[Cross-posted at The Left Coaster.]
A small rumor in the intertubes lately is that at least 3 former Presidents—Obama, Clinton and Bush—will put forth a serious public relations effort for Americans to accept the new covid-19 vaccine, since there are so many firewalls of rejection for it. With President Trump and the Republican Party seem so hell-bent on trashing American democracy around election 2020 perhaps it’s also good idea for those three amigos to get serious about defending the country too.
As a little person sitting at home watching this ridiculous election coup farce there are two camps stating their realities, the first that this is a laughable evolution of ineptness, don’t worry about it. Then constitutionalists and veterans of Venezuela try everything within their power to warn us how serious it has to be.
Perhaps it’s time to accept the reality for all of us that it’s both, a ridiculous failing farce and a deadly currently real threat to the country and democracy.
Many voices have said when the electoral college meets and finalizes its vote then the election process must really, totally be over and universally accepted, President Trump will be gone January 20th.
Well, what happens if all of a sudden President Trump and his huge army of enablers just announce the American electoral college is now moot, it’s as rigged as the election was?
Then, with the fast easily ability we saw in the summer, Attorney General Barr and President Trump whip out these big armed Bureau of Prison squads to start taking down the inaugural scaffolding. The National Guard, which defiled the Lincoln Memorial this year as casually as they ate breakfast, sets up with Star Wars armor and formations around the White House. President Trump squats and refuses to leave.
This could never ever happen, many voices instantly say, the rule of law says President Trump has to leave January 20th! The problem here is the naivete that the rule of law means anything anymore, or that it holds any value to President Trump or the Republican Party.
President Trump is a lying criminal trying to overthrow election 2020, that is plainly clear. Currently he is being enabled by the Republican Party yet stopped by various judges around the country actually implementing the rule of law. How is it really such a farce or fantasy at this point for President Trump just to ignore the electoral college?
What happens if there is a point of no return for the enablers of President Trump? What if they feel trapped and think even overturning election 2020 is their only option?
Keep in mind the political science community has always argued about the arrival of fascism and its threshold markers, but one universally agreed screaming siren of alarm threshold event is armed goons in the street enforcing ruling junta politics with fear, violence and intimidation. That’s fascism.
We’ve had two American events that fit that category in the last week, armed goons intimidating the Michigan Secretary of State at her home, and other official Florida goons threatening a former health official right in her home with guns, threats and searches. God Bless America.
At some point all this farce of overthrowing election 2020 stops—or then spins completely out of control. All the barriers Americans thought were in place simply fail, the instigators are cruel, unfeeling fascist criminals, the rule of law just won’t stop them. Armed street intimidation and enabling by Republicans in Congress to the attempted overthrow are terrible, terrible signs. The longer this goes on without being definitively stopped the greater the risk it spins out of control.
Of course leveraging President Trump and the Republicans is notoriously difficult to do, Jennifer Rubin of the Washington Post recently noted the only real available lever is Fox News, if they shut down all this farce and kept telling the truth about the election President Trump would give his coup attempt up.
Perhaps Presidents Clinton, Bush—especially Bush—and Obama appearing together have the same power, flatly state election 2020 was real, honest and fair, President Trump decisively lost, it’s time to move on. There will be another day and election in 2024.
Both scenarios are totally unlikely, I know, but as stated before there has to be a point somewhere in all this awful fantasy of criminality and immaturity that it just stops. No one has stated were that is. The longer it all goes on the more likely it is to succeed, we’ll lose the democracy and the country.