Donald Trump is looking a bit desperate. He’s now zeroed in on the Constitution’s voting rights with his Save America Act. He’s again calling into question our record of free and fair elections — long the envy of the world. Yet his rumor-laced lies seem to have a nation of would-be voters where he wants them to stay until this November: everyone, everywhere, divided, fraught and worried.
Congressman Jim McGovern is among the officials repeating fears Trump will use ICE, the National Guard and his Capitol-attacking thugs to commandeer elections and outcomes. Yet none offer up bold plans to stop him. That reinforces Trump’s design to keep everyone gobsmacked, waiting on what he’ll do next to disqualify voters, make false corruption claims, limit polling sites, and assert victories.
When the Constitution is threatened there’s a duty to say something. There is also a duty to do something. It appears the 80-year-old lame duck will stop at nothing this time in assailing our most essential constitutional right. House and Senate wins November 3rd would effectively solidify a rise to dictatorship. Signposts show he’s out for blood. Control the vote; you control the people. There’s no greater threat to democracy.
Trump’s 2020 presidential loss was exhaustively confirmed in 60 court findings when he phoned Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger on Jan. 2, 2021, pressuring him to overturn Georgia’s repeatedly recounted votes, “All I want to do is this,” Trump said, “I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more that we have because we won the state.” Raffensperger courageously refused, “We have to stand by our numbers. We believe our numbers are right.”
But Trump wasn’t done. On Jan. 6, 2021, he egged on thousands of far-right MAGA Republicans, Proud Boys and assorted masked and bear-spray-sporting thugs. He sent them toward the Capitol to fulfill his wishes. He then went home and watched for hours as that blood-thirsty mob attacked the seated Congress, the Constitution and our peaceful transfer of power.
To date push-back against Trump’s constitutional assaults have come via a handful of national and state organizations in large, once-a-season protests. ICE emergency protests and stand-outs also target abuses. Taken together they appear part of a long-game strategy, yet they’ve done little to stem a string of constitutional losses. Though spirited, their mile-wide/inch-deep impacts fail to meet the measure of this dangerous moment. Trump knows that.
The right to vote can’t defend itself. And Trump appears all-in to go for democracy’s jugular this time. Comfortably unchallenged, he wages war on voting rights from Washington while reaping billions.
But there’s a new desperation in Trump’s tired bravado and false accusations. Failure to recognize that is a colossal mistake. There’s fear evident in this lame-duck president pounding out old bully-pulpit lies of election fraud. He lost to Joe Biden in 2020. That’s a fact. His war has led to the shut down of the Strait of Hormuz and sent gas prices skyrocketing. It’s causing global shortages, price spikes, weakening trade and poisoning international relations. These are facts breathing down Trump’s neck.
This assault on voting shows he’s terrified he’ll lose: his power, his fact-absent claims, monied cronies, supreme court protections, his social media and deep-fake posts — his witch hunts on the free press, people of color; women. His chaos and control could be sidelined. His wars and executive orders would no longer hold the immediacy of a ranting bully imposing false imperial powers on a quiescent democracy.
And that is where the strength of the American people resides — in the right to take back the voice of a nation and assemble, united in the freedoms of the Constitution. That’s the fightback needed right now to inspire, to set the stage for democracy’s triumph in November.
Voting rights belong to everyone, won by people legally exercising sacred constitutional rights in the nation’s capital. Trump wants a nation divided, dispersed, afraid. It’s time at long last for everyone — a mile deep and an inch wide, to call out tyranny and stand together in courage and by right of redress, in defense of the right to vote. It’s time to silence the lies and proclaim unequivocally: “This attack will not stand!”
Karl Meyer lives in Greenfield. He writes about the Connecticut River, and the Constitution and democracy as well.