Republican Party increasingly interested in authoritarianism

And perhaps just as importantly, few Republicans appear to strongly oppose the idea.

The latest research is provided by AP-NORC. This shows that there are some differences between the two parties on whether the president’s unilateral powers are a good thing. 17% of Democrats say so, and 26% of Republicans agree. There are no big numbers on either side.

But then the research turned to the practical point and asked: specific The president exercised such powers “without waiting for Congress or the courts.”

Thirty-nine percent of Democrats said it would be a good thing for the president to bypass Congress and the courts if Biden nominated him, while 57% of Republicans said it would be a good thing if the president was named Trump. answered.

Although a standalone poll, the results are very consistent with other research on the subject. For example, our research over the past few weeks.

• A Reuters/Ipsos poll last month found that 52% of Republicans agree the country needs “a strong president who can govern without undue interference from the courts or Congress.” Agreed. Only 29% of Democrats agreed with this statement.
• In a February poll conducted by the University of Massachusetts Amherst, 74% of Republicans said they supported Trump’s idea of ​​becoming a “dictator for a day.”
• An NPR-PBS-Marist College poll conducted last week asked whether people agreed that the situation is so bad that “we need leaders who are willing to break the rules to make it right.” Ta. Republicans (56%) were twice as likely to agree with this statement as Democrats (28%). Republicans agreed with the statement by a 13-point margin, while Democrats opposed it by a 44-point margin.
• A December Fox News poll went a step further and asked, “Do we need a president who breaks the rules?” and the law” — basically doing something illegal. 2020 President Trump voters (30 percent) were twice as likely to support it as 2020 President Biden voters (15 percent) .

It is important not to oversell this data.

The percentage of Republicans who truly admire powerful people is well below the majority. For example, in an NPR-PBS Marist College poll, only 23 percent “strongly” agreed that we need someone willing to break the rules. Similarly, Republicans who wanted a president willing to break the law remained outnumbered by about 2 to 1.

But these are also quite a few Republicans, and often the loudest Republicans. And what these data reveal is a clear lack of countervailing concern for omnipotent executives.

Only 10% of Republicans strongly disagree that the president should be willing to break some rules, saying they want a “strong president allowed to govern without undue interference from the courts or Congress.” Only 20% strongly opposed the idea.

Similarly, a YouGov poll in February asked people to list their 10 most desirable traits in a president and their 3 least desirable traits. Forty percent of Democrats said “authoritarianism” was among their three least desirable traits, compared to just 13% of Republicans. All of the 10 items, including “bully,” “divisive,” and “rude,” ranked low among Republicans when it came to people disagreeing with them.

In other words, as long as Trump really plans a more authoritarian second term, there doesn’t seem to be much in the party to hold him back. And there are a lot of things that keep him going.