The Party of No
Regarding GOP and QAnon fever dreams of alleged voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election: Trumpistas had filed and lost more than 60 court cases on this matter. This includes at the U.S. Supreme Court (Texas v. Pennsylvania) where six of the nine justices were appointed by Republican presidents and three of those by Donald Trump. Seven would not even hear this frivolous attempt to overrule the lower courts. Justice Alito said he would be willing to hear the case but would “not grant other relief.” All nine justices had indicated they saw no merit in the lawsuit. Simply put, had the case actually been heard by the court, the likely vote would have been 9-0 against Trump.
Trump’s own Attorney General, William Barr, said the Justice Department had uncovered no voting fraud “on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election.” Yet, Donald Trump (aka: Putin’s protégé) incited a violent insurrection to cancel the counted, recounted, and certified results. The Rethuglicans in the U.S. Senate were asked to help form a bipartisan January 6 commission to investigate this brutal assault on our democracy. Mitch McConnell and the woke GOP refused, saying they didn’t want to focus on “things that happened in the past.” The GOP, however, continues to question the legitimacy of President Biden’s popular and electoral vote victories as their “Empire” maliciously strikes back by passing voter suppression laws from coast to coast.
These disgraceful laws are about much more than I.D. requirements. Several of these so-called “election integrity” laws give power to Rethuglican controlled state legislatures to nullify the results of any election in which their candidate loses! Such tactics have been used in other countries (see Belarus, Poland, Hungary, Turkey, India, Brazil). They provide a tutorial on how a democracy quickly descends into autocracy. We underestimate this threat at our own peril. It can happen here.
The party of a unanimous “no” vote for desperately needed COVID relief (for which they are still trying to take credit!) or for critical infrastructure (for which they will, no doubt, try to take credit if it passes) is now proudly the party of “no” to voting rights and to democracy itself. Have they no shame?
