Abandoning Democracy

There was an article from a prominent never-Trumper - David Frum - who argued that "If Conservatives become convinced that they cannot win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. They will reject democracy."  

This is, perhaps, the most chilling possible legacy for Trumpism.  Trump has already dragged white nationalists into the political discussion, he has undermined our ideas of the Rule of Law and he has degraded America's standing in the world, especially with our allies.  

But the real threat is quite possibly that Trump will see the final break of the institutional Republican Party with the idea of democracy.  There has been for decades the obsession with the nebulous idea of "voter fraud," a crime of vanishingly small occurence.  Dubya Bush, a terrible president who embraced horrible policies but now seems tame by comparision, was the first to push this idea.  It came to little besides the scandal attendent to firing a bunch of USAGs and the end of Alberto Gonzalez's career.  The point is that Republicans have been pushing the idea that the only way Democrats continues to win majorities of the national popular vote is because of all the fraud.

Once you accept the lie that Democrats engage in illegal voting fraud to win, that frees you to do whatever illegal shit you want to do.  They started in 2010 with the extreme gerrymanders in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Ohio, Texas and elsewhere.  This - combined with their natural advantage that being the Rural Party gives them - gave them their existing House majorities.

Trump and the apparent interference of the Russians in the 2016 election has given them another potential weapon to fight off the fact - and it is a fact - that Republican policies are profoundly unpopular.  Racial and cultural anger gets their voters to the polls, but tax cuts for the rich and more pollution, guns and corruption doesn't sell well, even to their own voters.  Russian and other external efforts to undermine our election are "very troubling" to the GOP, because - again - they know how it must sell.

But then you have this. A conservative Republican Senator offers a bill to help secure elections and as importantly help Americans feel secure about their elections.  It has broad, bipartisan support.  And the White House apparently killed it.  They offer some bullshit about "having the resources" to safeguard elections, but given the stakes, why not have more resources?  Unless you don't want to safeguard elections?  If your job was to, say, safeguard American borders from illegal immigrants, and Congress offered you more resources, would they say, no?

In November, Democrats should take control of the House.  Hopefully the Senate as well.  But what if they don't?  And what if there are credible allegations of vote-count tampering? Or large numbers of minority voters purged from voting rolls?  To this point, protests against Trump and Trumpism have been largely peaceful, presumably because people are waiting until November, 2018.  

If Trump actively undermines election security to his advantage, all while embroiled in massive allegations of corruption and criminality...I fear for the civic fabric of our country.