White nationalist extremists expect the rest of us to blink first
Three months after the golden escalator ride that changed the world, Rep. John Boehner announced his retirement from Congress. Frank Bruni speculated that what provoked Boehner’s exit was the “uncertain future of his pathologically self-destructive party.”
“One of our two major political parties is hostage to an extreme subgroup that won’t brook compromise, values theatrical protests over actual governing and is adolescent in its ideological vanity,” Bruni wrote in the New York Times and listed a catalogue of political sins.
Of Donald Trump, historian Rick Perlstein cautioned, “Take demagogues seriously. Voters love them. And they’re only a joke until they win.”
I’ve cautioned since at least 2013 that if white conservatives could not have their beloved country for their very own, they just might murder it. On Jan. 6, 2021, they tried.
This afternoon, the House Select Committee on the Jan. 6 Attack on the Capitol will provide more details behind the planning and attempted execution of our creaky democracy.
David Rothkopf, paraphrasing Mark Twain at the Daily Beast, believes rumors of the death of our democracy are greatly exaggerated. He finds four reasons to believe the republic will survive these dark hours. Even some of the most reptilian advisers “drew the line at overthrowing the government, stealing an election, and defrauding the American people.”
Rothkopf is being generous. Not lifting a finger or uttering a public syllable to stop “Team Crazy” is not a profile in courage. Still, the institutions of government, the Deep State in some circles, held. But having weakened the castle wall, the Team Insurrection has an obvious spot to reapply its battering ram in 2024.
“Secondly, as the hearings have also demonstrated, a growing number of Republicans are willing to go on the record to challenge Donald Trump,” Rothkopf continues. Republicans on the Jan. 6 panel, Reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger put their political careers on the line to stop the real steal “simply because it was what needed to be done.”
Amidst the legislative rancor and chaos, Rothkopf see finds hope in the proposed gun legislation that Republicans and Democrats may yet find a skosh of agreement for producing something, anything positive from their federal paychecks.
Finally, Rothkopf hold hope that the public airing of the facts surrounding the coup attempt may yet move the public needle towards preserving the republic instead of burning it to the ground:
A recent Morning Consult/Politico poll showed that “most voters believe DOJ should take action against officials who attempted to overturn election results.” In the poll, two-thirds of voters held this view—including 86 percent of Democrats, 64 percent of independents, and about half of all Republicans. Nearly six in ten of those polled believe former President Trump is “very” or “somewhat” responsible for the events of Jan. 6. Finally, importantly, about half of all voters said the events of Jan. 6 would affect how they voted in November. The story is not a good one for those threatening democracy, and we are just in the early days of the hearings, so these findings are quite encouraging.
The threats against our system are grave. Active efforts to promote “the Big Lie” and steal elections continue. According to a Washington Post tally, “more than 100 GOP primary winners back Trump’s false fraud claims.” If they win in November—particularly those vying for state jobs that certify or decide election outcomes—free and fair elections might soon become a thing of the past in the U.S.
We have yet to see how much the enemies of diversity have undermined the foundations of our democratic processes. Rothkopf does not allow that fact to cloud his optimism.
The country feels as if two cars face each other on an open road preparing for a game of chicken. There is more afoot than Machiavellian plotting inside the Beltway.
Slate’s Christina Cauterucci sees in the Patriot Front arrests in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, and the Proud Boy disruption of a Pride event at a Bay Area library, the consequences of relentless conservative demagoguery against anyone nonconforming to a white, straight, Christian vision of America. To keep anger burning hot and bright, bigots have pivoted from Blacks and Browns and Asians to non-straight ones:
Conservatives have used that narrative to validate regular old homophobia and transphobia, giving cover to Republicans who wish to turn voters against LGBTQ rights or simply drum up votes from their base by tapping into a moral panic. But it also appeals to white nationalist extremists, who see queer and trans people as a threat to the patriarchal, fascist state they seek to establish, and are willing to embrace violence against them.
There may yet be consequences for those who promoted the Big Lie and a violent insurrection. But in this game of chicken, right-wing extremists, armed and amped-up, expect defenders of democracy will blink first and allow them to turn the United States into Augusto Pinochet’s Chile. Gov. Ron DeSantis is already experimenting with Florida.
Pray the country pays heed to the dangers the House Select Committee exposes in its hearings. Pray too there are enough Americans left who believe in more of the founding documents than the 2nd Amendment. Pray there is enough unrigged democracy left for their votes and efforts to make a difference.
Battered and exhausted, small-d democrats have to care at least as much as those screaming in our faces to get the hell out of their country.
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