This post is from Alex Call on Heather Cox Richardson’s Facebook page. This is what we are up against until Nov.
(NOTE: If you are not familiar with the work of Heather Cox Richardson, Professor of History at Boston College, follow the link above to her Facebook page, and, read her daily commentary at this link.)
There are six months left until the most consequential presidential election since 1860. Not since that year, when Lincoln’s election eventually led to the preservation of the Union, has the nation been so at odds with itself, or closer to armed civil strife. The election follows hard on the heels of the most traumatic pandemic since the Influenza of 1918-1919. The news is all about COVID19 and has provided cover for the Trumpublican Right to fire the opening salvos in what promises to be the most bitter, lie-filled, angry, and dirty campaign season we have seen in our lifetimes.
Trump is reaping the hatred he has sown for the last five years. He is rightly reviled by normal folks. His poll numbers, never good, are sinking and he is behind Joe Biden in the key swing state polls. His terrible mishandling of the COVID19 crisis is obvious and carries the same marks as all his “governance”: blatant mendacity, incompetence, and callous disregard for the lives of citizens. But let’s not get sidetracked talking about Trump’s personal failures right now; we all know all about him. The bigger issue is how the Trumpublicans are going to fight this to- the- death war.
The Right plays dirty, they play to kill, and they know they must at all costs not lose power or they will face political marginalization for a long time. We outnumber them 60-40. In order to keep their minority rule, they are playing for keeps. We Dems tend to shoot ourselves in the groin with circular firing squads aimed at our own candidates instead of firing relentlessly at the actual enemy: Trump and the Trumpublicans. We must not ever forget what their tactics are: distract, divide, sew doubt and confusion, and push outrageous, outright lies. They are also masters at bringing forth seeming liberal voices to attack Dems.
Case in point: the absurd allegations of sexual assault against Joe Biden. This is classic distraction from Trump’s own well-chronicled, though completely unpunished, sexual misconduct and his falling numbers and failing grades for COVID19. The right has found a voice in Ruth Marcus, a centrist Wa-Po columnist who is leading the charge against Biden, even though the accuser’s story simply doesn’t hold up. Dems, do the “math”. Trump, who has terrible numbers among women voters, needs a distraction and gets one by painting Biden, who is scandal- free, as a sexual predator, which he is not. Dems go on alarm crying for investigations! Biden was VP for eight years; he’s been vetted! Fools.
Fools, fools we are. If we can’t see through this obvious ploy, designed to drive Biden’s numbers down and suppress turnout, then we will be easily torpedoed and sunk when the more serious fake “allegations” come hurtling like doomsday meteors at us as we get closer to Nov 3rd.
Trump is laughing into his Putin-phone. McConnell? Laughing into his Conservative-Judge-confirming shell.
Case number two: the protests at state capitols by armed militias demanding the “freedom”: to get infected and infect others. Give me a break. These idiots are organized by email trees and easily prodded into action by FOX, et al. They should be stopped on public health grounds alone. But the signal that is being sent to both their conspiracy-addled, camo-wearing, gun-toting compatriots on the Right and the rest of us sane people is that, “We are mad as hell, armed, we threaten violence, and we are coming this fall”. This is classic, though hyped-up, Republican voter suppression. Are we going to internally cower at the thought of these fools with their AR15’s? Many of them are saying they want a new civil war. VOTE.
Folks, it’s just beginning, and I already fear we are not paying attention. How many of you didn’t vote for Hillary Clinton because they believed “a little” in the
child-eating “scandal”? How many of us decided not to bother voting because, ”both sides are the same”? How many thought Hillary was just as bad as Trump, and what about her emails? This is nothing compared to what we going to see coming at us in the next six months.
Europeans couldn’t believe what was happening in Germany in 1933. Many hoped it would pass, but it was seen as madness, and madness it was. A similar madness has gripped our country and it must be stopped. Hitler and Goebbels were clever, but they did not have FOX News or the unbridled, open spaces of the internet to peddle their conspiracies, their hatreds, and their obfuscations, and to hide their actual subterfuge of our American Democracy. Our Democracy is at stake and it can easily slip away. Trump and his followers are fighting for complete domination and they plan to win and not give up power.
We must be aware right now of their ruthless campaigns of disinformation, lies, increasingly violent-looking protests, legal challenges in the Trump-appointed courts, and concealed criminal machinations. It is coming; it is here. Be awake and aware. Speak out, fight back.
Vote blue, no matter who. Get your family, friends and neighbors to the polls and vote blue, no matter who!!!
