2000 was like this, the Supreme Court literally passed a law to get Bush to win the presidency.
George W. Bush and Al Gore. On December 8, the Florida Supreme Court had ordered a statewide recount of all undervotes, over 61,000 ballots that the vote tabulation machines had missed. The Bush campaign immediately asked the U.S. Supreme Court to stay the decision and halt the recount. Justice Antonin Scalia, convinced that all the manual recounts being performed in Florida's counties were illegitimate, urged his colleagues to grant the stay immediately.[1] On December 9, the five conservative justices on the Court granted the stay, with Scalia citing "irreparable harm" that could befall Bush, as the recounts would cast "a needless and unjustified cloud" over Bush's legitimacy. In dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens wrote that "counting every legally cast vote cannot constitute irreparable harm."[1]
You don't think cheating in an election, discounting votes, counts as being a threat to democracy? Using the Supreme Court to make a ruling for the sole purpose of making Bush president? That's more than a threat, that's a headshot.
If you think that we haven't had real elections since 2000, why do you say things are different now? This has been ongoing. I don't see why you feel the need to make a narrative that this is all new.
There is now legal precedent to do that at any given moment. I'm literally so confused about why you are trying to die on this hill? Republicans have been eating away at voting rights for a long time. If only some people have their votes counted, that's not a democracy.
Edit: not to mention the persistence of the electoral college, which has already fundamentally destroyed the idea of democracy.
Republicans have been like this for a long time, why are you denying it? It was bad in the 80s too. Did you forget Reagan? And his genocide against gay people during the AIDs crisis? Saying the Republicans have always been bad doesn't make Trump any less bad.
Then as now, the Heritage Foundation gave a Republican president a blueprint to do it. Indeed, Project 2025’s Mandate for Leadership shares the same name, and same format, with the volume Heritage published in 1981.
If anything, acknowledging this history strengthens your case against Trump, because we can look at the impacts of Republican policies and nominations.
Saying the Republicans have always been bad doesn’t make Trump any less bad.
Republicans have always been bad, I'm pretty sure I was clear about that. But a presidential election of a Republican has not, previously, been a threat to the basic functioning of democracy. Now if you're done playing apologist for the first attempted autocouper in US history...
Someone would have to be out of their mind to interpret anything I have said as being a Trump apologist. Weren't you just complaining about "purging" over disagreements? You seem perfectly happy to call me a "Trump apologist" for pointing out history. Recognizing that Trump is part of a broader pattern of conservative policies can only help.
But there are plenty of ways Republicans are currently awful, and have been awful. Are you saying that January 6th was worse than the genocidal handling of the AIDS crisis, worse than successful US-backed coups in South America? Worse than the GOPs ongoing history of voter suppression? It's all bad.