Was the Constitution a ‘mistake’? One Denton County Republican says ‘reject democracy’ | Opinion

The campaign against American democracy has begun.

And some Texans seem willing to march in line.

Before that Georgia congresswoman renewed talk of Southern secession last week, more Texans had already given up on the whole idea of majority rule, or free and open democratic elections.

And this isn’t just your typical Washington-bashing.

Flower Mound Republican Jeff Younger, who came within 2,000 votes of representing far north Fort Worth in the Texas House, bluntly wrote on Twitter that democracy must end.

He wants it scrapped so godly men can take charge..

“In a democracy,” Younger wrote Feb. 18, “women as a group will always be the stronger. They outnumber men. To seek rule by good, strong men, you must first reject democracy.”

Younger, a train wreck of a 2022 conservative candidate while on the losing end of a bitter child custody case, is also listed as a contributing writer for the conservative political blog Texas Scorecard.

Later, he praised U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., for her call for a “national divorce” dividing America into separate countries for conservative and liberal states.

At the end of the week, Younger also wrote that “the Constitution was a mistake.”

Democracy “will bury this country,” he wrote.

Think he’s on the fringe?

Maybe so.

But he got 3,507 primary votes and 3,003 runoff votes in a low-turnout Denton County race for a safe Republican seat.

All this comes on the heels of the January poll by Austin-based Texas Lyceum, showing Texans are just not as hot on democratic elections as we were four years ago.

Back then, Donald Trump was president.

In 2019, a whopping 82% of Texans agreed that “Democracy is the best form of government.”

More than half strongly agreed.

In the January poll, democracy’s approval rate was down 14 percentage points.

Texans aren’t as sure about it anymore.

Nearly one-fourth of Republicans, 22%, didn’t even agree that elected democracy is still the best government.

Among “independents” — now 20% of Texans, almost all of them conservatives rejecting a party brand — the anti-democracy vote climbed to 27%.

This seems like a big deal.

I’ve always stuck up for inclusive government and fair representation.

But at least right now, a big chunk of Texans are ready to trade it all for a patriarchal ruler.

The Lyceum poll is “troubling,” wrote Matthew Wilson, an SMU political scientist and author of “Religion and Politics in the United States.”

The declining support shows “broad-based dissatisfaction” and decreasing confidence that democratic elections make Americans’ lives better, he wrote by email.

In other results, the poll also showed that Texans are now evenly split for and against the state’s growth.

We also no longer feel like the future is bright — “and this is in a state that is as economically dynamic and on the rise as just about any in the country!” Wilson wrote.

Those polled don’t like President Joe Biden. They’re split on Gov. Greg Abbott.

But they like Trump campaigners Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and Attorney General Ken Paxton.

“These results have all the hallmarks of a sullen, wary electorate,” Wilson wrote.

The poll came shortly after the Washington, D.C.-based Public Religion Research Institute published a new national poll. The outcome: More than half of Republicans — about one-third of Americans overall — want Christians to rule over a strictly biblical government.

“Democracy has been in decline around the world for two decades,” University of North Texas political scientist Kimi King replied.

We praise voting, she wrote. But then politicians “whip up populations to support an ideological fervor which ultimately favors anti-democratic principles.”

As Wilson pointed out, Americans find it easy to complain about the government.

But we also don’t have any better ideas.

He described the results partly as “voters blowing off steam.”

This is not just steam.