“A concession isn’t just an exercise in
graciousness. It is an act of respect for the will of the American people, a
respect that is every American leader’s first responsibility. Whatever our
differences we owe each other that respect...”
— Senator
John McCain (R-Arizona)
By now everyone has been pretty well saturated with the
blowback from Donald Trump’s refusal to pledge to accept the results of next
month’s election. Elected officials, political leaders and talking heads of all
stripes have been nearly unanimous in denouncing his statement as genuinely
undermining American democracy itself. It’s been pointed out a number of times
that this is essentially the third election he’s tried to delegitimize, given
his persistence in flogging the birther issue to death for the past seven
years.
So far the furor has all been about how this attitude is
just a symptom of his own bloated sense of self-importance. Personalities as
disparate as Lawrence O’Donnell and Lindsay Graham have all psychoanalyzed this
as Trump’s refusal to admit personal defeat: “I can’t lose so it has to be
rigged.” Even Republicans have been scrambling to distance themselves from the
monster they’ve created. Both former presidents Bush have announced they’re
voting for his opponent.
Well, as with everything else about his candidacy it’s not
that simple or superficial. This entire distasteful episode in American
politics is not just an embarrassing farce. It is now the public façade of
the edifice the Republican party has been assembling brick by brick since their
Southern Strategy of the 1970s.
They have consistently mined and exploited white middle
class resentment toward everything from civil rights advances and the economic
decline brought about by their own shortsighted policies to women’s and gay
rights. They have filled their big tent with fuming angry tribal leaders
spouting venom and promising revenge toward all those others who don’t fit
their narrow cloistered vision of white America. Their offensive shifted into
overdrive in the 1990s with House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s congressional
memo instructing house Republicans to characterize any Democratic
initiative, policy or individual as corrupt and perversely anti-American. He
got more help than he needed from the emerging media wing of the GOP — Right
Wing Talk Radio — that further cemented the image of the Liberal Democrat as
anti-American in the public perception. It was a short step from condemnation
of liberal policies and Liberals and Democrats themselves to delegitimizing
their right to participate in governing. They took that step and more and it is
one of the Democratic party’s — not to
mention the “Liberal Media’s” — greatest failures that they’ve still never
called the Right out on it. Instead they cowered and ran from the Liberal label
for the next 20 years.
An appeal was made on this blog back during the 2012
election season to people like Chris Matthews to please ask their Republican
guests: “Do Democrats, Liberals and Progressives have a legitimate right to
participate in governing the country”? (I just wanted to see at least one of
them squirm once they got the significance of whichever answer they gave.) The
purpose of bringing that up here is that it highlights the unacknowledged fact
that this latest Trumpism is not merely a symptom of an unhinged megalomaniac,
it is the unvarnished façade of the Republican edifice: Their conviction that
only they are entitled to govern, only Republicans have the right to determine
the country’s direction. Any opposition is un-American and so it follows that
any elected Democrat somehow stole their seat. This is the reason Republicans
are constantly crying about rampant widespread voter fraud when there is no
credible body of evidence to support the claim. This explains how a Republican
candidate for the United States Senate can publicly state that the Second
Amendment gives real Americans the
right to shoot their Democratic opponents. There is so much handwringing about how this
rigged election talk could trigger a “grievance movement” among his tens of
millions of followers who will insist Hillary Clinton is not the legitimate
president and is actually a criminal. Wake up. There are already tens of
millions of Americans who regard Barak Obama, Democrats and Liberals as
foreign agents planted among them to bring down the country. Like the party’s
inherent racism, bigotry and misogyny, Donald Trump has simply dropped the dog
whistles and spoken it out loud.
As for the Republican mandate to unilaterally determine the
country’s direction? Just take a look
back at the effects of their six years of one party rule under George Bush.
Speaking of questionable election results.
