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Might our democracy yet be eclipsed? [1]

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Date: 2022-11-12  

Shall we marshal ‘fairness-and-balance’ to debate whether or not the planets orbit the sun? Perhaps to the point of concluding that “both sides” score wise and cogent points?

These days, that’s no idle conjecture. According to a long-term University of Massachusetts Amherst study (cited in Sarah Kendzior’s should-be bestseller They Knew), as of 12/28/21 just 58% of Americans knew President Biden had been duly elected.

Some might crow ‘Gee, that’s more than half!’ But wait. In context, it’s aberrantly ugly. Before the self-styled “Chosen One” Donald Trump and his militia-fueled cohorts began to spew sour grapes, the norm was near 100%. Ironically enough, our history’s few top-of-the-ticket frays that remain doubtful are topped by 2000’s (which in effect was dictated by what even the late Antonin Scalia reportedly called “a[n expletive deleted] decision” from a deep red Supreme Court). And by 2016’s (which hush monies, evident Russian cyber-sabotage, James Comey’s October Surprise, our cruel-and-unusual Electoral College, media cheerleading for Trump, and other skullduggery cataclysmically handed to Big Blonder Himself).

Better late than never, let’s face it. Even in 1860 (and then throughout the Civil War), no one honked ‘Lincoln lost by landslide!’ Or ‘Breckinridge got whomped by vote dumps!’ Or ‘halt the heist; yeah, that’s the ticket!’

Fast forward. Since 2/4/22, the once-proud “Party of Lincoln” has made it official. Via a Republican National Committee resolution, the GOP paints the 1/6/21 coup attempt on our Capitol as “legitimate political discourse.” That is, as business-and-politics-as-usual- which one should expect to routinely recur (no doubt amplified, lest it once more narrowly fail).

Granted, Trump’s cult may have morphed (slightly) into a Trump slough. Still, there remains an 80-ton Godzilla in the Rotunda. Not only does one of our major parties aid and comfort such adversaries as Hungary, Russia, and sometimes North Korea; smack on its face, 24/7/365, the GOP IS a foe of our domestic, vote-legitimized governance.

And hence- let it be stressed- of the United States of America.

Sown by “Low Blow Joe” McCarthy, the Republicans’ undead threat took root in the early 1950s. Today, we have no real choice but to acknowledge Trump’s call to harms (on the Ellipse)- and, tweaking it, to “fight [back] like hell.”

The good news: 2022’s media-fomented “red wave” fell short. The not-so-good: we still harbor but one non-despotic major party. Smack on the face of it, that implies Hobson’s choice at the polls. So long as such travesty prevails, anything less than a tyranny-foiling blue landslide (in any election) must be a shame and an abomination. Until stampeding tuskers can be hobbled, the danger and dysfunction they wreak scream to be cursed as such.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/11/12/2135614/-Might-our-democracy-yet-be-eclipsed

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