The American Right has long had a hostile relationship with democracy, embracing the anti-democratic nature of the Constitution and using both legal and violent methods to keep as few people voting as possible.

In the twentieth century, numerous popular struggles faced years of resistance to expand democratic rights, eventually bringing about the direct election of senators and then the right to vote for women, black people, and adults under twenty-one. But while the Right generally no longer opposes democratic rights in principle — at least in public — over the past few years it has significantly accelerated its project of undermining fair elections. Simply put, the situation is dire.

Republicans are very unlikely to do anything as ham-fisted as suspending elections, freedom of speech, or the right to assembly entirely. But everywhere Republicans have power, they have increasingly stacked the deck in order to advance the Right and suppress or disadvantage racial minorities and the Left.