wins elections.

A few years ago, these statements may have sounded like partisan Democratic hyperbole. But in the wake of the January 6 attack on the Capitol and Trump’s acquittal in the Senate on the charge of inciting it, they seem more a plain description of where we’re at as a country.

But how deep does the GOP’s problem with democracy run, really? How did things get so bad? And is it likely to get worse?

[Vox presents] 13 charts that illustrate the depth of the problem and how we got here. The story they tell is sobering: At every level, from the elite down to rank-and-file voters, the party is permeated with anti-democratic political attitudes and agendas. And the prospects for rescuing the Republican Party, at least in the short term, look grim indeed. [Continue reading…]