by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
It has occurred to me that we’re so wrapped up in the MAGA-Trump Big Lie about the 2020 election that we’re missing something far more basic about what’s going on in Arizona: it’s sedition.
Arizona Republicans are actively working to “prove” that Trump “won” the 2020 election even though this has been proven to be complete bullshit over and over and over and over and over again. There comes a point when any such recount is, by definition, done with a bad faith agenda.
You can’t keep demanding a recount simply because you don’t like the result of the election. If you keep doing so, it becomes clear that your goal isn’t to find out the “truth,” it’s to give ding-dong Trump and his raving racist MAGA followers an excuse to destabilize the government.
Now, let me pause for a moment to say I’m often wrong. Like, all the time. So, maybe I’m just being hysterical again. After all, Trump is very lazy and, by some metrics, while his power over the Republican continues to be absolute, his influence elsewhere is waning.
So, I dunno. A lot depends on things that I can’t predict and Trump can’t control. It’s easy to imagine that my dystopian scenario of a nullification crisis leading to a secession crisis is just more of my usual “Trump derangement disorder.”
It’s just I can’t help the nagging feeling that the United States is careening towards a rather dramatic and stark choice. Either we have something akin to a secession crisis now, or we have it in 2024-2025. Either our democracy dies with the whimper of a transition to MAGA autocratic managed democracy or we have a civil war and some sort of opportunity to maybe revive our democracy. (But that is really assuming the absolute best possible endgame.)
I guess, in general, the issue is there is an existential rot at the core of our political system and the question for me is do we somehow magically continue to muddle our way through this or does the obvious happen.
Only time will tell.
