Donald Trump and his Republican allies are actively preparing to ensure his victory in the 2024 presidential election by any means necessary — legal or illegal, democratic or undemocratic. The claims by Trump and his supporters that the 2020 presidential election was fraudulent and/or stolen are aimed at laying the groundwork for asserting that — if he loses — the 2024 election was fraudulent as well. The goal is to undermine the credibility of the election process in this country in order to justify doing away with elections. Any election that the Republicans lose must be fraudulent. If elections can be stolen and their results are fraudulent, what’s the point of holding elections?
Regular readers of these pages will know that I’ve written about this threat to our democracy before, but the widely-read and much-discussed recent Washington Post piece by Robert Kagan has given this threat much-needed attention, and prompted me to expand on what I wrote previously and to mention some of Kagan’s points here.
There is now an open, organized, nationwide campaign to ensure that Trump and his supporters will have something they lacked in 2020 — control over state and local election officials — the people who run our elections and count our votes. Election officials who refused to overturn the results of the 2020 election in states like Georgia, Arizona, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin are being systematically removed from office, and replaced by Trump supporters who have said they believe the 2020 election was stolen by Joe Biden and the Democrats. Republican legislatures in those states and others are also giving themselves control over the election certification process, and making it easier for Republicans to overturn election results. Republicans have proposed or passed measures in 16 states that would shift authority over elections from the executive branch (secretaries of state, county clerks, and other election officials) to the legislative branch. An Arizona bill states that the legislature may revoke the secretary of state’s certification of presidential election results by a simple majority vote.
In addition, Republican-controlled states are enacting voter-suppression laws intended to prevent from voting those voters who tend to vote Democratic. And following the 2020 census, Republican states are gerrymandering congressional and state legislative districts to increase the number of Republicans in congress and state houses.
None of this is a secret. It’s all going on out in the open. Anyone paying attention – even Democrats – can see that the country is headed for chaos in 2024 as Democrats are denied the opportunity to vote, Republicans claiming fraud will certify that Trump has won states he actually lost, and, if the electoral college fails to function, the next president will be chosen by a vote in a House of Representatives packed with Republicans.
Nevertheless, the Democratic Party has refused to take this likelihood seriously enough to try to prevent it. As has been the case in other countries throughout history, when fascist leaders have arisen, their would-be opponents are paralyzed in confusion and amazement at the charismatic authoritarian’s grab for power.
Trump’s assault on the norms of our system of government – like the January 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol while the 2020 election results were being certified – is actually an assault on the Constitution itself. As such, it can’t be fought through the processes of our constitutional system. It can only successfully be fought outside — where it exists — outside of our constitutional system.
