DEMOCRACY IN THE BALANCE

December 11, 2020. Two important developments in the attempted coup: 1.Texas has now filed a suit against Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Georgia claiming that their elections were fraudulent and should be thrown out. Yesterday 17 state attorney generals signed on to support the suit. Trump has asked to be a part of the suit and asked Senator Ted Cruz to represent him to the Supreme Court. 2.Trump has a new clarion call : “Overturn!”

The only Republican U.S. Senator to stand up and say this is wrong and against our democracy is Mitt Romney. The rest are silent. The fact they have have not condemned but condoned these actions further demonstrate they are fully prepared to bring irreparable damage to our democracy. They care for power more than for country. Meanwhile in the U.S. House, Representative Mike Johnson sent an email at Trump’s request to every Republican in Congress to get them to sign on to an amicus brief in support of the Texas suit.

So what is their end game? Do they really expect to overturn the results? If so, I keep wondering what happened to the Protect the Results effort following the election? Why is there no organized resistance to this? Why is there no public outrage? Why is this being met with such silence on the part of the Democrats? Conventional wisdom is that these attempts will go nowhere. But, conventional wisdom and tradition has been so upended that we are now looking to the Supreme Court, packed with Republican loyalists to be the defense against this attempt to overturn a free and “most secure election in history,” according to Christopher Krebs who before he was fired by Trump was the head of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.

But even if they are not successful, I contend that irreparable damage to the democracy has already been done. By the time Joe Biden is sworn in on January 20, 2021, assuming we get past all these landmines, the legitimacy of his Presidency will already be so undermined that making progress will be very difficult. The Republicans have already demonstrated they will stop at nothing to retain power and to wield it absolutely.

If they win the Georgia run-offs. we may have a President who is functionally a lame duck from day one. McConnell may refuse to bring forward cabinet nominees, may refuse to bring forward judicial nominees, may refuse to pass any legislation. He and his willing accomplices will annihilate any remaining traditions or norms of our governing system, setting up the opportunity for someone, equally evil but far more skillful than Trump. to take office and finish off the democracy in 2024. Far from being a “institutionalist”, McConnell is a radical.

Trump has already demonstrated that he has no respect for democratic norms. Traditions that have served the country since its founding are now disposed of. This behavior has confirmed that there is no bottom. There is nothing that will stop the Republicans from asserting their power is sacrosanct. Nothing that will right the ship. Is this sedition? While it may not technically meet the definition of “conduct or speech inciting people to rebel against the authority of a state,” it is conduct and speech that undermines the integrity of democracy and thereby the nation. Just yesterday, there was an attack on the Democratic Party Headquarters in Spokane.

So what we will we have in America? A value for traditions and norms or sedition? Who is standing up? The silence is deafening.

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