They'll Never Change

The more things stay the same, the more nothing changes. Isn’t that what they say? Whatever. The point is, everything that can be said about Trumpism and our democracy has been said. Written. Filmed. Sung. Satirized. Tweeted. By politicians, historians, pundits, celebrities, comedians, influencers (whatever that means). Yet Trumpists still believe. If the Republican Party won’t renounce Trump’s big lie, democracy’s death is inevitable.

They won’t, and it is. To secure unpopular policy, their leaders are squarely on the side of untruth, committed to ensuring that their minority views will continue to override those of the majority of Americans. And why not? From their politically-packed, Roe-v-Wade-threatening Supreme Court down to state legislatures and local elections, it’s working. Two-thirds of Republicans still believe Trump’s election lie; half favor continued jiggering of election laws over presenting compelling policy. We’ve run out of gobs to smack. 

Unless Republicans acknowledge the no-fraud legitimacy of President Biden’s win, election-related laws pullulating in red states should be understood as ways to maintain their policy-lower but electoral-upper hand, undisirregardless of what they say about “restoring faith.” Lost faith in democracy has been their goal all along; it’s their excuse for voter suppression. It’s as if… Nope. There’s no analogy to such an obvious ruse.

Their latest are laws designed to intimidate poll-workers and observers. By the preceding understanding, it’s to prevent their chicanery from being reported. The intimidation also applies to those watching ballot drop-boxes, while requiring 24/7 observation thereof. Fewer watchers, fewer boxes, already disproportionately lacking in red-state Democratic precincts. 

Those are only the most noticed attacks on fair elections. Less publicized are laws that could have Republican legislators, not voters, deciding who wins in their states. As the non-partisan Protect Democracy reported: “… In 2021, state legislatures across the country—through at least 148 bills filed in 36 states —are moving to muscle their way into election administration, as they attempt to dislodge or unsettle the executive branch and/or local election officials who, traditionally, have run our voting systems… American democracy relies on the losers of elections respecting the results and participating in a peaceful transition of power. If, instead, the losing party tries to override the will of the voters, that would be the death knell for our system of government…” 

Notwithstanding attempts to erase what happened, we came close in January. Fearing the truth, with whataboutist excuses and acceding to demands by the Instigator-in-Chief, Republican leaders are lining up to prevent meaningful investigation. Even without a 9/11-style inquiry, though, it’s easy to know the what, why, how, and who of the insurrection. All Trumpists need is to detox from Fox “news” and its replicants. Timely example: last week, Hannity showed a clip of President Biden being asked about the Colonial Pipeline hack, edited to make it appear he gave a “bizarre” answer. It’s the kind of lie his viewers absorb like a sunburn.

So what shall we expect from the Arizona “recount,” dark-money paid and subcontracted to a rightwing business with no relevant experience, whose owner believes the election was stolen? Whose rules are lax, methods constantly changing, workers untrained. Using UV light to find secret Trump-placed watermarks; concerned about 165-thousand incinerated chickens (not kidding); hunting, by looking for bamboo droppings, for forty-thousand forged ballots they believe were shipped (beamed?) from Asia. (Possibly off-point, your columnist won’t be repurchasing bamboo toilet paper anytime soon.)

If they uncover nothing, will the two-thirds of Republicans who believed the big lie be convinced? History says no. And, given by whom and how it’s being conducted, if the recount “finds” fraud it’ll be suspect. 

Committed to a lie and the damaged man who promotes it, today’s non-conservative, democracy-rejecting Republican leaders show no sign of reacquiring their decades-past sanity; nor do the majority of their voters. There’s money to be made, by Trump and the conmen and propaganda networks around him, in keeping the delusions alive, no matter the damage to America. Or their trusting followers. 

The only way we’ll return to a functioning, two-party Congress is if those who still believe Trump cares about them, and that he made America great (and that liberals are communists and Fox “news” is truthful), will un-scale their own eyes; unimaginable though it be. By now, it’s clear: no amount of pleading, cajoling, or Demosthenesing from without will make it happen. (Check this, if no others.)

Absent bottom-up reformation from within, no one – least of all a small-town columnist with too much love for tinyurls and creating hapax legomena – can effect the Republican awakening that America so urgently needs. Which begs the obvious question. 

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