Republican Party Heading In ‘Authoritarian’ Direction Because Of Trump, Say Analysts
In a panel discussion broadcast on Sunday, political analysts Ron Brownstein and Max Boot opined that the Republican Party is heading in an “authoritarian” direction because of Donald Trump, Raw Story reports.
The main topic of the discussion was Donald Trump’s decision to declare a national emergency. As detailed by a previous Inquisitr report, on February 16, President Trump declared a national emergency in an effort to put an end to the ongoing “crisis” at the southern border.
The president’s decision came as no surprise, given that he had previously signaled opting for radical maneuvers, but came across push back. Nevertheless, building a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border is a top priority for Trump, and the president appears to have finally found a way to allocate funds and circumvent the U.S. Congress.
According to Ron Brownstein and Max Boot, Donald Trump’s actions are not only “unconstitutional,” but also a sign that the Republican Party is heading in an “authoritarian” direction, and undergoing immense changes under Trump’s leadership.
Boot explained that President Barack Obama invoked executive authority because the Republican Party held both chambers of Congress, and cautioned against Trump doing the same. According to the analyst, the Republicans cannot allow Trump to invoke emergency powers to bypass Congress. Allowing this to happen would be an “undermining” of the U.S. Constitution, he said.
“It will really be establishing the Republican Party as an authoritarian party that’s not willing to uphold our democratic norms and the Constitution itself, that they’re willing to do whatever President Trump wants.”
Ron Brownstein agreed with Max Boot, predicting that House and Senate Republicans will support Trump. According to the analyst, that “will just continue the extent to which he is refashioning this party. Not only in an authoritarian direction, as Max just said, but also in a kind of nativist and insular direction.”
Trump is destroying the future of the Republican Party by forcing Senators to back him up: political analysthttps://t.co/WyYXq3J0e5
— Raw Story (@RawStory) February 17, 2019
According to Brownstein, Donald Trump has managed to remake the Republican Party in his own image. He explained this metamorphosis by pointing out that the vast majority of Republican senators were opposed to the idea of a border wall in 2016. Now, Brownstein said, the majority supports it.
The analyst concluded that the Republican Party is not only “hostile” to immigration, but also opposed to impending demographic change in the United States, which could further alienate it as time goes by.
“You see how he’s kind of wallowing in the party into defining itself as kind of an institution that’s systemically hostile not only to immigration but to the broader level of demographic change in the country,” he said.
According to Brownstein, young voters — Millennials in particular — reject such ideas.
