How Republicans Are Stealing Another Presidential Election—And What We Should Do About it

Republicans are lashing out with the ruthlessness of an army defending a falling empire. They fear that a majority of Americans hold values inconsistent with theirs—and they’re right. Most of us believe in climate change, want to make college tuition-free, support increasing taxes on the wealthiest people, and want to protect women’s rights to control their own bodies.

Republicans look over a sea of nearly all white, all male faces and can feel the encroachment of a broader coalition. They’ve hitched their wagon to a racist demagogue who will never achieve majority support in this country. 

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Most people in the U.S. and abroad are rightly disgusted by Trump—he’s a liar, a divisive tyrant, and an accused rapist. His Reign of Error has done irreparable damage to our country’s reputation. He has started trade wars, pulled us out of the Paris Climate Accords, and withdrawn us from the World Health Organization in the midst of a global pandemic. He’s responsible for the deaths of more than 200,000 Americans due to Covid-19—a crisis that was contained in the more capable hands of Germany’s Angela Merkel, South Korea’s Moon Jae-in, New Zealand’s Jacinda Ardern, and China’s Xi Jinping, and so many others. We already lead the world in Covid-19 deaths—and we may double that figure by the end of the year. 

Trump’s failures aside, Republicans have cheated to maintain power for decades. They purge voter rolls, reduce the number of polling locations in urban areas, and intimidate voters—and now, the GOP’s shameless voter suppression tactics are more blatant than ever. 

Perhaps most alarmingly, the Republicans have threatened to overturn election results within swing states. The GOP chairman in Pennsylvania stated that he could bypass his states popular vote and allow the Republican-dominated legislature to choose Trump-friendly presidential electors. The GOP has floated this idea in other swing states as well. A Trump campaign legal advisor admitted this possibility: “The state legislatures will say, ‘All right, we’ve been given this constitutional power. We don’t think the results of our own state are accurate, so here’s our slate of electors that we think properly reflect the results of our state.” 

In another blow to democracy, Trump has appointed campaign donor Louis DeJoy as the postmaster of the United States. DeJoy has systematically slowed down the mail by dismantling sorting machines, removing post office boxes from cities, and enacting other destructive and baseless measures. We’re in the midst of a pandemic and mailing in ballots is much safer than reporting to a polling place. These transparent efforts to thwart mail-in voting are criminal. 

And even if Democrats do win the election, Trump has made it clear he won’t concede peacefully. When asked if he would step down after losing, he told the press, “Get rid of the ballots, and you’ll have a very…you’ll have a very peaceful…there won’t be a transfer, frankly, there’ll be a continuation.”

One of Trump’s top appointed officials, Michael Caputo, is now on leave for a bizarre rant where he stated, “And when Donald Trump refuses to stand down at the inauguration, the shooting will begin.”

Voter suppression.

Corruption and lying.

Violent insurrection.

Are Republicans proud of what their party represents? They are breaking the most basic rules of decency to maintain power—rules that we all learned as children about the importance of fairness, respect, justice, and truth.  While the old Republican Party may have embraced these principles, they have abandoned them in their lust for power. 

Republicans try to drum up fear of immigrants with narratives about “violent caravans.” The truth is that on Trump’s watch, ICE has locked up Latino children in cages and forcibly sterilized their mothers.

Republicans try to drum up fear of the Black community with images of urban riots and looting. The truth is that white supremacists present a much graver threat to the peace of the country, according to the FBI.

Most Americans are too intelligent to believe Trump’s bullshit, but we fear that even when we show up to vote, Republicans will still rob us of this election. It’s already happened once in my lifetime when tens of thousands of votes from Florida’s Black community were wrongly disqualified to hand the election to Bush. The GOP pretends to be this country’s greatest defender and yet they lie, cheat, and steal under the cover of their flags.

It’s not enough just to call them out. They will happily take the low road to maintain power in bad faith. When we win the election, we need to use every tool at our disposal to implement a liberal agenda. 

  • Let’s add Washington DC, Puerto Rico, and other U.S. territories as states to increase our number of Senators.
  • Let’s pack the Supreme Court with a progressive majority.
  • Let’s increase taxes on the wealthiest Americans.
  • Let’s pass the Green New Deal to create clean energy jobs and help curb carbon emissions.
  • Let’s ratify the ERA.
  • Let’s strengthen legal protections for LGBTQ+ folks.
  • Let’s fire racist cops and reform police departments to use community-based alternatives to brutal law enforcement.

And let’s throw Trump in jail for tax fraud, the obstruction of justice, soliciting campaign funds from foreign nationals, rape, or any of his other numerous crimes.

Democrats need to stand for something to heal this country—it’s not enough to simply be anti-Trump. We should lean into progressivism without compromise because that has always been the future of our country, what Martin Luther King, Jr. referred to as “the arc of the moral universe” which “bends toward justice.” 

Progressivism at its finest represents justice for the climate and for the American people, regardless of our gender, whom we love, our culture, how much money we have, or the color of our skin.

Let’s stop despairing and fearing one another. Let’s seize our future from this minority group of cheaters and liars. They don’t deserve a say in our lives.

2 Replies to “How Republicans Are Stealing Another Presidential Election—And What We Should Do About it”

  1. The fact that 90% of all people and 100% of women and marginalized people aren’t against what Trump and the republicans have wrought in the last 40 years is inexplicable to me. Yet 40% actively SUPPORT these measures?! I hope we can all survive the greed, racism, religion, manipulation, hate and quest for perceived power that is buried in so many Americans.

    1. Agreed. It’s baffling to me as well, but for those who want to remain in power, it’s certainly easier to manipulate a population that’s overworked and addicted to technology.

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