www.vox.com/...
Vox gets it. And we need to take it seriously.
As we speak, a party-wide, national effort is underway to not only undermine the legitimacy of the election in the minds of voters, and not only to gin up a violent, radicalized base of 70 million people already in a state of pain and despair, but to simply steal the election, using every lever of power at the Republican party’s disposal.
1) This is an attempted coup, even if it seems on it’s face to be a doomed out of the gate.
With this action, we know that Bill Barr is attempting to wield his power as the head of the DOJ to put armed agents into the mix of counting votes. There’s no evidence, but he’s authorizing this anyway, and he’s not doing that for show. We should believe that this is an authoritarian move, because Barr is an authoritarian. This is what authoritarians do. We already know he’s not interested in protecting and defending the constitution.
2) Making fun of this coup attempt will not stop it from progressing.
Yes. This is absolutely bonkers. But that doesn’t matter when an authoritarian regime is attempting to subvert democracy in the name of establishing total power. It doesn’t matter how outlandish the lies are. It doesn’t matter how demonstrably false their actions are. What matters is what they can do, and what they are willing to do.
They can do anything their power allows them to. They have already been willing to commit textbook acts of genocide at the border. Why wouldn’t they subvert the rule of law in order to retain power and protect themselves from prosecution?
3) The Republican Party is aligning behind this strategy, with major players from across the various states parroting talking points and showing themselves willing to subvert the democratic process in order to subvert the will of the people.
In Georgia, as noted above, the two candidates for Senate have called for the ouster of the Republican Secretary of State. He has (so far) refused, holding out some hope for democracy. But now the Governor is involved, and he’s not on the side of the Angels.
4) Operatives are talking about this. And it’s serious.
5) The Biden/Harris team has thus far failed to present a defense against these accusations. For better or for worse they’re focusing on preparing to govern.
An implied defense is not an active defense. We are winning in court, but we only have to lose once to get this to walk up the chain. We need more than lawyers — we need them to step up and condemn this authoritarian power grab.
6) The Democratic Party has a habit of relying on norms and faithful government operatives to stop things like this from playing out.
This reliance on the good will of career statespersons did not succeed in bringing about the end of Donald Trump’s presidency, and in fact led all the brave witnesses to suffer consequences for their willingness to do what’s right. Norms and even Laws are irrelevant to an authoritarian regime. They broke law after law after law when they used the White House to campaign, but suffered nothing more than a series of snarky tweets for their trouble. This coup began and was planned with the ACB nomination and subsequent shove-through of her ascendance to the court. She did not say she would recuse herself from cases associated with the election, and so we must assume for the sake of our democracy that she intends to assist them in this effort.
We need a plan, and that plan cannot be to dismiss these concerns or yawn them away. What can the party do *right now* to get out ahead of this. Not wait and see. Not hope the courts do the right thing. What direct action can we take?
At the very least, party leaders need to get out on the stump and let the hellfire reign in defense of our democracy. We need to impeach Bill Barr for his attack on our election. We need to drag the woman holding up the transition in front of the House, and for god’s sake can we FINALLY use the power of inherent contempt to force this issue?!
We need to have our people out there on every news story talking about how unpatriotic and authoritarian the Republican party is behaving. They need to be furious. Outraged. Slamming fists against tables. We need warriors out there embarrassing these Republicans into finally stepping up and doing the right thing.
Do not dismiss this as noise. It is not noise. When authoritarian powers tell you who they are, and what they are doing, you must believe them.