That being the case, why are Republicans acting like a party on the run and running scared? Why are they working at making it harder to vote and easier to overturn elections they don't like, when chances are good that they will be highly successful anyway?
And so far as I can tell from listening to the Republicans at work, the answer seems to be that our country is in such dire straits since Biden came to power that clearly Democrats are simply a disaster we cannot risk. Comparisons to Jimmy Carter and the 1970's are common. Implied but not quite stated is that Democrats are so disastrous that we can no longer afford the luxury of competitive elections and will have to institute a one-party state, and all will be well.
I will start by conceding that yes, we have problems. There is no denying that 2021 has been a bad year -- not as bad as 2020, but definitely bad. But guess what. We have had problems in the past, and bad years. Somehow we managed to come through them without ending democracy and instituting a one-party state.
So let us compare our present-day situation with the 1970's. Doubtless the 1970's were a troubled time. (Some of the troubles happened under the Republican Nixon and Ford Administrations, but we can ignore that detail). The mass riots and leftwing terrorism of the 1960's had ended, but remained a troublingly recent memory. The US was newly extricated from a prolonged and highly unpopular war in Vietnam, weakened. Withdrawal was chaotic, with Vietnamese desperately clinging to US helicopter, and the country was spiraling into disaster. Communism seemed on the march everywhere. Crime was surging at home. Inflation was in the double digits, despite high unemployment and sluggish economic growth. Gas prices were soaring and long lines forming outside filling stations.
So it should not come as a surprise that Democratic President Jimmy Carter lost the 1980 election, and that in the 1980's Republicans won the presidency by three successive landslides. But no one concluded from that that Democrats were intolerable and must never hold office again. In fact, they continued to dominate Congress throughout the 1980's and to be competitive at the state level in numerous states.
The 1980's saw many of the problems of the 1970's resolved. Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker slammed on the brakes and broke the inflationary spiral at the cost of a severe recession. Recovery was rapid once the spiral was broken, and prosperous times ensued. Gas prices fell. Communism fell apart as unworkable, including in Vietnam.
Still, it would be a mistake to view the 1980's era of Republican hegemony in the presidency as problem-free. Unemployment remained steadily above 5% in prosperous times. Crime continued to surge, not starting to fall until the 1990's. Many of our inner cities were little better than war zones as rival drug gangs fought for control. If one counts the years 1990-1992 (still part of the Republican hegemony in presidential politics), riots returned -- anti-Semitic riots in Crown Heights (an unheard-of thing in the US), and severe riots in Los Angeles in 1992.
Gay communities, IV drug users, and hemophilics were devastated by AIDS -- both the disease and the stigma. Employers fired infected workers, landlords evicted them, families cast them out, healthcare workers refused service. Much of conservative opinion saw this as appropriate punishment and considered any research to treat AIDS as immoral because it encouraged the gay lifestyle. And many of the problems that led to Donald Trump coming to power -- out of control deficits, good paying blue collar jobs going overseas, the decline of family farms and rural community, rampant homelessness -- got started in that era.
So putting Republicans in charge is hardly a panacea.
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