Imagine Mitch McConnell telling people to take to the streets. Telling them to rally against… what he tries to portray as a fraudulent election?
Imagine the same for Kevin McCarthy. Or, and this takes really vivid imagination, imagine Lindsey Graham.
It’s prepostorous on its face. Everybody knows these men have no real support among the Republican base. They are more despised than they are admired. And they know it themselves. They follow the base, they don’t lead it.
It wouldn’t take more than an unimaginative slur, a variation of ”low energy Jeb”, ”little Marco”, ”lying Ted”, for Donald Trump to take them down.
This is obvious, no politician in the GOP except Trump enjoys broad support from the base. The closest you could come are probably people who aren’t even politicians; Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson.
But the implications are sometimes overlooked. This is a perfect setup for a fascist power grab. Very similar to how conservative/nationalist politicians in Weimar Germany thought they could control Hitler by appointing him chancellor in a government where conservatives held most of the important posts. Except it didn’t matter because Hitler had fanatical supporters, he could rally his brown shirts (the SA), he could own the streets. The German conservatives had at best lukewarm support from their base. I have written about this before, about the Lindsey Graham-like tragedy of Franz von Papen.
And the US is fast approaching a situation where owning the streets becomes more important than holding government posts. It only takes Donald Trump coming close enough in 2024 to once again claim fraud, and using his by then far more loyal state election officials to sow doubt. Chaos would ensue.
The extreme right have their thugs, the anti-fascist coalition needs to own the streets through non-violence, strong numbers, bravery and endurance.
If the perception becomes thugs against thugs, Donald Trump will promise order and he will prevail.
The only way the anti-fascist coalition prevails is through unity (this is not the time for purity tests, against Henry Cuellar (D-Tx-28), Joe Manchin or conservative never-trumpers), non-violence (expressions like ACAB that legitimize violence against police should be banned from Daily Kos) and endurance.