The Midterms are finally here. The last two years have felt like a lifetime. It’s time for the people to express their disdain for The Don and his cronies at the voting booth; it is time to deliver an overwhelming rejection of all they represent.
Corruption runs wild. Cruelty is MAGA’s credo; spewing hate and division are part of its DNA. Millions are losing healthcare. Increased inflation, increases in the prices of food and gas are making life unaffordable. His disregard of citizens struggles is outrageous. His disdain for his constituents is appalling. The man who promised to bring down prices from day 1 has failed the people and made things much worse.
Armed masked I.C.E. agents continue to terrorize neighborhoods, targeting Latinos and killing American Citizens. The Attorney General and the D.O.J. are blatantly political and partisan and work for the president, not the people; they do The Don’s bidding, indicting people based on a campaign of revenge. A toxic Pete Hegseth may have committed war crimes by ruthlessly blowing up boats. The man who promised no more wars and said he would end the war in Ukraine on day 1 has abandoned the Ukrainian people and started a war of choice with Iran, with no end in sight. The Don has cut off life-saving aid to less developed countries, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of thousands. Under The Don’s leadership, America has been diminished in the eyes of the world.
With all of the above, Republicans have sat by and watched; their collusion is despicable and when the history of this time is written, they will be seen as the great betrayers of our country. They could have stopped The Don, but they either nodded their heads in agreement or were spineless.
So much damage has been done. The Don has led our country down the path of autocracy and kleptocracy. We need to reverse this before it is too late. Even if we win both the House and Senate the work will be difficult as The Don will still be around for two more years. His capacity for destruction has no bounds, but we must do everything we can to corral him.
When it comes to fair and free elections and transfer of power- a cornerstone of our democracy-we should have no illusions. The 2020 election should rid us of any thoughts that election interference is not front and center on The Don’s mind. I will never understand how the people of this country could elect him a second time after he instigated an insurrection to stop the transfer of power. It’s a sad and chilling statement on who we are. It needs to be stated again: The American people voted for a racist, sexual predator, a thief, and a morally bankrupt and cruel person who cares only about himself and his power. We can not escape the fact that this is acceptable to millions of Americans.
This election is a chance for people to say enough is enough. Sadly, my gut tells me that if food and gas prices weren’t soaring and the economy was working well, he might have higher approval ratings despite all he has wrought here and around the world.
The Democrats seem to be taking all this seriously and gaming out all the possible ways The Don and his cronies will create chaos in the elections in an attempt to invalidate them.
Continually lying about voter fraud is an attempt to sow doubt that election results are not valid. The Don has been promulgating this insidious conspiracy theory despite no evidence. Just recently The D.O.J. claimed there were 16,00 voters in Nevada who should be struck from the voting rolls because of their immigration status. After examination, it turned out there was not one case of fraud. In California the administration is asking a judge to disallow 20,000 fraudulent voters with no evidence. In the state of Washington they are asking courts to invalidate a whopping total of 400 voters. The point of these cases isn’t necessarily to win, but to put them out there to the public, to make them think about fraud.
In Alaska, the shenanigans are outrageous. The claim that because two of the candidates last name are Sullivan a victory by Mary Petola is invalid.
Here’s The Don: “It is a totally corrupt weaponization situation, and they shouldn’t be allowed to do it. So I recommended it to the D.O.J. They looked at it, they agreed with me, and they’ve gone to court. Let’s see what happens. But that’s pure corruption.”
Is there a law that two candidates can’t have the same name? Has this happened before: many times. In fact, the issue has already been litigated in the state: In June, the Alaska Supreme Court ruled that Daniel J. Sullivan Jr., a retired elementary schoolteacher, could appear on the ballot. The reason the court had to weigh in was that the Republican controlled state election committee voted to ban him. We have never seen the federal government intervene in elections like this. The states are responsible for their elections: The federal government has no jurisdiction over them.
The statements emanating out of the White House are absurd and dangerous.
Here’s spokesperson Lauren Bis turning reality on its head: “The only ‘worries’ about election security are caused by radical Democrats who refuse to enact basic election security measures, supported by the majority of Americans, including voter ID and citizenship verification to ensure only Americans are electing America’s leaders. President Trump has done more than any other President to ensure we have free and fair elections.” This is like Russian Politburo speak. The man who has instigated an insurrection to overturn an election is our greatest defender of free and fair elections?
The administration has already made numerous attempts to impact the election. They demanded the voting rolls of 30 states to review. Thankfully, the courts have pushed back and the administration has lost 27 of those cases. The other cases are pending.
The Don introduced a plan to have the U.S. Postal Service screen mail which was rejected by the Supreme Court.
Mr. Trump has deployed homeland security investigators to find evidence of illegal voting in states where it has claimed without evidence there is widespread noncitizen voting. A federal judge restricted much of that effort this week
These legal gambits are losers. The main goal is to create doubt about the process and then use that doubt to justify later intervention or interference.
So far the courts have pushed back on these bogus claims, but there is still less than a week before election day and the chaos and attacks on the integrity of the election will only rev up. We have to be worried about the use of I.C.E. agents to intimidate voters. Will The Don send in the F.B.I or even the military to abscond with voting machines? It was on the agenda in 2020 but fortunately there was enough opposition in the White House to forestall that. The Don could create some kind of incident that would give him the excuse to declare a national emergency which would throw the entire election into disarray.
This is the actions of a man who wants absolute power and we have no reason to think he will not do anything he can to sustain it. The Don has no interest in democracy or in abiding by the laws. If these anti-democratic events come to pass the American people must take to the streets. Tens of millions must protest. Everything is on the line. Democracy itself is on the line. How far will the Republican lawmakers allow him to go? Will the cult and fear it engenders finally break apart? Hope is eternal, but I’m not holding my breath.
