It's Time for a Pro-Democracy Movement in The USA
One hundred fifty seven years to the day after Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, Rudi Giuliani held a press conference to lay out his theories about the recent general election.
Lincoln’s speech, which received mixed reviews at the time, extolled the American people to respond to the terrible civil war then underway to have “a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”.
Giuliani and his cohorts spent an hour and forty five minutes making the case for a massive conspiracy to rig the election against his client, President Donald Trump. CNN counted eight easily refutable lies told during this event, and was unable to fact check other statements because no proof or specifics were offered.
While many will remember the press conference for the startling visuals of Giuliani’s hair dye mingling with his sweat and running down his face, its most egregious moments came as a Trump legal advisor spun a conspiracy theory including Hugo Chavez (the President of Venezuela who died in 2013), the Clinton Foundation, and liberal donor George Soros.
These claims were so far out there that Fox News’ Tucker Carlson (who’d simply asked for documentation) felt the need to call them out. For daring to insist on proof, Carlson is now reportedly facing dozens of death threats. (Oh, the sweet irony, as the Fox talking head has a long history of inciting viewers to go after liberals and progressives.)
https://twitter.com/oliverdarcy/status/1329827868084408322?s=20
While Trump’s legal team has seen its arguments tossed by more than a couple of dozen judges (including Trump appointees) in five states, and more than 300 of the President’s tweets/commentary now have warning labels concerning their veracity, more than half of Republican voters (about 19% of the electorate) think the election was crooked.
https://twitter.com/LonJandis/status/1329836260341387265?s=20
While I’m 99% sure the former Vice President (and birthday boy!) Joe Biden will take over in late January, I’m not sure what will be left for him to take over.
The White House has mounted an all out effort to torch the federal bureaucracy, leave the economy in shambles, and foment crises in countries around the world. The Cult of Trump will continue to be disruptive (many say they’ll take up arms if there is a change at the top), and an extremely right wing media infrastructure that regularly promotes lies will seek to disrupt attempts by a Biden administration to enact its agenda.
The noise generated by Trump and his followers has created a space where the very foundation of our system --voting-- is now suspect.
This is all horribly depressing. But I’m wondering if there’s an opportunity amid this chaos.
Rather than complaining about the obvious trend towards acceptance of an authoritarian government (framed as a return to the good old days) on the right, a better response is to advocate for more democracy, including election reform (ranked choice?), a fully funded program to ensure the safety of voting, and a popular movement for taking campaign finance out of the dark ages. And a major point about Democracy should be that everybody gets to play.
We need a pro-democracy movement in this country, the very existence of which will disrupt the framing being used to lure us into an autocratic state. (We can walk and chew gum at the same time!)
And in the meantime… I approve this message.
https://twitter.com/blockgreg/status/1329849910213033992?s=20
https://twitter.com/blockgreg/status/1329850965483089920?s=20
Also…
https://twitter.com/dougporter506/status/1329793425130938368?s=20
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