{"id":2263,"date":"2020-12-15T08:46:19","date_gmt":"2020-12-15T08:46:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiofree.org\/?p=139357"},"modified":"2020-12-15T08:46:19","modified_gmt":"2020-12-15T08:46:19","slug":"the-audacity-of-surrendering-to-autocracy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2020\/12\/15\/the-audacity-of-surrendering-to-autocracy\/","title":{"rendered":"The Audacity of Surrendering to Autocracy"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\u201cAnd the people bowed and prayed
\u201cTo the neon god they made.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2013 Simon & Garfunkel, Sounds of Silence,<\/em> 1964<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I have reported from Communist countries where the lying, cheating and bending and twisting of the laws to favor the dictators was very much a way of life, the people be damned.<\/p>\n

We have borne witness for four years to the malfeasance a would-be autocratic regime can inflict without the benefit of strict laws and supervision. Shall we start with kids in cages? Making money off the presidency? Packing the courts? Racism? Tearing apart government agencies? Vindictive purges? (No wonder Donald Trump wanted to buy Greenland: America\u2019s Siberia.)<\/p>\n

Is this what we want the United States of America to become?<\/p>\n

It sure seemed to be the case when 126 Republican members of Congress, including two of its leaders, and 18 state attorneys general, all of whom went to law school, launched a fantastical attack against the legal, legitimate overwhelming election of Joe Biden as our president-elect.<\/p>\n

What did these attorneys general read in law school? George Orwell\u2019s \u201cAnimal Farm,\u201d where some animals \u2013 the pigs \u2013 became more equal than the other animals?<\/p>\n

To try to overturn the will of 81 million people with fraudulent legalese at the behest of a narcissistic pretend king marked a crime against the principles, ideals, morals and everything this country stands for, chiefly its democracy.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen in the course of human events,\u201d whatever happened to \u201cwe the people?\u201d \u201cmy country \u2018tis of thee?\u201d \u201cthe land of the free and the home of the brave?\u201d \u201ccrown thy good with brotherhood?\u201d \u201cI pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands . . . ?\u201c \u2013 all of the positive we learned in elementary school.<\/p>\n

Who and what are the minority trying to make us become?<\/p>\n

Perhaps the Republican crusade against the rule of law was inspired by all of Donald Trump\u2019s failed attempts in the courts and state legislatures to essentially overthrow Biden. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton took up the baton and asked the Supreme Court to overturn the election in four states, invalidating the votes of 20 million people, figuring they didn\u2019t count.<\/p>\n

For all of its 6-3 conservative majority, the high court acted with integrity Friday evening when it rapidly dismissed without argument the challenge to voters in Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Georgia. A defeat for Texas. One Alamo wasn\u2019t enough?<\/p>\n

\u201cTexas has not demonstrated a judicially cognizable interest in the manner in which another State conducts its elections,\u201d the court ruled.<\/p>\n

Trump typically followed through with a tweet Saturday, calling the decision a \u201cdisgraceful miscarriage of justice,\u201d adding \u201cWE HAVE JUST BEGUN TO FIGHT.\u201d Oh, another John Paul Jones. Maybe Trump would like to join the Navy.<\/p>\n

To top that statement, the chairman of the Texas Republican Party, Allen West, suggested that all the red states that joined Texas in its spurious Supreme Court quest would like to secede from the union, The Washington Post<\/em> reported.<\/p>\n

\u201cPerhaps law-abiding states should bond together and form a Union of states that will abide by the Constitution,\u201d West said in a statement. Texas tried that once before as a Confederate state. That didn\u2019t work well.<\/p>\n

West merely was echoing far right radio guru Rush Limbaugh, whom the Post quoted earlier in the week as saying, \u201cI actually think that we\u2019re trending toward secession.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jamelle Bouie, the columnist for The New York Times, <\/em>made it clear that right-wing Republicans were somewhat enamored with autocracy and following their leader, at least when it comes to elections.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have learned that the Republican Party, or much of it, has abandoned whatever commitment to electoral democracy it had to begin with,\u201d he wrote Friday. \u201cThat it views defeat on its face as illegitimate, a product of fraud concocted by opponents who don\u2019t deserve to hold power. That is fully the party of minority rule, committed to the idea that a vote doesn\u2019t count if it isn\u2019t for its candidates, and that if democracy won\u2019t serve its partisan and ideological interests, then so much for democracy.\u201d<\/p>\n

I wonder where all of this is going with a party that\u2019s either enthralled with or fearful of a president who wants things his way, kind of like a Vladimir Putin without a Kremlin Square.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis new policy of election denialism . . . is the latest manifestation of the Republican Party\u2019s increasingly anti-democratic tendencies,\u201d the Times wrote in an editorial Friday. \u201cRather than campaigning on issues that appeal to a majority of the electorate, the party has made a strategy out of voter suppression.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis really isn\u2019t about Mr. Trump anymore, He lost, and his ruinous tenure will soon be over,\u201d it wrote. \u201cThis is now about the corruption of a political party whose leaders are guided by the fear of Mr. Trump rather than the love of this country \u2013 and who are falling into dangerous habits.\u201d<\/p>\n

And dangerous habits were what eventually got the rulers of those autocratic Communist countries I reported from into trouble. In one, Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife Elena were executed by firing squad Christmas Day 1989 after his conviction for economic sabotage and genocide. Autocratic rulers can\u2019t ignore all of the people all the time.<\/p>\n\n

This post was originally published on Radio Free<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cAnd the people bowed and prayed\u201cTo the neon god they made.\u201d \u2013\u00a0Simon & Garfunkel, Sounds of Silence, 1964 I have reported from Communist countries where the lying, cheating\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":57,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2263"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/57"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2263"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2263\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2264,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2263\/revisions\/2264"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}