The Slow Coup Rolls On
Most of the country has been in a state of denial about 1/6 and its implications after a brief window in its aftermath suggested a more robust response. We all witnessed on our TV, computer, and phone screens how Trump tried to overthrow the government with the help of a willing mob and several elected officials. There was a short time, maybe two weeks, when it seemed like Trump and those who enabled him might actually be run out of political life. Major league baseball players, not known for being flaming liberals, demanded that the All-Star Game be moved from Atlanta due to the Georgia government’s election manipulation. For a second it looked like Republicans would be willing to remove Trump by impeachment.
They opted not to. Then came Biden’s inauguration, a sigh of relief, and most people who prefer that democracy remain alive just assumed the danger was over. Liberal ideology tends to encourage such complacency. Liberals tell themselves that the moral arc of the universe bends towards justice, and assume because they are on the right side of things that they don’t actually have to FIGHT.
Conservatives, however, understand that politics is ultimately about getting and wielding power, not moral superiority. After the mishegas over 1/6 died down, reactionaries continued the quiet, piecemeal coup they have been pulling off for years now. While Trump’s open coup didn’t work, the quiet one that both preceded and succeeded him is already winning.
What do I mean by quiet coup? I mean the concerted effort to manipulate the non-majoritarian aspects of our system in order to ensure conservatives stay in power despite most people being opposed to them. Even before Trump they were pushing radical gerrymanders and voting rights restrictions that have only gotten more intense. They have weaponized the courts, not letting Obama choose a successor for Scalia, then ramming in a successor for Ginsburg at the end of Trump’s term. When Democrats are in the White House Republicans block their judicial nominations; when Trump was in they fast-tracked many right-wing loonies onto the federal bench.
Thus the radically unpopular Dobbs decision got passed via a combo of manipulation and the electoral college, whose anti-majoritarian nature put Bush and Trump in the White House in the first place. In states where voters use referendums to pass the progressive policies the legislatures refuse, the conservative state houses just ignore the result. If courts tell them their gerrymanders are unconstitutional, they do likewise. If progressive legislators defy or displease Republicans, they to have them censured or removed.
Just last week on the same day North Carolina Republicans produced a radical gerrymander for their state and House Republicans elevated Mike Johnson to the Speakership. Johnson is a Christian nationalist and one of the House Republicans who fought to overturn the 2020 election. At this stage I think we can assume he will not certify election results in 2024 that do not please him.
I tire of the talk that 2024 will determine whether democracy will survive in America because it ignores the rather grim fact that it is already practically gone. There are states where gerrymandering has effectively created impenitrable, one-party rule. The courts can strike down any potential progressive legislation, and they already have vastly circumscribed the rights of vulnerable people. Most crucially, we have already had two disastrous presidencies this century that gained power with a minority of votes.
Fighting back against this is going to be difficult, and it will be impossible if the truly dire circumstances we are in are not fully understood. It’s not enough to sway voters, the system needs to be changed to prevent its manipulation. The problem is, that requires majorities in Congress that are almost impossible to maintain with the current manipulations. I do not know how this will end, but if you want any kind of good ending you need to get off your butt and get working instead of thinking the moral arc of the universe will sort it out for you.