2020 Election Turmoil: Ultimately, The Way to Save Democracy Will Be With More Democracy
For the time being , the great divide in the United States has been redefined. CNN’s Jake Tapper called it correctly, quoting Ulysses Grant’s 1861 statement: “There are two parties now, traitors and patriots."
Only the willfully ignorant or the quislings of authoritarianism can cast the Trump administration’s brute force attack on democracy as part of a “both sides” conversation.
Either you believe in free elections or you don’t, and a minority of partisans have escalated what was once a campaign of plausible deniability to suppress voter turnout into an open coup attempt.
https://twitter.com/KevinMKruse/status/1345166605840494595?s=20
Just about nobody grounded in reality thinks they will succeed, but we have yet to see the full gamut of tactics to be deployed by the enemies of the rule of law. Proto-fascist groups, conspiracists, and those enabling profiteering from the current “freedom” from oversight all believe they have a role to play.
It’s not just Trump whose legacy is on the line.
Proud Boys and other gang-like entities plan to take to the streets in Washington DC on January 6th, and they’re spoiling for a fight. The President has even suggested he’ll address the groups as they converge.
According to the report, "the protesters' mood ahead of the Jan. 6 protest has turned even more desperate."
"Trump diehards from across the country have organized their travel to Washington on 'The Donald' forum," the Beast's report states. "One of the hottest topics on the site is how protesters can bring guns to D.C., which would count as a local crime in nearly all circumstances under Washington's strict gun laws. Others have talked about breaking into federal buildings or committing violence against law enforcement officers who try to stop them from storming Congress."
One comment that received approving nods stated, "I'm thinking it will be literal war on that day. Where we'll storm offices and physically remove and even kill all the D.C. traitors and reclaim the country."
The Texas Congressman who touts himself as Trump’s Wing Man, Louie Gohmert, says the violence is okay after losing one of the sixty odd cases challenging the election results:
As Rolling Stone reports, the Texas representative appeared on the Trump-worshiping Newsmax Saturday morning to tell people not to wait on the courts. The district court’s refusal to consider the case means, accourding to Gohmert, “that you gotta go the streets and be as violent as antifa and BLM.”
Of course, BLM and anti-facists don’t go around instigating violence. But considering Trump supporters have been fed one false claim after another, after another, there’s little doubt about the kind of violence Gohmert is demanding. Just as there’s no doubt about what Trump means when he summons his Proud Bois and militias, calling them to Washington on Jan. 6 for a “wild” time.
Trump election attorney Lin Wood tweeted that Vice President Mike Pence will “face execution by firing squad,” in a string of tweets, calling out the Vice President a “coward” who will “sing like a bird and confess ALL”.
https://twitter.com/HelenKennedy/status/1346003900793577472?s=20
There are Trump supporters who are less insane than Lin Woods, like San Diego political reject and White House advisor Peter Navarro, who told Fox News’ Jeanine Pirro that Vice President Mike Pence can arbitrarily postpone Inauguration Day.
When you have Dick Cheney rallying former Secretaries of Defense to stand up for democracy, it should reinforce that what we are seeing is no media spectacle.
https://twitter.com/NatashaBertrand/status/1346118762882281472?s=20
While I am cognizant of the limitations of anti-Trump Republicans, GOP strategist Steve Schmidt’s twitter rant from this weekend contains a kernel of truth about the future of the party.
His analysis fails to consider the “collateral damage” to democractic institutions outside of political parties, nor does it factor in the economic disruptions ahead. Still, it's worth a read:
The die is cast for the Republican Party. It will be destroyed on January 6th in much the same way the Whig party was destroyed by the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854. The act unraveled the Missouri compromise and allowed for the westward expansion of slavery
The party could not survive its factionalism. There could be no more accommodation, compromise and partnership between pro-slavery and anti-slavery Whigs. A new political party was born, the Republican Party. That party will divide into irreconcilable factions on January 6th
The 6th will commence a political civil war inside the GOP. The autocratic side will roll over the pro-democracy remnant of the GOP like the Wehrmacht did the Belgian Army in 1940. The ‘22 GOP primary season will be a blood letting. The 6th will be a loyalty test. The purge will follow. Does anybody doubt the outcome of the @IvankaTrump vs. @marcorubio primary in Florida? Anyone willing to make a bet on @robportman?
It turns out JFK was right. The problem of trying to ride the tiger is the likelihood of winding up inside the tiger. The poisonous Fruit from four years of collaboration and complicity with Trumps insanity, illiberalism and incompetence are ready for harvest. It will kill the GOP because it’s Pro Democracy faction and Autocratic factions can no more exist together then could the Whig Party hold together The abolitionist with the Slave master.
It won’t happen overnight but the destination is clear. The Conservative party in America is dead. It may continue to bear the name “Republican” but it will be no such thing.
Fascism has indeed come to America and as was once predicted It is wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.
This movement must be defeated. It cannot be appeased, accommodated or negotiated with. It must be recognized for what it is and we must all recognize the new age of American politics it has wrought. It has reset the debate entirely.
There are only two sides in American politics now. There is the American side and the Autocratic side.
May God help us all if we falter, flag or fail in defense of American democracy
The next two weeks are going to be historic. We patriots may be called to go into the streets to ensure that our constitutional process for regime change moves forward.
When the dust settles, it will behoove us not to be distracted from our values and aspirations by the sound and fury of a political faction turning on itself.
https://twitter.com/AndrewSolender/status/1345534119741157376?s=20
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