The modern Republican Party’s avowed concerns are for gun rights, traditional and Christian values, opposition to abortion, opposition to immigration, and legislative support for big business.
Essentially proposing no platform for what it proposed to accomplish, the Republican Party’s Executive Committee voted in 2020 to repeat the statement of aims it had presented in 2016.
That document largely took aim at the eight-year presidency of Barack Obama. Our first president of color’s main offense was having “dismantled America’s system of health care.” Just how or what the Affordable Care Act, passed by Congress in 2010 and supported by Obama had “dismantled” was not explained. The unspoken truth in the right wing critique’s of Obama’s terms in office was fundamentally that the country had allowed a Black man to have served in the presidency.
Donald Trump – a boastful racist and demeanor of women, a businessman who sought the presidency to enhance and protect his ill-got wealth, a failure at recognizing and arresting the early advance of COVID-19 into the U.S. turned out to be a rallying voice for the white supremacists, fascist-leaning rabble who came to support him.
The Party has focused for decades on gaining uncontested power through occupation of public offices in the states. Such control allows sufficient Electoral College votes to overcome presidential opponents who won the popular vote. That’s how Trump won in 2016. It also allows redesigning voting districts to limit the Black vote.
Anticipating loss, the Trump strategy for the presidency in 2020 election was actually made public — if we lose, we will say, “The election was rigged.” In effect, what was being said was, “We will attempt a coup.”
History will make the judgment. This candidate appeared, then turned out to be, unfit for office.
One of the most remarkable processes in U.S. political history was set in motion by Trump, his attorneys, and members of his administration. The broader goal was to gain and maintain power in the face of the certainty that people of color would soon become a majority in the U. S., thus making Republicans a permanent minority party. Nearly every Republican office holder in the House and Senate signed on to this departure from civilized and constitutional behavior.
Never had such a power play been attempted. It was thought that, as a nation, our traditions made us immune to such a development. The coterie of former office holders, as well as the party faithful voters, remained silent. Remarkably, no thought has been given by Republican leaders to adopt a platform or policies that might legitimately make them more popular with voters.
Failing in all of many dozens of legal challenges of the 2020 election’s outcome in courts around the country, Trump gathered and attempted to lead an insurrection at the Capitol. The aim was to prevent the vice president from allowing Biden’s election to be affirmed by the Congress. Knowing Trump’s presence among the rioters he had inspired might lead to his arrest and prosecution, Secret Service agents physically restrained him and took him to the White House. There he enjoyed TV coverage of the violence he had inspired.
Yes, we have seen and heard much about these events. They have become a part of our history. Yet, step back! They can’t be allowed to succeed. Though narrower in scale, the Trump effort to overthrow our government and, in effect, become a dictator like the Italian Benito Mussolini he admires is as momentous as the secession of Southern states that began our Civil War.
This is a pivotal moment in our history. Control of the House and Senate in November elections, aligned with decisions of the politicized Supreme Court, would deal a death blow to democracy.
Already fated to pass away are women’s health rights. Announced and promised are reversal of gay marriage, control of contraception, a return to illegality of inter-racial marriage, and rigid control of what children can be allowed to learn about in school. The historic burning of books could follow.
Announced as well, have been allowing that right wing Congress opportunity to periodically fund, or defund, Medicare, Medicaid, veteran’s benefits, and Social Security. In the blink of an eye this country could become an ignorant, walled against immigrants, anti-Semitic, anti-people of color, fascist state lacking a free press and freedom of expression.
An estimated 299 Republicans running for public office around the country are Biden election deniers. The very right to vote is on the ballot.
Charlemont resident Carl Doerner is an author and historian currently at work on a re-examination of and challenge to the “American narrative.”