“How can this even be possible?” As the results of the presidential election began coming in, this anguished cry of stunned disbelief posted on social media epitomized the feelings of millions of decent, rational, Americans.
After four years of a historically corrupt, chaotic, crack-brained presidency, culminating in Donald Trump’s epically inept, deliberately deceitful and lethally selfish response to the COVID-19 pandemic, 74 million Americans voted for him anyway.
How, indeed, is this possible? There is always a lunatic fringe in any society, but 74 million is more than marginal. There have been many attempts to explain it. Generally, they boil down to Trump supporters are either delusional or dissolute.
The delusional, steeped in fear, anger and ideological intransigence are easily misled by the right-wing propaganda engines that fan the flames of grievance, amplify anxieties, finger scapegoats and promote impossible-to-prove conspiracy theories to explain everything.
The delusional see Trump as their champion — their knight in orange armor clutching a nine iron and testing the load limit of golf carts while magically managing to expose and defeat the shadowy forces of elitist liberality undermining America.
Just as soon as he vanquishes the “libs,” the “Deep State” and all the other “enemies of the people,” Trump will restore the country to a Neolithic never-neverland where minorities never step out of place, women can never have abortions or transcend men, gays never leave the closet, science never refutes belief, and there is never a need for more than an eighth-grade education to ensure a middle-class income.
The dissolute, meanwhile, are Trump’s GOP enablers. Self-serving, unprincipled, craven, toe-suckers like Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Ted Cruz of Texas, and every other Republican willing to compromise democratic principles, personal honor and the general welfare to retain power for themselves, their party and their paying clients.
As the nation’s demographics change, the Republican Party has more difficulty appealing to a majority of Americans, and increasingly can’t win elections without cheating. Acutely aware of their growing disadvantage, Republicans have embraced strategies to sabotage democracy, including voter suppression tactics, gerrymandering, interfering with the census, crippling the postal service and discrediting fair elections that they lose.
And, of course, they love the Electoral College, an effete anachronism that can and has defeated the will of the majority of voters to elect a president.
For Republicans, democracy is an obstruction. Democracy will not ban abortion, rid them of Obamacare, undermine sensible regulations to protect workers and the environment.
Democracy will not allow them to dismantle or cripple Social Security and Medicare, or game the tax laws to favor corporations and the economic aristocracy. Democracy will hinder their attempts to override secular law with religion.
No, today’s GOP doesn’t care much for democracy. As Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, stated recently, “Democracy isn’t the objective; liberty, peace and prosperity are. We want the human condition to flourish. Rank democracy can thwart that.”
Hasn’t that been the typical sales pitch for authoritarianism? “Relinquish all power to us and we will solve all your problems. Don’t worry, we’ll find and neutralize all the enemies of the people and give you ‘liberty, peace, and prosperity’—as long as you do as we say.”
The desperate attempts by Trump—tacitly condoned by spineless, depraved, Republicans—to overturn an election that Trump genuinely lost is a furious finale of anti-democratic finagling to retain power.
In straining America’s democratic machinery, Trump and the GOPers have exposed that machinery’s susceptibilities. Fortunately, there were 80 million decent, rational, Americans who voted to be rid of Trump, and enough honorable individuals in government (especially election officials), the courts and the military to thwart Trump and his GOPer henchmen.
But with 74 million Americans backing Trump, the threat to democracy remains real.
President-elect Joe Biden, as has nearly every president before him, appealed to the American people to unite, to come together in common purpose. That plea is futile.
Trumpists have descended too deeply into delusion. They will live and die in and for the alternate reality that Trump and his enablers have created.
A shocking example of this is found in South Dakota where a nurse reports that she has had patients desperately sick with COVID-19, demanding to know — up to their final gasping breaths — what is really wrong with them because they know that the coronavirus is a hoax. Trump said so.
How do you reconcile or compromise with such obstinate delusion without wading into irrationality yourself? With 74 million Trump supporters, America has an epidemic of fear, ignorance and intransigent ideology that dwarfs COVID-19.
How do you inoculate a nation against ideological idiocy? Converting Trumpists to reason and reality is as likely as converting the Taliban to Judaism.
A more realistic effort is to refurbish and reinforce the machinery of our democracy to eliminate the weaknesses that aspiring autocrats can exploit, even if they do mesmerize and mislead millions of Americans.
Eliminating or disabling the Electoral College would be a big fix. With it gone, the possibility of minority rule and the opportunity for protocol and process shenanigans in presidential elections would be avoided. The most national votes would win the election, period.
Having congressional and state legislative districts determined by nonpartisan commissions rather than by political parties is an obvious improvement for fair democracy.
Ending “Sore Loser Laws” that forbid candidates who lose their party’s primary election from running in the general election is another improvement. These laws have effectively intimidated candidates from challenging their party’s errant policies and malevolent candidates — like Trump.
Institute ranked choice voting in elections, whereby voters would rank candidates in order of preference. This would loosen the vice-grip of the established duopoly, make every vote count and give all political parties a chance to win. It would also avoid run-off elections.
Make and promote vote-by-mail as an option in all elections in all states.
Reinstitute the Fairness Doctrine of the Federal Communications Commission that required the holders of broadcast licenses to present controversial issues of public importance in a manner that was honest, equitable and balanced. This would at least mitigate the propaganda barrages being laid down daily by blatantly biased and mendacious media.
Require all secondary education curricula to include a civics class and a critical thinking class that would be mandatory for graduation — and maybe even be required for voter registration. In our democracy, stupid people may not be prohibited from voting but ignorance of the fundamental principles, organization and requirements of our democratic republic could be alleviated.
These fixes to our democratic machinery won’t happen easily but they are attainable if all decent, rational Americans demand them.
— Randy Alcorn is a Santa Barbara political observer. Contact him at randyaalcorn@gmail.com, or click here to read previous columns. The opinions expressed are his own.