Democracy on the Line, cont'd
Dominic Pezzola, a once proud Proud Boy, said that, despite all appearances, he had “honorable intentions” that day and was only “protecting his country.” However, he “now realizes he was duped into these mistaken beliefs” and “is consumed with guilt.”
There are plenty of other people who are complicit in this attempted hostile takeover, including the eight Republican senators and 139 Republican members of the House of Representatives who voted on at least one of the objections made during the Electoral College vote count…as are Donald Trump’s adult children, his laughable attorneys, his increasingly small staff, and anyone else who amplified his election fraud lies — particularly conservative media outlets.
< As I write this, I still can’t believe any American would jeopardize our country in this way. All of this feels almost like an out-of-body experience. It makes me physically nauseous…and really, really sad. >
I have spoken to, and listened to, hard core Trump supporters throughout this ugly debacle. To me, the scariest and most destructive part of the entire thing is this: I’m pretty certain many of them actually believe what I’m saying to be true. They just don’t care.
We have reached a point in our fractured politics where they feel completely justified doing anything it takes to keep the Democrats and their “Socialist” agenda out of power. They truly believe, on authority from God above, that they and they alone have the power to choose the president of the United States. Constitution be damned.
The implications of this reality are breathtaking. In Russia, Hungary, Poland, Turkey and the Philippines, populist leaders, much like their buddy Donald Trump, have made lying and corruption an artform. Because these countries don’t have strong, independent legal systems and autonomous news media outlets, the lies of these leaders know no bounds.
Luckily, we do have these things, and more. The United States of America was protected from this assault on our democracy by honorable judges, heroic election officials, steadfast state legislatures, and the brave American citizens who stayed true to the constitutionally mandated Electoral College process. God Bless Them All.
But still, all of this feels way too close for comfort. In their outstanding book How Democracies Die, Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, both Harvard professors, warn:
During the Cold War, coup d’état accounted for nearly three out of every four democratic breakdowns. Democracies in Argentina, Brazil, the Dominican Republic, Ghana, Greece, Guatemala, Nigeria, Pakistan, Peru, Thailand, Turkey, and Uruguay all died this way. More recently, military coups toppled Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi in 2013 and Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra in 2014. In all these cases, democracy dissolved in spectacular fashion, through military power and coercion.
But there is another way to break a democracy. It is less dramatic but equally destructive. Democracies may die at the hands not of generals but of elected leaders — presidents or prime ministers who subvert the very process that brought them to power. Some of these leaders dismantle democracy quickly, as Hitler did in the wake of the 1933 Reichstag fire in Germany. More often, though, democracies erode slowly, in barely visible steps.
On February 1, 2021, Myanmar’s military, known as the Tatmadaw, declared a state of emergency and took control of the country — in what amounted to a military coup.
The Myanmar (Burma) military detained the head of state Aung San Suu Kyi and other leaders of the National League for Democracy, who had been reelected by a landslide in November 2020, in only the second democratically held election since the country moved to a democracy from almost fifty years of military rule.
The military announced that power would be transferred to the commander in chief, Min Aung Hlaing, then handed to Myint Swe, the military-backed vice president. The violence is escalating. In late March 2021, security forces killed over 100, including seven children.
What reason did the Myanmar military give for this coup d’état? Well, election fraud, of course! The fact that the country’s election commission still insists there was no evidence to support this claim didn’t seem to matter a damn bit.
Meanwhile, there have been four democratically held presidential elections in Afghanistan in the two decades since the United States arrived on the scene, and three of them have been disputed.
On March 9, 2020, Ashraf Ghani and Abdullah Abdullah both took the oath of office as the rightful president of Afghanistan — at the exact same time. The incumbent, Ashraf Ghani, was declared the rightful winner of the election, but Abdullah insisted that the election was…wait for it…stolen. Incredibly, the media dutifully did the split screen thing as both men simultaneously gave their acceptance speeches.
As this was taking place, rockets rained down over the presidential palace in Kabul. I can practically hear Abdullah’s people shouting…
أوقف السرقة
(that means “Stop the Steal” in Arabic)
Really, America? We’re in the exact same place in our democracy as Myanmar and Afghanistan are? Really? This is what we’re gonna do now?
I am not overreacting. Who among us cannot visualize Donald Trump staging the split screen acceptance speech deal? In fact, he’s probably down at Mar-a-Lago kicking himself for not trying it.