The Los Angeles Times reported a week ago about a secretly recorded audio tape that captured a private meeting between Los Angeles City Council President Nury Martinez, council members Gil Cedillo and Kevin de León, and Ron Herrera, president of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, in October 2021.
While the conversation was nominally about political strategy, the recording included Martinez making racist and bigoted remarks.
The backlash by fellow Democrats was swift, from the White House to the LA mayoral candidates.
Within three days Martinez resigned from the city council.
“When a Democrat says something racist or antisemitic, we hold Democrats accountable. When a MAGA Republican says something racist or antisemitic, they are embraced by cheering crowds and become celebrated,” said Karine Jean-Pierre the White House press secretary.
Around the same time, the Republican candidate for governor of Arizona echoed the former president’s reckless words, claiming asylum seekers “are bringing drugs. They are bringing crime, and they are rapists, and that’s who’s coming across our border.”
According to studies conducted by the libertarian Cato Institute and the US Department of Justice, undocumented immigrants commit crimes at substantially lower rates than native-born citizens.
The Republican gubernatorial candidate’s border plan is based on an untested legal strategy, relying on a clause of the United States Constitution that grants states war powers if the federal government fails to protect them.
At its heart is the notion of declaring an “invasion,” which also furthers the former president’s anti-immigrant rhetoric.
With the former president doubling down last week on “disloyal Jews” not showing him enough gratitude, any candidate who parrots his phobic rhetoric is deeply frightening.
Meanwhile, Republicans have been silent. No condemnations. No apologies.
Republican statewide candidates in Arizona did begin sounding the alarm last week that the election is rigged and they may lose.
It’s not surprising given that they all made the same claims before the primary. Primary they won.
It’s a tactic to carefully legitimize the continuous unfounded suspicion of voter fraud while not creating enough distrust in the system that Republican voters don’t bother voting.
While Republican candidates throughout the country used the Benghazi congressional hearings to motivate their base before the 2014 midterm elections, the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol attack hasn’t made it a significant campaign issue.
Instead, the hearings have remained focused on gathering evidence about how to defend democracy and democratic processes.
The attack on contemporary American democracy on January 6 was unprecedented, and the hearings have startled even those close to President Trump and accustomed to his dishonesty.
Regressive politicians have risen to power through democratic elections worldwide, including in the United States, only to undermine and demolish democracy and its processes deliberately.
They accuse elections of being unfair without providing evidence, then use it as a justification to change the rules and pack neutral monitoring bodies and courts with political loyalists.
They frequently depend on racist appeals and rail against minorities, citing the need to purify the country and restore outdated and unequal “traditional values.”
The extremism and white supremacy on display in the United States are part of a larger global pattern of democratic backsliding.
There are rising concerns that many countries, both established and emerging democracies, are becoming less dedicated to democratic ideals and processes.