Respect for all Americans to vote as they please has long been sacrosanct. No longer. There are coordinated threats working in concert with Donald Trump to undermine U.S. democracy in general and …
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Respect for all Americans to vote as they please has long been sacrosanct. No longer. There are coordinated threats working in concert with Donald Trump to undermine U.S. democracy in general and unimpeded balloting in particular. This dark reality is possible because of unparalleled enthusiasm for a treasonous man who poses a radical threat to our fragile 248-year-old democracy.
It is not a new phenomenon. Crackpots pandering to toxic fear and bias have violated nations since the pharaohs. Some may remember reading Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar in high school and having to “compare and contrast” dueling post-assassination addresses to the people of Rome. Brutus appealed to the crowd’s intellect and lost. Mark Antony appealed to their emotions and won. Where the sword alone could not get the job done, all tyrant wannabes have pursued that same strategic head game.
Trump too. He knows what the public fears and hates. Of the issues he manipulates for emotional extortion, immigration has been the principal. Yes, there is a crisis at the southern border. In 2020, he vowed as a candidate to solve it, but as president, the problem worsened. When pundits cite that or note his behind-the-scenes killing of a bipartisan border bill, they miss the plainly obvious: Donald Trump does not want the border crisis to be solved. Ever. It’s because immigration is his golden goose. It’s his most effective pathway to ownership of vast swaths of the American public at the emotional level. Therefore, why solve it? Why kill the golden goose?
Like any dangerously perfect storm, his treachery is propelled by several helpful tailwinds. Of these, the Internet is vital. The freewheeling, anything-goes social media of the World Wide Web is a place where the privilege of anonymity turns every cowardly zealot into a paragon of false bravery.
Trump’s most energized boost comes from Rupert Murdoch’s talk-about-the-news network. Because his viewers are convinced that inconvenient facts aren’t necessarily factual, they’ve come to believe that two plus two might equal five. Correcting their arithmetic, for example asserting that the 2020 election wasn’t stolen, can result in Internet beatings delivered by thuggish armies of the anonymously courageous.
Consequently, this Trump/social media/Murdoch superstorm assaulting America is the true enemy within and has created a trio of dangerously steadfast, anti-democratic voting blocs:
1) Evangelicals who have a passionate intensity for shifting the U.S. to a full-blown religious state. In exchange for their loyalty, the thoroughly irreligious Trump is happy to accommodate. Sadly, any success evangelicals enjoy, such as the repeal of Roe, in addition to all the other dire consequences, also undercuts the Constitutional concept of true religious freedom.
2) The so-called MAGA crowd who obeyed Trump’s command on January 6 and morphed into a gang of Timothy McVeighs. During their failed coup d’état, they sought to assassinate the V.P. and House Speaker and would have done so if they’d been discovered in hallways of the U.S. Capitol. Events of that day will forever speak to the future. It is the darkest self-inflicted wound in American history since the firing on Fort Sumter and demonstrates nothing less than total allegiance to a national strongman like Il Duce or der Führer.
3) The unkindest cut comes from lifelong Republicans who once stood for smaller government, lower taxes and respect for democracy. They’ve abandoned it all for compliant judges, the fraud of trickle-down economics, the repeal of civil rights and a democracy-busting determination to win at any cost. These once-thoughtful conservatives have so shamed themselves that it is fair and balanced to say the party no longer exists. At best it is The Party Formerly Known as Republican. If Trump wins, it will become obvious to the entire world that the GOP has transformed into The Fascist (Lite) Party of America.
Sadly, among these blocs are Sullivan County residents who presumed the right to steal four Biden signs from my yard in 2020. Thus far, they’ve trespassed to seize three Harris signs. Because of this consumptive un-American mania, nothing less than our survival as a constitutional republic will be on the November 5 referendum.
Thankfully, it’s not too late. Regardless of pre-Trump allegiance, all citizens may still grasp the truth and reject the menace. Otherwise, if the fascist ambition of a two-bit con man prevails, there may not be an election in 2028.
Gray Basnight lives in Fremont, NY.
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