My Point of View by Jennifer Vogt-Erickson

 

It looks as though Minnesota’s Republican voters may only have one choice on their presidential primary ballot next year. South Carolina, Alaska, Nevada and Kansas canceled their primaries in support of Trump, but I never thought Minnesota Republicans would have their options arbitrarily limited like this.

Our state’s Republican chair, Jennifer Carnahan, has a conflict of interest in limiting those options because her husband, our congressman Jim Hagedorn, has hitched his campaign once again to the fortunes of President Trump. His leadership PAC is named MAGADORN, a portmanteau of MAGA and his last name. Carnahan not only displays her obsequiousness to Trump by not allowing any weakness of his to show in the primary, but also a less-than-strong showing by Trump could hurt her husband’s chances of re-election.

I was upset in 2016 when state DFL leaders like Amy Klobuchar, Al Franken and Tim Walz put their thumb on the scale and pledged their superdelegate votes to Hillary Clinton in spite of Minnesota primary voters (including those in the 1st District) favoring Bernie Sanders. Democrats reformed the superdelegate process in the wake of conflict that arose from this discrepancy. Carnahan’s deference goes well beyond that.

Will independent-minded Republicans demand a choice in the primary? I hope they fight it in court. Nobody benefits long-term when a major party hollows out their voting process to facilitate cult-like loyalty to a single figure.

When Trump visited Minneapolis in October, at least half a dozen people from Albert Lea were outside the Target Center protesting. I was on First Avenue, and the crowds were huge, diverse, creative and fun. Whistles blew constantly between chants in reference to the intelligence community whistleblower. For people looking for a crowd who shares a belief in equal justice under law, the party was outside.

Meanwhile, Trump was inside doing his shtick. He ticked off a dozen of his favorite hosts from FOX News by name. Of Brian Kilmeade, he said, “Brian’s gotten a lot better, right? Brian was a 7 and he’s getting close to 10 territory.”

This is highly abnormal and inappropriate behavior for a president. Trump says he just wants fairness from the media, but what he really wants is fealty, and that should be met with deep skepticism by any patriot.

For their part, journalists and news personalities should not want to be treated as presidential pets because it makes them look unprofessional and bought. True journalists provide accountability and demand transparency, and, as such, they are a crucial guardrail against authoritarianism. Great reporters don’t win a president’s adoration, but they may earn their grudging respect.

Trump’s speech was deranged from start to finish. Was the low point of the whole thing when Trump lied about Rep. Ilhan Omar’s position on ISIS and delved into unfounded right-wing conspiracies about her marriage? Or was it when he did an impression of former FBI spy hunter Peter Strzok having an orgasm while saying Lisa Page’s name?

(Yes, this really happened.)

As you can imagine, I completely reject Brad Edwin’s assessment in last week’s My Point of View column, “Throughout President Donald J. Trump’s entire speech, he talked with sincerity and honesty.”

Trump has high entertainment value, I’ll give him that, but he’s only sincere in his expectation of complete loyalty. His frequent and repeated lies (amplified by FOX News) are cyanide to a functioning democracy. Trump has already made over 13,000 false or misleading claims as president, according to the Washington Post, and his speech in Minneapolis was no deviation from that pattern.

According to Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt in “How Democracies Die” (2018), there are four main indicators of authoritarian behavior:

• Rejection of (or weak commitment to) democratic rules of the game

• Denial of the legitimacy of political opponents

• Toleration or encouragement of violence

• Readiness to curtail civil liberties of opponents, including media

Trump fits all four of these measures. He was and is an authoritarian candidate, and he seeks to be an authoritarian president. Democracy has two main guardrails left: the impeachment inquiry and the 2020 election.

Supporters of Trump are operating in a space where loyalty matters more than facts, and personality is paramount to the rule of law. This is a space with an open front door to authoritarianism, and Trump’s leaning is toward fascism.

It should startle everyone that the Minnesota Republican Party is trying to close the door, not to that danger, but to a fair presidential primary.

Jennifer Vogt-Erickson is a member of the Freeborn County DFL Party.