In the election of 2020, nearly 73 million Americans voted for autocracy over democracy. Most of these people are under the brain-numbing influence of lies, manipulation, and conspiracy-thinking. The frightening thing is that even without Trump in the White House, they could still be a potent and dangerous political force.
Currently, the most obvious effect of their influence is on the failure of almost every elected Republican in the nation, more than a week after the results were clear, to recognize and acknowledge Joe Biden as President-elect. Given Donald Trump’s inability to accept reality and concede the race, elected Republicans, local, state, and national, are hesitant to speak out and support the truth. They are, quite literally, afraid of Trump’s supporters because they believe they will need those very same voters in future elections.
Avoiding reality
Over the past four years, Trump’s true believers have become extremely adept at avoiding and denying reality. Any information that challenges their belief system, whether news, or polls, or investigations, or scandals, or fact checks, or even impeachment, is “fake.” It is not surprising, then, to see them now denying the reality of the election results.
Psychologists who study cults have noted that when true believers are faced with undeniable evidence that their beliefs are wrong, they rarely admit their mistake. Instead, they will usually double down and hold even more tightly to their false beliefs.
Challenging democracy
What we see now [is] a completely manufactured controversy based on no evidence whatsoever, purely to maintain power, and to overturn a legitimate election.
Jonathan Gienapp
This nonsense is a direct threat to our democracy. Fighting legitimate election results is an attempt to overthrow the government. It is, by definition, treason.
It is one thing to investigate irregularities. Every election has those to some degree. But to make repeated, unfounded, accusations of wide-spread fraud is irresponsible and dangerous. It weakens people’s confidence in our system. It is no coincidence that Trump’s election challenges keep failing in the courts. They have no evidence.
Some fear that Trump intends to steal the election. In fact, that was the plan all along. In advance of the election he damaged and slowed the Postal Service. Republican governors did what they could to repress the Democratic vote (one ballot drop box per county?!). He had McConnell rush Barrett onto the Supreme Court in case he needed to pull a George W. He told the Proud Boys to “stand by.” And he constantly denigrated mail-in balloting (during a pandemic) knowing that Democrats would prefer that method of voting.
We’ll be going to the US Supreme Court. We want all voting to stop.
Donald J. Trump, election night speech
… As far as I’m concerned, we already have won it.
Since the election, Trump has replaced the Secretary of Defense and several other top people at the Defense Department. He has called on the Supreme Court to block the vote count. His supporters have asked Republican state legislatures to select Electoral College “electors” who will not vote for the candidate who won their state.
It appears that these desperate measures will not keep him in office. However, the longer he discredits the election results, the more money he collects into his phony “Official Election Defense Fund.” He is weakening our democracy and deceiving his own supporters for money!
Ongoing gridlock
Assuming that Trump cannot get the Supreme Court, or Republican state legislators, or the police, or the military, or the rabble in the streets, to assist him in a coup, we could still be faced with ongoing government gridlock. Sadly, Mitch McConnell will still be in the Senate. He arguably did more damage to the United States in the past four years than Donald Trump.
It is absolutely imperative that McConnell NOT be the Majority Leader during Joe Biden’s presidency. We need to strongly support Jon Ossoff and the Rev. Raphael Warnock in the Georgia Senate run-off elections.
Sources: McKay Coppins, “When the MAGA Bubble Burst,” The Atlantic, November 7, 2020.
Jesse Wegman, “The Republican Party Is Attacking Democracy,” The New York Times, November 10, 2020.
Thomas B. Edsall, “What Is Trump Playing At?,” The New York Times, November 11, 2020.
Chelsey Cox, “Fact Check: State legislators pick electors; Supreme Court ruled against ‘faithless electors’, USA Today, November 10, 2020.
Jarrett Renshaw, Joseph Tanfani, “Donations under $8K to Trump ‘election defense’ instead go to president, RNC,” Reuters, November 11, 2020.
Maggie Severns, “Where Trump’s recount fundraising dollars are really going,” Politico, November 12, 2020.
Remember when Hillary conceded on election night, even though she won the popular vote, and when Obama invited Trump to the White House the very next day? While they did not like the outcome of the election, they respected it, even with the spectre of Russian interference. With a handful of exceptions, including Romney, most Republican Senators and members of Congress have enabled this ongoing insanity in what the Government’s own security has called the most secure in US history, and with the highest level of engagement in a century. Colbert keeps repeating Edmund Burke quote that “The only necessary thing for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
My comment in today’s D-News, probably to be censored:
So here’s the deal. Either Joe Biden will become president, as is his right as winner of the election, or a Trump dictatorship will be installed. Which will the Deseret News accept? Let’s have it D-News!
We are facing the creation of a Trump dictatorship. Will we get any help from the Church in dealing with this? Unfortunately it appears NO. We are on our own now, with no institutional help.