A precarious point in history

[TexasTowelie]

by Thomas Mills


We are in unprecedented times. The President of the United States is trying to steal an election, making false allegations of voter fraud and seeking collaborators at the state level who will subvert the will of people. He’s tacitly supported by a Republican establishment that remains disturbingly silent and an ignorant Trump base that is disturbingly vocal. His attempt will fail but he’s establishing a precedent that may eventually end our democracy, showing more competent would-be authoritarians the way forward.

Yesterday, the president’s lawyers called an embarrassing press conference declaring that Trump had won in a landslide but Venezuelans had hacked into our voting system and changed votes. She could produce no evidence, but you can rest assured that plenty of the GOP base believes it. You can also be confident that Mitch McConnell, Mike Pence, Kevin McCarthy and other GOP will not refute her lies.

Today, Trump is flying leaders of the Michigan state house and senate to the White House to ask them to ignore the will of the state’s voters and seat electors loyal to Trump, not the country. Again, no prominent Republican will rebuke Trump for his attempted coup. Instead, people like Ted Cruz and Tom Cotton will show tacit support, helping Trump cast doubt about the outcome of the election.

These are the same elected officials who have failed to hold Trump accountable for any bad behavior. They ridiculed the Mueller Report, saying that the president was exonerated. In fact, the Mueller Report said the opposite. While there was no collusion between the 2016 Trump campaign and the Russian intelligence operations meant to disrupt our election, the report uncovered all sorts of misbehavior by the campaign that Republicans ignored, sending the signal to Trump that he could do as he pleased with no repercussions.

Read more: https://www.politicsnc.com/a-precarious-point-in-history/