In the Hutch vs Destiny conversation I mostly agree with Hutch but I don’t think he made a strong enough case for his solutions. I think choosing the best solution lies in understanding why the Republican party has become so unhinged.

Why have the Republicans become fascists?

Destiny believes Republicans have become fascistic due to weak opposition and a corrupt media environment. Thus the only solution is for the Democratic party to become more aggressive and extreme in their opposition and take potentially illiberal actions against propagandistic media outlets to disincentivize bad behaviour. 

Hutch believes the GOP is moving towards fascism because of fundamental weaknesses in the structure of American politics and the bad incentives those broken structures create. 

I think Hutch is clearly correct, the American political system is structurally biased towards Republicans. Republicans can behave badly and still win elections and Democrats largely cannot. Democrats could do all the things that Destiny suggests and it would not meaningfully discourage Republicans from moving towards facism. Tit for tat makes sense in a game where the rules are neutral. American politics is a game where Republicans are rewarded for tit and Democrats are punished for tat. The only solution is to change the rules. 

The American political system is biased towards conservatism.

I don’t think people fully grasp just how strongly the American political system is tilted towards Republicans. The senate is massively biased in favour of Republicans. Because of malapportionment and the rural bias, the swing senate seats are 6-7 points more republican than the country. (source) The urban-rural divide gives them an edge in the electoral college, as swing states are about 2-3 points more republican than the rest of the country. “Republicans should be expected to win 65% of Presidential contests in which they narrowly lose the popular vote.” (source)

It’s not just the rural bias that kills Democrats; the Senate rules also disproportionately harms Democrats. The filibuster and the reconciliation rules means that Republican priorities can be passed with 51 votes, and Democratic priorities largely need 60. This has the effect of demoralizing Democratic voters. Democrats run on policies that they will never be able to pass, while Republicans can run and then implement their agenda making them look like the “stronger” more effective party to lower information voters. 

Republicans are free to indulge the worst instincts of their base knowing that they need to win way less swing voters than Democrats to win the senate and the presidency. The Democrats largely cannot.

If America has always been biased towards conservatives, why has the GOP gotten so much worse recently?

This was not as big of a problem in the past because the parties were less ideologically coherent. Ezra Klein's book “Why Were Polerized” is a great resource on this, if you want the entire history. But the basic point is American political parties were structured around geography rather than ideology. Most people thought the parties were basically the same ideologically and they were basically correct. Northern Republicans were liberals, southern Democrats were conservatives, the parties were mixed. "when Gerald Ford ran against Jimmy Carter, only 54 percent of the electorate believed the Republican Party was more conservative than the Democratic Party. Almost 30 percent said there was no ideological difference at all between the two parties" (source)

As the population became more educated the parties slowly sorted into distinct ideologies, voters responded by voting less on geography and more on ideology. Republicans became the conservative party, and in basically every human society rural areas are more conservative than urban areas, and because of the rural bias of American politics, this has made the American conservative party (Republicans) disproportionately powerful. The structure of primaries means and gerrymandering means, Republicans are much more worried about challenges from their right encouraging moderates to move even further right. All the structural incentives are moving us towards right wing extremism and they won’t be stopped by more aggressive democratic action. 

Destiny’s solution will fail

If the Democratic party embraced the full Destiny strategy this wouldn’t meaningfully restrain Republicans from being fascistic. Any future Republican would still know that regardless of what Democrats do while they are in power, Republicans are way more likely to hold the Senate and presidency and are structurally advantaged when they engage in extremism.  

Illiberal actions do not discourage the opposition. 

Ask yourself, has Trump’s illiberal actions against Democrats meaningfully disincentivised Democratic party opposition? Clearly not. The most popular Democrats are forcefully anti trump. Gavin Newsom made himself the presidential front runner by opposing Trump. The most successful liberal media outlets are anti trump resistance lib content farms. It’s made formerly institution-pilled political commentators like Destiny embrace potentially illiberal actions to fight MAGA. 

If Democrats aren’t disincentivised by Trump's illegal actions against them, why would a future Republican who has a 7 point bias in the Senate and a 3 point bias in the electoral college be meaningfully disincentivised? 

Hutch’s Solutions make more sense. 

It’s not as sexy but the only way to stop the spread of facism is to change the structure of American politics and remove the bias that creates the incentive for Republican extremism. 

To do this the Democrats need to make Puerto Rico, Guam, US Virgin Island and Washing DC states. Get rid of the filibuster and restore majority rule in the Senate, and add term limits for supreme court justices. And pack the courts if they try to stop you. This would dispate the Republican advatage and force them to be accountable to non hyper conservative voters.

I really recommend people read Kill Switch by Adam Jentleson for the history of the senate the filibuster and Why Were Polarized by Ezra Klein if you want more detail.