Wednesday the 6th will be Trump-driven shitshow in D.C. when Republicans in Congress will turn a mere formality with the Electoral College certification process into a clown show. Thanks to an initial “toe-in-the-water” by senator and 2024 hopeful Josh Hawley, support for the circus in the senate, the chamber supposedly for grown-ups, quickly ballooned to a dozen (now 13) Republican senators. The effort already had robust enthusiasm in the House. Nearly 70% of that chamber’s Republican caucus, including their rudderless “leader,” Kevin McCarthy will vote against certification.
Trump’s effort to steal the election, which has unfolded almost entirely in plain sight and is being done using a classic GOP methodology of “gaslighting:” accusing the victim of the very crime being perpetrated against them by making his rallying cry “Stop the Steal.” The irony of their effort to commit election fraud at a massive scale via making erroneous claims of voter fraud seems entirely lost on President Trump and most of his Republican enablers.
With about half of the Republican Party devolving into what Steve Schmidt has dubbed a pro-authoritarianism faction (after all, if Republicans got what they wanted, democracy would end in U.S., Trump would be installed as a leader or an authoritarian state, and one party rule would commence) the events of the past two months are new chapters in a crisis that has been playing out within the Republican Party for the past decade.
I had come to think of the wart within the GOP as over since Donald Trump not only won the Republican primaries in 2015, but more importantly, became formally nominated by the Republican Party at their party’s nominating convention in the summer of 2016. Until that event, the party still had power to stop Trump’s candidacy, and given his “outsider” status and clear lack of the behavioral requisites to perform the job, legitimate rationales for doing so.
Such a move, while being accepted by the country’s middle, would have been seen as provocative by the progressive base of the Democratic Party and would have provoked a mass implosion within the Republican base. That would have surely written off the GOP’s chances of reclaiming the White House in 2016- a situation that too many elites found untenable after 8 years under Obama. Ultimately, this is what led the party to accept Trump as their standard bearer, even though many of them had devoted the months previous to arguing with their peers that nominating Trump would not only destroy the Republican Party, but likely the very country itself.
Once Trump won the general election though, and became transactionally useful to Republicans the fight for the soul of the Republican Party felt over. Trump had clear control over Republican voters and because elected Republicans in Congress share his constituencies, four years of obedience ensued, leading to the least disciplined presidency in the country’s history that has already locked in “worst president” before the COVID19 crisis rolled in to allow Trump to leave his competitors so far in the rearview they can’t be seen anymore.
MAGA became the modern version of the Republican Party (the 2020 Republican national convention was a great demonstration of what this means, but it can be summed up in one word: Trump) and current members of the party had just a few options to avail themselves to: conform proudly, acquiesce silently, or flee the party. Despite perceptions, the great majority of current Republicans, at least as of the onset of COVID19 were quite pleased with MAGA Republicanism, even the intentional cruelty, a fact that the other half of America, at some point, will have to allow themselves to confront.
Yet, here we are, once again looking at a Republican Party being forced into a choice by Donald Trump: support authoritarianism one-party rule under Donald Trump or continued democracy. So far, because of Mitch McConnell and several other Republicans like senator Pat Toomey and Tom Cotton who remember what being a small c conservative is supposed to mean (it doesn’t involve acty of radicalism like sedition!) and like Brad Raffensperger, the Republican Secretary of State in Georgia, the anti-authoritarians within the Republican Party are maintaining the upper hand. McConnell’s anti-authoritarian faction are set to stand with senate Democrats on behalf of democracy and the rule of law on Wednesday. It’s not hyperbolic to note that the fate of 243 years of democracy hangs on McConnell’s ability to deliver their votes.
Fortunately, because we’re still seeing additions to McConnell’s faction, and pro-democracy activism from Dick Cheney, this suggests the votes will be there on Wednesday. This is thanks, in no small part to to the shiny example that Raffensperger is setting for his fellow Republicans. By standing stalwartly against Trump’s illegal power grab, even in the face of extreme pressure, Secretary Raffensperger has single-handedly done more to subvert Trump’s anti-democratic coup than anyone else. Because keep in mind, Trump alludes to having made similar calls to the one Raffensperger shared with the public. Yet, we have learned of only the one.
The President has cooked up a bit of political theater for the streets of D.C. to correspond with the drama inside the Capitol building. He means to stage a show of support for the country’s “rightful” king. Trump has demonstrated time and again a total lack of regard for the public’s safety, as the illegal clearing of Lafayette Square Park showed. He’s hoping to lure to D.C. clashing factions: his “team” of racists, “Proud Boys” neo-nazis, and other “deplorables” against “antifa” protesters.
