I’m not big on American Exceptionalism. It’s primarily self-satisfying nonsense that demagogues yell at the faithful. Besides, for all the enthusiasm, we don’t really believe it. If the nation were that wonderful, we’d work harder to save America now that it’s under attack.
Republicans are actively overthrowing democracy. It’s not like they’re working in secret. They’ve been building up for decades.
The first step was voter intimidation, with all its racist history. I’m not repeating what we already know.
Next, the GOP trained their voters to expect their politicians to lie. When a partisan tells you that “All politicians lie,” you’d have thought we’d ask more questions. But we didn’t, and that became our new truth. Spend all the time you want highlighting Republican bad faith. Carefully document each added hypocrisy. You’re wasting my time. We already know all that. But nobody cares.
The next step was to make corruption acceptable. Here’s the trick: we’re social animals. We depend on the group consensus more than we admit. Don’t get me wrong: me, too. When something happens, most of us look around to see how others react. That makes it easy to normalize anything. Don’t even wait for someone to get caught. Just get all your people to pretend that corruption is OK. That’s all it takes. People will accept it. I’d hoped that our morality was built of stronger stuff, but there you go.
That’s where things began to accelerate. Republicans made a decisive turn to autocracy. They used that same social scheme to undercut elections. We can pretend it’s more complicated, but all they did was shout lies every time they lost. We all knew they were lies. And it didn’t matter. When authority figures nod along in coordinated gaslighting, it’s compelling. The herd decision was clear, and people discarded all their old morality without many qualms.
Next, undercut the elections themselves. Grab control of the processes. Put loyalists in charge. Make sure you have new rules that let you change what outcomes you don’t like. Never let go of power.
The last stage is to normalize violence. Ideally (for them), the new Trumpists will steal the next elections quietly. But what if they lose despite gerrymandering, voter suppression, election fraud, partisan election officials, and all their other preparations? What then?
Violence. They’ve been warming us up for that. The first insurrection failed, but only because Trump couldn’t drum up enough casualties for another Boston Massacre. So disappointing. Still, Republicans are working with what they have. Even though he only got one of his loyalists killed, Trump embraced his memory of her in a death hug. White Nationalists are lionizing each rioter and pledging allegiance to the insurrection flag. Trumpian loyalists openly ask when to start shooting. For Trumpists, January sixth was a practice run.
And most of us are watching all this pass by, sitting on our hands. Is someone else supposed to fix it? I’m sure someone will pass a law that protects us from election cheaters. Maybe when Republicans get their majority back.
Why are we so slow to save America?
