Westneat: Washington GOP put it in writing

But then the convention veered into more unexpected anti-democratic territory. A resolution called for ending the ability to vote for U.S. senators. Instead, senators would get appointed by state legislatures, as it generally worked prior to the passage of the 17th Amendment in 1913.

“We are devolving into a democracy, because congressmen and senators are elected by the same pool,” was how one GOP delegate put it to the convention. “We do not want to be a democracy.”

We don’t? There are debates about how complete of a democracy we wish to be; for example, the state Democratic Party platform has called for the direct election of the president (doing away with the Electoral College). But curtailing our own vote? The GOPers said they hoped states’ rights would be strengthened with such a move.

Then they kicked it up a notch. They passed a resolution calling on people to please stop using the word “democracy.”

“We encourage Republicans to substitute the words ‘republic’ and ‘republicanism’ where previously they have used the word ‘democracy,’ ” the resolution says. “Every time the word ‘democracy’ is used favorably it serves to promote the principles of the Democratic Party, the principles of which we ardently oppose.”

The resolution sums up: “We … oppose legislation which makes our nation more democratic in nature.”

It wasn’t that long ago when Republican presidents would extol democracy as America’s greatest export. Now the party is saying they don’t even want to hear the d-word anymore.

Of course we are not donning togas and rushing down to the acropolis to vote on legislation. So it’s true we don’t often act as a direct democracy. It’s a hybrid system, a representative democracy, with the people periodically voting for elected leaders to do that legislating work for us. During much of our lifetimes the debate in this arena has been: How can representative democracy be made more representative? How can more voices be heard?

It’s jarring to hear a major political party declare that they’re done with that.

Not everyone at the convention agreed with those sentiments, though they were strongly outvoted. Some of the delegates seemed to have contempt for voting and voters — at least when they come out on the losing end of it.

A party platform is a statement of principles; it has little to no chance of being implemented. So it’s tempting to ignore it. Or wish it away by suggesting the real party is out there somewhere having been abducted by impostors.

When people say “democracy itself is on the ballot” in this election, though, I think this is what they’re talking about.

For years now, since Trump tried to overturn the 2020 election, some Republicans have been on the defensive about charges they’re flirting with anti-democratic impulses or authoritarianism.

A while back, Seattle Times ran an Op-Ed from a leading conservative, the editor of the National Review, Ramesh Ponnuru. He argued that despite Trump’s attempts to block the transfer of power, and the party largely backing him up on that, the whole thing has been blown out of proportion.

“Republicans aren’t against democracy,” was the headline of that Op-Ed.

Now they’re putting it in writing.