Joe Biden was elected president last November in the highest voter turnout in the US in more than a century, as 66.7% of eligible voters cast ballots despite the COVID-19 pandemic, and despite efforts to obstruct and harass likely Democratic voters. But Republicans have been conditioned by years of Donald Trump warning the only way Democrats could beat him was by stealing the election, even though Trump narrowly won the 2016 election with a minority of the vote and he never had majority approval as president.
Republicans tried to curtail voting by mail and closing easy absentee ballot drops, and Trump supporters tried to intimidate voters by brandishing guns and using trucks to block entrances at voting places, and screaming violent, racist threats at voters.
When vote counts showed Biden winning in Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Georgia and Wisconsin, threats were made against election workers and officials. Threats were even made against election officials in Vermont, where Trump’s loss couldn’t have been a surprise. The harassment and threats of violence moved Georgia voting system official Gabriel Sterling to warn that if the baseless accusations of fraud continue, “someone’s going to get killed,” and he called on President Trump and Georgia’s two Republican senators to denounce threats. They declined.
The Republican-dominated state Senate in Arizona in March ordered a pro-Trump firm, the Cyber Ninjas, to examine votes cast in Maricopa County. On Sept. 24, the Cyber Ninjas-led team finally reported to the Arizona Senate that Biden not only won the state’s most populous county, but he gained 99 votes, while Trump lost 261 votes.
That wasn’t enough to knock Trump off his Big Lie, as he told cultists at a Georgia rally, “We won on the Arizona forensic audit yesterday at a level that you wouldn’t believe!”
Charlie Sykes, the anti-Trump Republican editor of the Bulwark newsletter, wrote on Sept. 27, “If you have been living in a bubble of naivete or denial, you might have imagined that the results of the Cyber Ninja[s] audit in Arizona would usher in a New Era of Sobriety in our politics. Fat chance.”
Many Republicans apparently have rationalized that, if Democrats can “steal” elections (by turning out voters), Republicans can steal back better.
Republicans appear determined to stop “excessive” voting by Democrats from happening again. Between Jan. 1 and Sept. 27, 19 Republican-dominated states have enacted 33 laws that will make it harder for Americans to vote and easier for partisan officials to set aside votes they don’t like, the Brennan Center for Justice reports.
Trumpist Republican congressmen continue to cast doubt on Biden’s presidential election. In a hearing of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform Oct. 7, Rep. Andrew Biggs (R-Ariz.) replied. “I don’t know [who won the presidential election in Arizona]. We’ve not resolved the issues that took place.”
Trump at a rally in Des Moines Oct. 9 repeated the lie that his loss was the result of “election fraud,” which prompted the crowd to chant “Trump won! Trump won!”
Appearing alongside Trump were top members of the Republican establishment in Iowa, including Sen. Chuck Grassley, Gov. Kim Reynolds and Iowa Republican Chair Jeff Kaufmann.
Trump has held rallies since leaving the White House. But never have elected Republicans of such stature appeared with him, Meridith McGraw of Politico noted. And the presence of Grassley in particular, who offered a stinging condemnation of Trump’s behavior after the 2020 election, signified that whatever qualms the former GOP may have had with Trump are now faded memories; whatever questions they had about the direction of the party have been resolved.
Trump made a point of endorsing Grassley, who at 88 is seeking an eighth term, and any of Grassley’s past criticisms of the Great Misleader are no longer operative. “If I didn’t accept the endorsement of a person that’s got 91 percent of the Republican voters in Iowa, I wouldn’t be too smart,” Grassley told the crowd.
Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.), the second-ranked House Republican, stood by the “stolen election” hoax Oct. 10 on Fox News, where he said the states did not follow their own “rules” in conducting the election, despite each state certifying the validity of the election.
Senate Democrats, including Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) have drafted the Freedom to Vote Act (S. 2784), which would set national standards to protect access to the vote, end partisan gerrymandering of congressional districts, begin to overhaul the broken campaign finance system, and create new safeguards against subversion of the electoral process. But Senate Democrats need to change the filibuster rule, which requires “controversial” bills to have 60 votes to pass, and unfortunately Republicans are unanimously opposed to making it easier to vote.
Some Democrats, frustrated by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s inability to pass the Freedom to Vote Act or the Build Back Better Bill in the Senate, are demanding that Biden get involved in changing the filibuster rule to allow the voting bill to pass on a 51-50 vote, with Vice President Kamala Harris casting the deciding vote. They think Biden should force Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) to get in line, like President Lyndon Johnson is reputed to have done in the 1960s when he steered the passage of his landmark legislation, such as the Civil Rights and Voting Rights acts and bills establishing Medicare and Medicaid. But Johnson was working with sizable Democratic majorities in the House and Senate, and he was able to make threats stick. If Biden or Schumer tried to threaten Manchin or Sinema, either one of them could make Mitch McConnell majority leader overnight by quitting the Democratic caucus, thereby killing Biden’s agenda until the next election.
Republican obstruction, lies and misdirection have taken a toll on Biden’s approval ratings, which have dropped from a high of 55% the week after his inauguration to 44.6% on Oct. 11, in the FiveThirtyEight average of polls. Republicans have obstructed Biden’s progressive initiatives and blamed the military under Biden’s command for “only” getting 122,000 evacuees out of Kabul after Trump surrendered Afghanistan to the Taliban. But a majority of voters still plan to support Democrats in next year’s elections. Asked whether they would vote for a Democrat or Republican for Congress in the midterms, as of Oct. 10, 44.4% would vote Democratic while 41.6% would vote Republican in the FiveThirtyEight average.
Republicans hope to gerrymander their way into a House majority in 2022, even if a majority of Americans actually vote for Democrats, but the Big Lie Party’s neo-fascist tactics might finally prove too much for longtime Republicans whose fathers and grandfathers actually fought and defeated fascists in World War II.
In Senate races next year, Democrats will need to protect vulnerable Democratic Senate incumbents in Arizona, Georgia, New Hampshire and Virginia, but they also have a shot at vulnerable Republicans in Florida and Wisconsin, as well as open seats in Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio and Pennsylvania, if the elections are free and fair. Iowa may be too far gone, but there’s always hope.
If Democrats can hold onto the House and add a couple seats in the Senate, Democrats will be able to pass bills in the Senate without letting Manchin and Sinema dictate terms. It would immeasurably help beat the Big Lie Republicans if Democrats can pass the Freedom to Vote Act, to stop the Jim Crow Jr. laws at the state level. — JMC
From The Progressive Populist, November 1, 2021
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