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The difference between the Democrats and the Republicans in this election is stark.
Democracy depends on at least two healthy political parties that can compete for voters on a level playing field. The founders hated the idea of political parties, but quickly figured out that parties tie voters to the mechanics of Congress and the presidency.
And they do far more than that. Parties allowed for the idea of loyal and legitimate opposition, which in turn allowed for the peaceful transition of power. That peaceful exchange enabled the people to choose their leaders and leaders to relinquish power safely. Parties also create a system for criticizing people in power, which helps to weed out corrupt or unfit leaders.
But those benefits of a party system depend on a level political playing field for everyone, so that a party must constantly compete for voters by testing which policies are most popular and getting rid of the corrupt or unstable leaders voters would reject.
In the 80s, radical Republican leaders set out to dismantle the government that regulated business, provided a basic social safety net, promoted infrastructure, and protected civil rights. But that system was popular, and to overcome the majority who favored it, they began to tip the political playing field in their direction. They began to suppress voting by Democrats by insisting that Democrats were engaging in “voter fraud.” They worked to delegitimize their opponents by calling them “socialists” or “communists”. By the 1990s, extremists in the party were taking power by purging traditional Republicans from it.
When a political party has so thoroughly walled itself off from the majority, there are two options. One is to become full-on authoritarian and suppress the majority, often with violence. Such a plan is in Project 2025, which calls for a strong executive to take control of the military and the judicial system and to use that power to impose his will. The other is for us to reject it.