From top to bottom, at all levels of government, the Republican Party is in tears to embody the timeless truth of 19th-century British Lord Acton: power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

However, signs of backlash are on the rise. Witness the Democrats’ takeover of the Wisconsin Supreme Court last week, and the entire Michigan government’s conquest last fall in two core states that Democrats had long feared eluded them. At the request of the public, the Republican-controlled Tennessee House had to reseat the two black Democratic representatives it ousted last week for encouraging a protest in support of gun control after a gunman killed six at a Nashville school.

For a Republican Party that hasn’t even bothered to write a real platform in 2020, Americans can clearly see a de facto platform: its plans are anti-abortion extremism, pro-gun absolutism, anti-LGBTQ activism, book ban, vote suppression and election denial. That’s not a winning mix.

Most Republican leaders are not stupid; they recognize their political danger in swing states and national elections, if only privately. Pollsters and advisors warn them. As Sarah Longwell, who leads Republican voter focus groups, told Politico, The gap between what grassroots voters demand and what swing voters want has widened.

That only suggests one explanation for Republicans not only staying the course but doubling down on issues unpopular with just about everyone but their grassroots: They have a death wish.

That’s bad, not just for the future of no longer great old parties. It’s also bad for the rest of us, the country needs two decent political parties to maintain democracy.

Let’s start at the bottom of the party, because it’s the radicalized Republican base, fueled by Donald Trump, that’s this dog’s tail wagging. For all the apparent power of the Republicans, party leaders at the local, state, and federal levels don’t seem to stand up to the wrathful Trump and his loyal voters pushing them to such extremes.

Local school boards have been taken over by conservative parents and groups seeking to ban books that offend their finely tuned sensibilities about race, sexuality and American history. Last month, in what Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis unironically mentions the Free State of Florida, a high school that ripped a graphic novel out of Anne Frank’s diary. But why go book by book? In the Missouri House, the Republican supermajority just voted to shut down all state libraries.

Given this right-wing jihad, the nation is on track to break the sad record of 2022, when, according to the American Library Assn. nearly 1,300 were demands to censor library books and materials. That was the highest number since the group began collecting data more than 20 years ago.

Meanwhile, at local polling stations, the nonpartisan administrators who do the grunt work of democracy are either quitting or being pushed out under pressure from Trump-inspired conspirators. In one Virginia county, the entire election staff resigned out of frustration at the new Republican-controlled administration’s unfounded allegations of vote-rigging. Perversely, six red states of Florida, Missouri, Ohio, West Virginia, Alabama and Louisiana recently left a multi-state coalition organized to protect against fraud after right-wing media falsely claimed it promoted Democratic electoral fraud.

Those six states are among the 20 where Republicans veto, supermajority lawmakers have virtually unchecked power, and they choose to spend their time on such burning, basic pleasures as banning drag shows and medical care for transgender people, seeking to new ways of voting in democratic areas and gerrymandering political districts. (In nine states, including California, the Democrats have a supermajority in state legislatures, and yes, they’re also vulnerable to overreaching.)

In Congress, Republicans are far from a supermajority in the House, but they nonetheless act as if they have superpowers beyond anything the Constitution grants.

Under the leadership of Rep. Jim Jordan, the performative Ohio Republican, are sending Trump allies who wouldn’t comply with subpoenas to testify on the January 6, 2021 insurrection, now the right and the left are sending subpoenas, trying to disprove misleading claims about the Democrats arming the government to prove. They are trying to interfere in the ongoing criminal case against their master, Trump, over his alleged pre-election payout from a porn star. On Tuesday, the prosecutor in that New York state case, Alvin L. Bragg Jr., sued to stop a brutal and unconstitutional attack.

The brutality of hyperpartisanship even extends into the supposedly impartial judiciary. Right-wing prosecutors brazenly seek friendly judges, so you’ve used misdeeds like the openly anti-abortion judge in Texas who did exactly what he was chosen to do: overturn the 23-year-old US Food and Drug Administration approval for mifepristone, a drug. for more than half of American abortions.

Then there’s the Supreme Court, which, with its corruptly designed supermajority of six Republican-appointed justices, defies public opinion and precedent to advance clearly right-wing goals. Judge Clarence Thomas, meanwhile, sniffs at ethical constraints most of us intuitively understand. As we learned thanks to ProPublica, he vacationed for years with many, many dimes from a Republican billionaire and neglected to disclose that the billionaire also bought real estate from him.

Now court change is a motivational issue for Democrats, just as it was for Republican voters for decades.

For all of this, the 2024 election presents opportunities for White House and Senate Republicans, but for their death-desire commitment to power grabs, forced pregnancy, guns, and Trump.

Rather than heed the wisdom of Lord Acton, I suggest that Republicans take this advice from a good American, Will Rogers: If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.

@jackiekcalmes