The Doom Sellers

A cohort of conservative intellectuals believes America is on the verge of collapse. The Republican Party is listening

That’s a lengthy op-ed from me in the Sunday Opinion section of today’s New York Times. Those of you who’ve been reading this Substack for a while won’t be surprised by much of it. Those who’ve subscribed since reading the piece online obviously don’t need to again. (Welcome!) But for anyone interested in seeing what I had to say on this topic for a large audience, please follow this gift link, which will enable you to read the essay without a NYT subscription.

Here’s how it begins:

It’s easy to become inured to the extremism that has suffused the Republican Party in recent years. Donald Trump, the dominating front-runner for the party’s presidential nomination, spends days in court, in a judicial system he regularly disparages, charged with a long list of offenses and facing several trials.

In the House, Republicans recently chose a new speaker, Representative Mike Johnson, who not only endorsed the attempted overturning of the 2020 election but also helped to devise the rationale behind it.

We shouldn’t grow complacent about just how dangerous it all is — and how much more dangerous it could become. The efforts to overturn the 2020 election failed. We’re told that’s because the institutions held. But it’s more accurate to say that most of the individuals holding powerful positions within those institutions — the White House, the Pentagon, the courts, election officials in Georgia and other states — sided with the Constitution over Mr. Trump’s desire to remain in power.

But what if key individuals decide differently the next time they are faced with this kind of choice? What if they have come to believe that the country is in such dire straits — has reached a state of apocalyptic decadence — that democracy is a luxury we can no longer afford?

A coalition of intellectual catastrophists on the American right is trying to convince people of just that — giving the next generation of Republican officeholders, senior advisers, judges and appointees explicit permission and encouragement to believe that the country is on the verge of collapse. Some catastrophists take it a step further and suggest that officials might contemplate overthrowing liberal democracy in favor of revolutionary regime change or even imposing a right-wing dictatorship on the country.

The list of people making these arguments includes former officials in the Trump administration, some of whom are likely to be considered for top jobs in the event of a Trump restoration in 2024. It includes respected scholars at prestigious universities and influential think tanks. The ideas about the threat of an all-powerful totalitarian left and the dismal state of the country — even the most outlandish of them — are taken seriously by conservative politicians as well as prominent influencers on the right.

That makes this a crucial time to familiarize ourselves with and begin formulating a response to these ideas. If Mr. Trump manages to win the presidency again in 2024, many of these intellectual catastrophists could be ready and willing to justify deeds that could well bring American liberal democracy to its knees.

I hope you will consider reading the whole thing and sharing it widely.

You’ll hear from me again in a few days.