There’s an old saying among my people about the Stupid Party and the Evil party. Whatever it does to your measures of “democracy” and “stability,” the Stupid Party becoming (marginally) smarter is a good thing.
Do you have good reason to think that the changes described here involve “the Stupid Party becoming marginally smarter”?
I think you should distinguish between “is a good thing” and “is not wholly, purely, a bad thing”. If something both makes the Stupid Party a little smarter and destabilizes the nation’s democracy, it might on balance be either good or bad.
To the extent that “Republicans now believe that the arrests are politically motivated, and that Democrats are defecting against longstanding political norms” is true, that’s strong evidence that they’re becoming smarter, since it would be typical-for-them stupidity to believe (or act like they believe, which is close enough in this context) otherwise.
I’m puzzled by your first paragraph. You’re suggesting that up until now it has been typical for the Republican Party to believe and claim that Democrats are acting sincerely in the best interests of the US and of democracy and aren’t politically motivated?
I have to say that that isn’t particularly how it’s looked to me.
Do you have concrete examples where Republicans (on the whole) treated things the Democrats were doing as sincere and well-intentioned and reasonable where in fact (according to your opinion, or later consensus as more information emerged) they were politically motivated / antidemocratic / contrary to political norms?
There’s an old saying among my people about the Stupid Party and the Evil party. Whatever it does to your measures of “democracy” and “stability,” the Stupid Party becoming (marginally) smarter is a good thing.
Do you have good reason to think that the changes described here involve “the Stupid Party becoming marginally smarter”?
I think you should distinguish between “is a good thing” and “is not wholly, purely, a bad thing”. If something both makes the Stupid Party a little smarter and destabilizes the nation’s democracy, it might on balance be either good or bad.
To the extent that “Republicans now believe that the arrests are politically motivated, and that Democrats are defecting against longstanding political norms” is true, that’s strong evidence that they’re becoming smarter, since it would be typical-for-them stupidity to believe (or act like they believe, which is close enough in this context) otherwise.
I do distinguish those.
I’m puzzled by your first paragraph. You’re suggesting that up until now it has been typical for the Republican Party to believe and claim that Democrats are acting sincerely in the best interests of the US and of democracy and aren’t politically motivated?
I have to say that that isn’t particularly how it’s looked to me.
Do you have concrete examples where Republicans (on the whole) treated things the Democrats were doing as sincere and well-intentioned and reasonable where in fact (according to your opinion, or later consensus as more information emerged) they were politically motivated / antidemocratic / contrary to political norms?