January 6. Call it for What it is.
Tomorrow is the 1st anniversary of the attack on the US Capitol by Trump supporters, but just commemorating that violent event is not enough and doesn’t address the real problem today in America. The problem is much deeper than a couple thousand dumbasses brainwashed by a carnival barker and career liar. Our system of government is now under constant threat. That threat comes from what was once a national party that has morphed into a fascist regime which is striving for permanent power in defiance of the will of Americans. THAT is the problem.
This has been coming for decades, fueled by increasingly radical media that is unconstrained by any regulation, especially the Fairness Doctrine that Reagan destroyed at the behest of Rupert Murdoch who was also provided fast track US citizenship and allowed to monopolize US media by a compliant FCC, also under Reagan. That started the drain of fair journalism, and the rest is history. Murdoch’s empire has rotted American democracy from the inside, moving from ranting about taxes at their historic lows to Bill O’Reilly’s idiotic “War on Christmas” trope to lying about everything not Right Wing Nut Job. Murdoch offered up Fox as the official press office for TFG during his infestation of the Oval office, and still amplifies his lies ’round the clock. The entire goal was to piss off one demographic, and that has succeeded.
We now live in a society where civil discourse and fact based policy decisions no longer exist. Politics is now more than blood sport – it has become a death cult, from the radical gun culture that has successfully injected armed thugs into the political arena to losing candidates who will NEVER concede defeat, no matter how obvious that candidate’s loss is. I recall 2008 when Al Franken beat incumbent Norm Coleman by 312 votes. The votes were counted and counted and counted, and Franken’s win was close, but certain. Coleman never conceded, fighting in court for 8 months until a 3 judge panel declared Franken the winner. Since then, virtually no Republican has conceded defeat. Every election is a battle to the death, and concession speeches from GOP candidates are almost non existent. Trump has now normalized that behavior by lying and lying and lying and lying. The Big Lie has now been embedded into the DNA of Republicans, and all over the country they are taking election administration out of the hands of non-partisans and putting it into the hands of radical partisans, even legislating overruling free and fair elections if they don’t like the results.
The real tragedy is that now both sides of the political spectrum have no confidence in the system. Over 80% of Republicans have lost confidence because they believe The Big Lie and that the system is full of fraud. Over 80% of Democrats have lost confidence because over 80% of Republicans believe The Big Lie and are trying to rig the system in their own favor.
All of this adds up to every election now being contested to the death especially if the Republican candidate loses. Armed goofballs will show up at polls, counting locations, city halls, county seats, state capitols, and, yes, even the US Capitol if the election goes against their candidate. Though TFG is the heartbeat of this massive delusion, it has now grown beyond his own cult of personality. Oh, sure, every right winger will run to Mara Lago to kiss the ring, but The Big Lie is so engrained that it has taken on a life of its own. People who were reasonable folks 10 years ago are now ranting maniacs spouting bullshit and even QAnon conspiracy theories. All reason and critical thinking has all but vanished.
My greatest fear is that this won’t end well, and not until violence and fascism touches most Americans will people wake up and demand accountability from elected leaders. Add the metastasized cancer that is TFG to the political mix, and the patient could easily die. That is the risk that we really face.