Three Months Later

It has been three months since right-wing fanatics and white supremacists attacked the United States Capitol.

Over the past 90 days, the Party Of Law And Order had 147 members raise at least one objection to the official election count. The Party of Family Values had all but ten members vote against impeaching the man who caused the insurrection. Twelve of the members of the Party of Blue Lives Matter voted against honoring the Capitol Police. And the Party of Government Accountability has held up the creation of a bipartisan panel on investigating the insurrection. Rather than dismissing the big lie and the resulting attack on our democracy, Republicans have instead doubled down, dug in their feet, and instead turned their attention to the true cause of the January 6th insurrection:

Too many people of color voting.

These past 90 days have shown us the true colors of the modern Republican Party. It is a party hellbent on destroying our democracy through both violent and nonviolent means. The January 6th insurrection was the most visible manifestation of this effort, but it was by no means the only one. Over the past three months, we've seen Republicans wage a war on the democratic process itself from Congresswomen like Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene attempting to delay congressional votes to Georgia Governor Brian Kemp signing Jim Crow 2.0 voting restrictions in Georgia to Mitch McConnell and the Republican Senate refusing to honor the transition process. Rather than accept their resounding 2020 loss where their candidate lost by 7 million votes and their party lost 4 Senate seats, Republicans have instead doubled down on the big lie and have used it to introduce 361 voting restrictions bills in 47 states. History will view the first great internal struggle of the 21st century as being America's response to rising right-wing authoritarianism that has overwhelmed one of its two major political parties.

That struggle will define who we are as a nation. 

Because as recent polls have shown, Republicans are no longer living in reality. With 50% of them seeing the January 6th insurrection as having been "peaceful" and 60% still believing that the election was stolen from Donald Trump, Republican voters can no longer discern fact from fiction. They cannot grasp the fact that a two-bit conman from Queens would rather cry foul than admit he's a loser. That Donald Trump lost. Bigly. That a record 81.2 million Americans voted early, by mail, or in-person during a pandemic because they were that fed up with Donald Trump's presidency. They cannot admit the fact that they were outorganized twice by Stacy Abrams, LaTosha Brown, and the hundreds of Black organizers and activists in Georgia. And if you think for one minute that Donald Trump and Lindsey Graham would be trying to "find" votes in a state that didn't have a significant African-American population well then I've got a bridge to sell you on the outskirts of Savannah. 

In a democracy, voters pick their elected officials. With Republicans, they want the elected officials to pick their voters. It's why they support these voter suppression bills and partisan gerrymandering. Because Republicans know that if everyone eligible votes, they lose. In fact, they would never again win the presidency based on current voting trends. Their core voters are aging and dying off and thanks to a generation of being on the wrong side of the culture wars, Republicans have lost millennials and xennials for the next half-century. Believe it or not, younger voters don't want to vote for a party that wants to regulate who we can marry, what we can do with our body, and how we can access more affordable healthcare. Younger voters aren't too keen on the party that has crashed the economy twice and ignored a global pandemic. It's kind of hard to enjoy tax breaks for the richest 1% when you're drowning in student loan debt, living with your parents, and unable to start your own family because you don't want to introduce a child into a world where he or she can't meet their extended family members until they are vaccinated. 

Republicans know Donald Trump lost. Deep down inside, they truly do. But they're so feckless that they'd rather play along with the big lie than cut their losses. Many of them are in safe, Matt Gaetzesque districts where the (R) next to their name guarantees them a spot in Congress. But for the rest of them, these past three months have shown them to be completely sniveling sycophants unwilling to actually promote democracy. They're all in on the authoritarianism of the Trump Administration, quietly hoping that their state legislatures can help earn them a few more votes by doing everything in their power to disenfranchise voters who have a bit more melanin than they do. The fact that not a single Republican hasn't publicly distanced themselves from Georgia tells you everything you need to know. They aren't outraged; they're grateful. They're grateful that Georgia went first so now their home state can push for less malicious but equally effective voter suppression laws. It doesn't matter how it gets done, every single Republican wants to get re-elected and if bending the rules is what it takes then so be it. 

There will be no Republican autopsy. No discussion about how they hemorrhaged support in the Atlanta suburbs. No analysis as to why they didn't devote more time to getting out the Native American vote in Arizona. No in-depth review of how and why they lost the Las Vegas labor vote. No on-the-ground meetings with the Black communities of Detriot, Philadelphia, or Milwaukee. None of this will happen because Republicans are incapable of admitting they lost. Because admitting they lost is admitting that the top of their ticket was a loser. A fraud. A phony. Admitting that Donald Trump lost is admitting to 74 million Americans that the Democrats outworked, outhustled, and outmaneuvered them when it came to voting. That the 2020 election was the most secure in our nation's history. That Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were actually running a brilliant campaign and not stuck in Joe's basement. To admit all that is to admit that Donald Trump and his MAGA army were not popular enough to be elected a second time. It's telling 74 million Americans that they didn't do enough and that their ideas are not in alignment with the majority of Americans. It's telling them that their vote counted, but the other guy simply got more votes. 

And that's simply something that no Republican is willing to admit.