Trump Republicans ambush democracy, elections and unworthy voters
Did mayhem from idiotic tweets somehow banish the sovereignty of majority rule? Is the potent notion of one person, one vote so hard to understand, let alone accept? I get why under-educated millions spurn germ theory, a scientific toughie that posits tiny, airborne microbes spread disease and kill. But endorsing majority rule is not only totally American, but follows the most common sense, democratic logic: because political decisions impact everything and everybody, elections should reflect the will of more, not fewer citizens. This leads to the next breakthrough: the more representative the electorate, the fairer the elections. Not rocket science, obvious to every tenth grader. Not Trump, Lindsay Graham and Mike Lee.
Corollary truth: either we have majority or minority rule. And if the minority rules, then a self-declared elite dominates how we make decisions and divide the collective spoils (as in taxation). Not all truths are self-evident, but if not majority rule, then what? Though a monument to human progress, democracy is again under the gun, assaulted by an array of rightwing co-conspirators. True, the Founders rigged the game, thus, our elitist house of lords (Senate) and the absurdly convoluted, majority-vetoing Electoral College – all commanded only by older, white, male property-owning voters. Our Founding thus disempowered non-voters as equivalent to electoral servants.
And so today’s extremists, fancying themselves inheritors of pure Americanism, buttress their minority dominance, commanding the federal judiciary, state houses, Senate, and military top brass. This crusade is all the more important as the right acknowledges high current vulnerability. That forces Republicans to make the appalling distinction between legitimate “real Americans” innately deserving the vote vs. lesser beings who must jump through hoops, overcome intimidation and wacko ID rules. It’s as we’ve regressed to the racist 1790’s Naturalization Acts when only white Europeans of good character had paths to citizenship.
Stumbles of minority rule
So, desperate to sustain the unjust “tyranny of the minority,” a slew of Republicans join the corrosive Trumpian view that IF we make voting easier, Republicans are kaput. Periodically speaking the truth, Trump actually said this year, IF we continue to expand voting – specifically with no fuss, problem-free mail-in balloting – “you’d never have a Republican elected in this country again.” When the doofus is right, he is right, at least in theory.
The “if” is the tell because Trump thus openly concedes his party must suppress voting or face a fate worse than death
– the end of Republican dominance. Hey, count our hands: the
majority could live with that –
when winning is about having the best ideas and
working the hardest. What an
idea. Though flooded with
corruption and mass death tolls, 72 million voters still chose Trump! But Trump’s tunnel
vision aside, does he not expose the rightwing repugnance for democracy, representative
elections and anything that
interferes with authoritarian
controls.
Such blatant un-Americanism qualifies as Trump’s worst political crime, undermining the paramount reason why America exists: as a melting pot where newcomers have legitimacy, opportunity and a shot at the American Dream. Even on good days citizenship and voting . That’s why Trump traffics in racism, anti-immigrant, anti-diversity calumny, and symbolic walls. That’s why he traffics in the conspiratorial delusion his tribe – white, ambitious, belligerent, northern Europeans (with superior blood lines) are fated for leadership – thus a grossly unequal share of the spoils. That’s why tyrants contradict our Declaration, convinced men are not created equal, should not be treated equally, nor should get an equal say – the core “populist” dictator’s dilemma.
That inverted logic explains why Trump, the world’s expert on honest elections, must bluster that only contests that crown him are legitimate, all others demonized as rigged, fraudulent and stolen. That this infamy comes from a doubly unpopular loser – without a day in office with a 50% approval rating – confirms Trump’s perversity.
Trump is not alone, simply the tip of the bad faith minoritarian iceberg. The reigning prince of slavish hypocrites, Lindsey Graham, rushed to Trump’s defense with what passes for rightwing thinking, “If Republicans don’t challenge and change the U.S. election system, there will never be another Republican president elected again.” Thus did Graham-crackers-for-brains expound on FIX TV: “To my Republican colleagues out there, we have to fight back, or we will accept our fate.” Fight back? Exactly how would Graham change the “U.S. election system” that elected him, except banish a spate of non-Republican, mail in voters? This extremism echoes Trump bellowing: when only “legal” votes are counted, he wins in a landslide. When illegal votes are counted, the election is stolen. Thus does self-serving simple-mindedness trump reason, if not reality. When was hypocrisy ever deterred by non-stop lying? So, as gerrymandering politicians pick their voters by geography, so the rabid right targets riff-raff renegades who vote non-Republican.
Rank democracy
And it gets worse – as other Republican leaders also echo the anti-democratic, slave-holding, mob-fearing Founders. A month ago, Utah Senator Mike Lee tweeted out an iconic if shocking declaration of inequality: “Democracy isn’t the objective; liberty, peace, and prospefity [sic] are. We want the human condition to flourish. Rank democracy can thwart that.” If we understood what Lee means by “prospefity” (rhymes with perfidy), we’d have a clue what ghouls inhabit “rank democracy.” This unintended slip reveals all: those who “rank” voters by legitimacy (whites uber alles) not only conceive, but actually publicize their rank opposition to “rank democracy.”Amazing exposure of disgraceful values.
What can any elected official mean with “rank” other than screaming mob rule where only inferior, seditious beings vote? Instead of one person, one-vote, for the spelling- and history-challenged Lee, democratic representation sits back of the bus while “liberty” and “peace” win front row seats. So, how many innocent black men, lawlessly murdered by racialized brutality, wouldn’t favor liberty and peace vs. the alternative of non-existence? Without the “liberty” of being alive, voting pales. Likewise, dying from an avoidable disease impedes your self-expression, if not prosperity. This new Leeism is anti-democratic, impeachable deconstructionism at its worst. The only good news: outrages historically hidden are now on full Twitter display!
Rarely has the choice for or against democracy been clearer. Want more Trumps, Grahams and Lees – just let Republicans vote. Never tell everyone to vote, don’t support voting rights or defend elections as surprisingly legitimate, per the latest. The Democratic Party is hardly flawless but no national Dem (since rogue Dixiecrats in the 1940s) has defied the concept and the right of expansive voting legitimacy. Voting rights above all utterly divides Republicans from Democrats – especially considering the all-important sovereignty of self-rule.
What started as a tiresome, fundraising Trump tantrum – losing is so unthinkable it must be illegal, meat for the base – is now a contagion spreading like Covid-19. As with the fable, not only is the emperor naked, schemers are praising the fineness of his phoniness. And yet they touch the truth: going forward, the fairer the election, the more likely the rightwing allergy to governance will be rejected. Though misguided and rife with bad faith, Trump, Graham and Lee see the handwriting on the wall. This deceit-prone, never-ending campaign proves that crude anti-democrats realize the limits of even severe voter suppression, toppled in the end by Status Quo Joe. More democracy is the death knell for predatory rightwingers who almost never deliver for the unemployed man or woman, let alone hungry child or grandparent.
Thus, Republicans rightly cry the sky is falling. If “rank democracy” rules, that is, the full weight of majority rule, then the Republican Party and its populous white base shrinks to a regional party – the backward midwest and the more backward deep south. The definition of a regional party is one incapable of electing a president, thus it must undermine elections, citizenship and majority rule to have a chance. That looms as a longer-term, even more permanent threat than the lame duck, Captain Chaos, and his merry bank of nincompoops. What, let more people decide their collective fate – now that’s a radical, extremist, populist, progressive idea worth pursuing! And Americans, thanks to the imperfect yet brilliant Founders, still may ride the waves of their revolution, soaring language, historic documents and mythology to justify real democratic populism.
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