There is good reason to fear that the upcoming November 8 election in the United States will signal the swan song of electoral democracy.
As the Congressional Commission revealed on January 6, 2021, Donald Trump and his supporters sought to hijack the will of the American electorate after the 2020 election.
For the ex-president and his cultists, it was just a reprieve. On the eve of midterm elections, many of the safeguards that kept democracy from derailing in 2020 are under serious threat, boding ill for 2024.
elective negationism
The Trumpists’ game plan was clear: it was necessary to maintain suspicion about the electoral process and manipulate the electoral institutions to guarantee a stranglehold on power for Donald Trump and his party.
Although many Republicans condemned Trump’s attempted coup shortly after January 6, 2021, their voices died down thereafter. Today, a clear majority of Republican voters believe the falsehoods spread by Trump that the 2020 election was fraudulent. (Reminder: This is false, Trump knows, and he has no evidence of major fraud.) According to FiveThirtyEight.com, out of 552 Republican candidates running for representative, senator, governor, secretary of state, or attorney general, 200 completely dispute the legitimacy of the results of 2020, 61 seriously question it and 122 decline to comment.
Strategic Positions
Among these Holocaust deniers are several key candidates with a good chance of being elected in the key states that will determine the winner of the 2024 presidential election. These elected officials could arbitrarily disqualify thousands of voters or refuse to count their votes, opening the door for Trump to return to the White House.
This is especially true in Arizona, Michigan, Nevada and Pennsylvania, where several Holocaust deniers stand a good chance of winning. For example, in Arizona, a key state in 2020, Republican nominee for Secretary of State Mark Finchem has openly pledged to use every means at the chief election administrator’s disposal to facilitate Republican victories.
real risks
These highly visible candidates are not the only ones jeopardizing the integrity of the electoral process. A whole host of local election observers are also preparing to make it harder for Democratic voters to get to the polls and question the validity of their votes.
Intimidation is used to deter “undesirable” voters, or the validity of the votes of those who have dared to challenge that intimidation is systematically challenged. In some states, including Florida, criminal charges of voter fraud are being multiplied so that citizens unsure of their voter status simply give up voting.
In short, the dangers that await American democracy are real. Still, even if Republicans openly express their disdain for democratic values, and even if they try to remove the uncertainty from the 2024 results, there’s a good chance they’ll make big election gains in November. What do you want, it’s expensive to fill up a big car…
