One of my favorite, and psychologically the one that has stayed with me the most, scenes in Jaws is when Quint is telling the story of going down with the USS Indianapolis. After surviving sharks, dehydration, and the cold he says that the moment he was most afraid was waiting for his turn to be pulled out of the ocean after the crew was located and being rescued. That moment when your hope is highest that the danger might finally be over but it could be dashed in an instant. That is how the inexorable march to election day feels, to have suffered so much and still be living in fear of what happens next. We shouldn't have to live this way. But remember, millions of republicans love this shit. They delight in bullying and terrorizing Americans.
A simple question is, how much work would it be for doughfacedonny to steal the election? It's well known that he is lazy as hell. Does he have the energy or intelligence to coordinate the subversion of democracy? Hope is really a thin reed to rest on. Does he even need to do anything? Or are the thousands of domestic terrorists calling themselves "militias" already in motion? This was called "working towards the fuhrer" authoritarian followers interpreting the leader's wishes and taking action without specific orders, often inserting one's own wishes into that interpretation. It is painfully obvious to all but the most conditioned both siderist that the 'wingers who show up in Call of Duty cosplay to political events have no idea what tyranny means, they just hate liberals and minorities. But just because they are awful doesn't mean they might not be dangerous. What will these vicious psychopaths do in service of the leader?
So now that RBG has been replaced with lightning speed by an utterly unqualified right wing ideologue and the minority republican party has cemented an unsurmountable supreme court advantage for fascism and corporate power, what's next? The trump campaign is certain to bring multiple cases to their pet court, godfuckingdamnit how can it be possible that the losers of the popular vote got to appoint 5 justices to do their bidding? And they are sure to take up any case and rule with haste that doughfacedonny is the winner, regardless of the facts. Sure, if somehow Joe and Kamala can team up with Chuck and Nancy they could bring impeachment charges against these illegitimate justices, or add 4 seats to the court. I have seen some relatively serious Twitter bluechecks say only 2 seats are needed. WTF? Or that OMG the optics! If Democrats expand the court, then republicans will expand it further the next time they win (steal) an election!
The point is to make it as difficult as possible for republicans to cheat, but that doesn't go nearly far enough. The last four years should make it equally obvious that republicans cannot be trusted with power at all, anyone who says otherwise just mark themselves as either fascists themselves or the kind of people who whistled as the cattle cars roared by on the way to Auschwitz. Either way, they are not worth listening to or even being treated as citizens of a republic. There can be no reconciliation, this has gone on for decades now and it keeps getting worse. What's next? This country was in a shambles when GWB shuffled off the stage and Barack Obama was immediately beset with republican sedition and sabotage. We can never take off an election like in 2010 again, or these bastards will sneak back into power. But this again, puts the cart before the horse.
Enter "trump's army". This should be the textbook example of stochastic terrorism after the nightmare is over. Thousands of vigilantes are organizing to be an armed nuisance at polling places across the country. Whether they actually materialize or not remains to be seen, certainly those 13 mouth-breathers who conspired to kidnap and execute the Governor of Michigan were real, but so far actual terrorist attacks like the cowardly cocksucker who set fire to a ballot dropbox in LA a little over a week ago have not been widespread. So many people have already voted, that maybe taking the cosplay out of the closet and in full view of law enforcement (not that that is a guarantee of anything) at polling places wouldn't have the intimidation effect these Boogaloo freaks are hoping for. Georgetown Law posted this helpful reminder last month with a great quote from the director of the Institute for Constitutional and Protection:
“Local officials, law enforcement, and voters need to know that groups of armed individuals have no legal authority under federal or state law to show up at voting locations claiming to protect or patrol the polls,” said Mary McCord, Legal Director of ICAP and a former Acting Assistant Attorney General for National Security at the Department of Justice. “Given the increasing self-deployment of private unlawful militias during protests against racial injustice across the country, intimidating peaceful protesters and heightening the risk of violence—sometimes with tragic results—communities must prepare for similar unlawful private militia activity and intimidation in connection with the election.”
David Neiwert, whom I often cite as the authority on right-wing violence and eliminationist rhetoric, wrote in Daily Kos:
According to a just-released study, the risk of interference in the coming election by far-right “Patriot” militiamen heavily aligned with Donald Trump is not only real, it’s growing intense in over half the states in the nation, with five states in particular likely to see disruptive behavior and perhaps violence: Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Oregon.
Compiled by the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED), the study gathered and examined “the latest data on right-wing militia organizations across the country, identifying the most active groups and mapping the locations most likely to experience heightened militia activity before, during, and after the election.” What it found should send up warning flares to officials at all levels concerned about election security, as well as among law enforcement officers who seem to be currently preoccupied with election-related civic violence coming from the left.
I hate the term "militia" being used by official authorities, just like accepting the term "conservative" for fascists, it legitimizes the frame of these CoD cosplayers as somehow normal. Georgetown qualified their use of the term this way:
the U.S. Constitution and state laws use the term “militia” to refer to all able-bodied residents between certain ages who may be called forth by the government when there is a specific need; but private individuals have no legal authority to activate themselves for militia duty outside the authority of the federal or state government. The fact sheets also explain that the Second Amendment does not protect private militia activity, pointing to decisions from the U.S. Supreme Court in 1886 and 2008 making clear that the Second Amendment “does not prevent the prohibition of private paramilitary organizations.”
All 50 states prohibit private, unauthorized groups from engaging in activities reserved for the state militia, including law enforcement activities. The fact sheets include these state-specific laws. They also include guidance for what individuals can do if they see what appear to be militia members near a polling place, and direct that they report their observations to the Election Protection helpline at 866-OUR-VOTE (866-687-8683), with which ICAP is coordinating its efforts. (emphasis mine)
Now, the last time republicans tried to station off-duty police in majority-minority polling precincts among other things in 1981, the courts (before being corrupted by right wing ideologues of course) issued a "consent decree" to the republican national committee that they needed "pre-clearance" before they could deploy another "national ballot security task force" to intimidate and suppress black and brown voters. This decree was weakened and watered down over the years before being effectively nullified in 2013, so it's open season on voters who might favor Democrats; consequences be damned.
I don't know what happens next week, or these last days before election day and certainly couldn't predict anything that's coming but whatever it is we have to keep fighting. Remember, voter fraud is a myth cooked up by republicans to justify voter intimidation and suppression, which is very real and a good indicator that voting actually matters. And there is no both sides do it on this one, Democrats work to various degrees of success to help people vote, republicans do all they can to stop people from voting. There's no need to qualify any statements about it, no need to give republicans or "concerned independents" any benefit of the doubt. There's a good team and a bad team.
No comments:
Post a Comment