Whether MAGA world actually believes, or not, the totally fabricated story Trump and his team tells to convince people that Joe Biden didn’t really win the 2020 election by 7 million votes and robust margins in eight swing states (the most narrow were WI, GA, and AZ but all three of those have been recounted multiple times and thus verified extensively thanks to Trump’s efforts) is moot. They will never admit one way or the other. So long as they pretend to believe it, they can continue to wield it like a weapon and try to drag American democracy down with them.
So what can be done? Having both the truth and the law on your side is not inconsequential. What people can control is the truth. The true timeline, narrative, and facts of the election leaves zero room for Trump’s thesis to be true: and at some point, the truth and the law are coming for MAGA world and Trump’s tenure as president.
As Georgia election official Gabriel Sterling explained in his latest news conference, truth is immutable. Trump’s fantasy world and the real one are on an inevitable collision course. There is a firm date, time, and location for this crash: January 20th, 2021 at high noon. Once the clock runs down to that moment, Trump world’s evasions will no longer work and as Brett Baier challenged senator Hawley last night in an interview on Fox News, Trump voters that are being led-on about the prospects of a Trump second term are going to get a harsh dose of reality.
The question then becomes, what will happen then? Given last week’s podcast looking at lethal mass partisanship, the willingness of partisans to tolerate, even crave, physical punishment for the opposition party’s leaders and or even voters, it seems reasonable to worry about, and be wary of, the potential for political violence this month. Far worse than the fact that Donald Trump behaves irresponsibly with his rhetoric and seems incapable of appreciating the power of the presidency’s “bully pulpit” to incite violence, is the fact that he does get it. That he understands this power just fine. Indeed, watching Trump’s actions over the 5 years of his presidential experience, it’s not unfair to say that at times, Trump has intentionally tried to provoke violence- knowing full well what he was doing and frankly, enjoying the hell out of it.
But what Trump has artfully arranged in D.C. goes far beyond treatment of counter-protestors at rallies, or the treatment of arrestees by police. What Trump appears to have been up to over the past two weeks is an effort to convince the public that the election was literally stolen from him and that people should come to D.C. on Wednesday, January 6th to “Stop the Steal.” Certainly, the KellyAnne Conway’s of Trump World would shoot these allegations down, asserting that of course Trump means to only have peaceful protestors come to D.C. to protest the election and would discourage any violence in his name. But watch Trump talk about the protests and about people coming to D.C. and it’s clear- Trump vision for these protests is an angry mob, pitchforks waving, demanding their rightful ruler be reinstalled to his rightful throne.
The question is, what types of people will answer his call, and what level of devotion will be they be willing to bring to the cause? With the potential for violence and unrest high, does that make it more, or less likely, the type of crowd forms that is conducive to violence? Certainly, the bulk of Republicans who have been made to be upset about Trump’s loss and have been lied to in order to convince them that the election is being stolen would want to come to D.C. to engage in peaceful protest and would have no interest in violence or mayhem.
But it would be naive, after Charlottesville and the events of the past few years not to assume that neo-nazis, white supremacists, and other violent groups are currently descending on D.C., as are “antifa” protestors deploying to counteract them. Security in the city will be a mess and there is no way I’d suggest heading to D.C. on Wednesday if your interest is in peaceful assembly. So it begs a question- will people be willing to subject themselves to potential harm on behalf of Donald Trump?
To understand who and why might be willing to do so, I invite physician and sociologist Dr. Jonathan Metzl onto the show. He made a huge splash last year with his book and it’s provocative title, Dying Of Whiteness: How the Politics of Racial Resentment is Killing America’s Heartland. As I told Jonathan, the second I saw this book I KNEW it would resonate with my own research and with the political science literature on polarization and hyperpartisnahip generally. I’ve been “dying” to talk to him about his research for a long time, especially given that the COVID crisis came along and at a mass scale, “horribly vindicated” his thesis.
We have a great chat about his work, talk about whether Trump’s base might be willing to “die for Trump” Wednesday, and bemoan and worry over our current collapsing democracy while musing over possible ways to save it.
Given that today is the Georgia runoff, Dr. Metzl and I are hosting a live Zoom event tonight at 6pm (ETA) in honor of the release of the pod & in conjunction with tonight’s nerve racking election. The Zoom Q & A is open only to paid subscribers, who will receive an invitation email to the event later this afternoon.
Happy Listening!!
Dying For Trump? White Resentment Politics Drives Some to "Die for Whiteness," But Will They Die for Trump?