Two days ago I posted a diary, ‘The GOP has a 2026 problem’. In it I pointed out how Republicans would face an electoral challenge in 2026. Especially in the House races. It received 558 comments. Many of these were positive. Others took issue with some point I had made — which I welcome. Because criticism can sharpen, even modify, my thinking. And at the very least it means people have read some or all of my piece.
However, a small but significant minority either definitively told me there would be no more elections — or waspishly asked why I thought there would be more elections. I write this diary in response to that.
I am no Pollyanna. Trump’s term is going to be hellish. I do not need to tell DKers that. Many diaries on this site have enumerated the injuries the dangerously demented man — and his crazed zealots — will inflict on the country and its citizens. He and his people will batter the economy, shred civil rights, kneecap our institutions, and work damn hard to rig elections. And yes, maybe even figure out how to cancel them.
But here’s my point. Even if we cannot guarantee there will be elections, we cannot just throw our hands up and quit. We have to work on the assumption that citizens will still have their say. It’s already tough to vote in some states. And no doubt red state governments, supported by an anti-democratic Supreme Court, will make it harder. If so, local Democratic parties and organizations must help challenged voters overcome the obstacles. But that is a topic for another time.
More to the point, what good does it do to say explicitly or implicitly: “Why bother, there will be no more elections.”? The best way to allow something to happen is to resign yourself to it happening.
In 1940 Britain, many expected a Nazi invasion would be both inevitable and successful. They had plenty of reasons to think so. Then a short, balding, pudgy dipsomaniac with a passion for cigars told Parliament and the nation as a whole — in a speech for the ages — that: “We shall fight on the beaches … “
The moral of Churchill’s pugnacious flip of the bird to ‘Herr Hitler’ is “do not cave.” Prepare to fight, no matter the odds. While it makes sense to assume the worst, and plan for it, you cannot just throw your hands in the air and whine about the unfairness of it all.
Churchill knew the fight would not be easy. He didn’t think victory would be assured by his words. He was a historian with a clear-eyed understanding of the stakes. And he knew the enemy was cunning and determined.
In a less well-known part of the speech, he acknowledged his opponents would try anything. But the British would fight whatever the enemy’s methods. In his words:
“We are assured that novel methods will be adopted, and when we see the originality of malice, the ingenuity of aggression, which our enemy displays, we may certainly prepare ourselves for every kind of novel stratagem and every kind of brutal and treacherous manœuvre. I think that no idea is so outlandish that it should not be considered and viewed with a searching, but at the same time, I hope, with a steady eye.”
Some reading this may argue that Churchill’s words were uttered when Britain faced a different threat than America faces now. They might point to the Nazi hijack of German politics that started when the fascists wrested control of the Reichstag in 1933 while winning only 44% of the seats, as a better WWII-era analogy.
Then the Nazis used their plurality, the Reichstag fire, and a whole lot of violence to pass the Enabling Act (officially the 'Law to Remedy the Distress of People and Reich) which effectively vested all power in the Chancellor (Hitler) by rendering the legislature unnecessary in passing laws. The rest is literally history. The next free elections in West Germany were in 1949. The next multi-party elections in a unified Germany in 1990.
Here’s the good news. Getting rid of democracy would be a lot harder in the US. The Weimar Constitution was only 14 years old and had none of the roots of the US Constitution. And the US has an entrenched legal system. The Supreme Court is pro-Trump, but not in his pocket. Just this week they ruled against Trump’s ex-Chief of Staff Mark Meadows’s attempt to escape Georgia justice by deny a venue change in his election-rigging trial.
More importantly, the US has 50 state governments. And even red state governments aren’t necessarily going to let federal authorities free range in their jurisdictions.
But I digress. And other diaries of done a great job of explaining the obstacles the wannabe fascist Trump faces in achieving his aims.
So let me keep it simple. Please don’t tell me there will be no more elections. It smacks of defeatism. The Cassandras may find comfort in their negativity. Hell, they might turn out to be right. But today, it is not helpful.
