When you think about it US democracy is just an honor system. The whole exercise is based on the assumption, tradition, practice, habit – whatever, that the results of nationwide tabulations, monitored state by state, will be accepted by all parties and fully observed. I suppose of all the “miracles” of the American experiment, this peaceful turnover of tangible power is the most amazing. But what if one side refuses to abide the results because they are beholden to a narrative their base imbibes that equates broad electoral defeat, and accompanying loss of power, with national catastrophe? What then? We may soon find out.
The GOP approaches these midterm elections with the same trepidation Democrats felt in 2010. Despite a booming economy, their President, who has been wildly successful placing his brand on the party’s national profile, limps into November with personal approval ratings stuck in the mid-40s, a figure that has in the past assured a mid-term trouncing. The most polarizing politician in American history, Trump has limited GOP strategy for maintaining control of both chambers on the Hill to one option… turn out the base and hope the plethora of voter suppression schemes flyover legislatures have introduced bear adequate disenfranchisement necessary to carry just enough shaky incumbents over the finish line. Not exactly juggernaut aspirations.
On Election Day 2016 I came home, after experiencing not a moment’s wait to vote, and told my wife we were in trouble. Low turnout is the Republicans’ best friend, always has been. Apathy amplifies the voices of the elderly white, blue collar, male GOP base, which now has morphed into Trump’s wretched core. The inclinations of a majority of today’s America are at odds with views that Fox/AM narrows and makes more exclusive and intolerant by the day. It is simple math: The more citizens vote, the better Democratic prospects become.
Latest polling implies historic levels of enthusiasm across US demographics to vote this election cycle, a large chunk of it motivated by disdain for the President; that can’t be good for the GOP. But Republicans understand the implications of the latest data and have been overt in efforts to make it as hard as possible for certain blocs of voters to participate, literally tossing out ballots in some cases. The cold fact that the GOP views new voters as inimical to their fortunes translates into a narrative, relentlessly hyped by Fox/AM, that equates voter registration efforts with fraud, most often with “illegals” front and center, but also targeting black get-out-the-vote efforts for the type of scrutiny typical of suppression protocols.
The Brennan Center for Justice catalogs every legal challenge to state laws and technical amendments designed to disenfranchise voters. Not surprisingly, the lion’s share have been filed in southern states, where nothing like what is currently happening has been seen since the 60’s,. Georgia exemplifies how brash suppression efforts have become, as Stacey Abrams, a black Democrat running for Governor, looks to motivate the 31% African-American share of the state’s population.
The national GOP leadership have kept straight faces while Brian Kemp, the Republican candidate, has kept his day job as Secretary of State, responsible for actually overseeing the election’s legitimacy. This is the same Brian Kemp who boasted in a campaign ad, he was prepared to drive his own truck throughout the state and round up “illegals”. Meanwhile, just to tilt the playing field, Kemp has pursued an “exact match” policy which requires voter registration information to mirror to the hyphen data in state computers or the application is thrown out. As many as 50K voters stand to lose their status, more than two-thirds African-American.
Alabama actually passed a voter ID law that allows election officials to vouch for voters without appropriate credentials, essentially granting poll managers arbitrary powers to pick and choose who has to obey the law. In Kansas, Chris Kobach, the head of Trump’s Voter Fairness Commission, tasked with proving his fantasy that millions of immigrants voted for Hillary, is locked in a tight race for Governor, and, like Kemp, is the Secretary of State in charge of electoral credibility. Kobach earlier wasted plenty of taxpayer funds uncovering a grand total of nine cases of state voting irregularities, most addled seniors who forgot they had voted already. The list goes on, and it is exclusively Republican. Democrats want more voters, the GOP doesn’t… that simple.
But what if, despite the Republican’s best efforts, a blue wave does crest this November? What if a perfect storm of unprecedented Democratic turnout and a higher degree of Trump repudiation within the GOP combine to deliver Democrats control of both chambers? Who says Trump and his co-conspirators will do the right thing? Anybody simply assuming they will hasn’t followed Trump very closely, or his congressional abettors.
Before he got the terrible news he actually won, Trump was fully prepared to declare 2016’s election a fraud. And while he has been playing the game at his rallies lately, sporadic references to the “rigged system” are not unusual. Just yesterday he tweeted urgently that government monitors were poised and ready to catch election cheats for full punishment. Nobel laureate Paul Krugman warned confidently that the Trumpist GOP is more than capable of rejecting results they don’t like and throwing the country, and the world, into crisis.
What lends the extraordinary possibility credence is how easy Trump can ignite events and start the dominoes tumbling. A tweetstorm here, a reckless statement there. Some calls to Nunes and company in the House, a collective refusal of vanquished Trumpie candidates to concede while echoing his rubbish. McConnell and company in the Senate refusing to outright refute it and calling for an investigation “out of an abundance of caution” for the integrity of the system. Fox/AM going 24/7 with all of its “personalities” pushing the lies. Really very easy to start the fire and fan the flames until it takes on a life of its own.
What has always made a Trump Presidency particularly dangerous is the fact he doesn’t care. Not only doesn’t he care, he is attracted to creating chaos for the attention it gets him or the distraction it provides. The idea the world depends on the stability of US elections as the foundation of global order is fully lost on him. What he is utterly unconcerned about beginning will quickly move beyond his ability to control, and all bets will be off. As ugly as Trump’s self-proclaimed “winning” has been since he took office, his losing could be a whole lot worse. Careful what you wish for. BC