The Republican ‘lock her up!’ chants were disturbing. They were also inevitable.

From Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson:

[url]https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/07/22/the-republican-lock-her-up-chants-were-disturbing-they-were-also-inevitable/?hpid=hp_regional-hp-cards_rhp-card-posteverything%3Ahomepage%2Fcard[/url]

These attacks aren’t one-off reflections of the particular vulnerabilities of specific Democrats or the particular animosities of specific GOP leaders. They have deep roots in the transformation of the modern GOP, the structure of our political institutions and the damaging incentives that emerge from the interplay between the two.

Some of these roots are familiar. One is the spectacular growth of the “outrage industry” anchored in cable news, talk radio and the Internet. There has always been a market for extremism. Now, technology makes it possible (and very profitable) to meet that demand, and indeed stoke it. Such forces exist on both ends of the spectrum, but they are far stronger and have much larger audiences on the right. (No one like Laura Ingraham will give a prime-time address in Philadelphia next week.)

Elected officials also face growing incentives to promote, or at least countenance, partisan extremism. To a steadily increasing degree, national Republicans hail from districts and states that tilt Republican, often overwhelmingly so. For them, losing the base is fatal, and they face enormous incentives to avoid being out-flanked by someone more willing to appease its anger. (Democrats confront some of the same pressures, but the lesser intensity and unity of the Democratic base means it pulls less consistently to the extremes.)

These pressures have intensified over time. As the base becomes more prominent and extreme, victory depends on getting these voters to turn out. The best way to do that is to tell your base that your opponent isn’t merely wrong or incompetent but an existential threat to your way of life and to the nation itself.


The authors go on to comment further about how the GOP has used midterm elections and states with relatively small populations to further its power, and of course we're all aware of the role redistricting plays.

But none of this should be read as a call for Democrats and progressives generally to throw up their hands in despair. Indeed, I'd say quite the opposite. We do have ways to shape history.