Artwork by Michael DiMilo
By Geoffrey Carter
On June 25th, 1876, the Seventh Calvary, under the command of Lt. Colonel George Armstrong Custer, attacked a large Sioux encampment near the Little Big Horn River and was defeated. The attack was reckless, foolhardy, in defiance of a direct order, and resulted in a massacre of nearly the entire Seventh Calvary.
Custer was known as an impetuous, vain, and reckless commander prone to ignore orders in his own quest for glory. In his arrogance, he was confident that the “savages” at Little Big Horn would scatter in fear. Defying orders and ignoring intelligence reports from his scouts, determined to achieve a glorious victory that he needed to bolster his badly sagging career, Custer attacked a superior force, leading seven hundred men to their deaths.
History repeats. And repeats. It seems as if we’ve just rid ourselves of another leader known for his vanity, arrogance, and recklessness. And his golden-orange locks. Over the past four years, this man—our former president—showed himself willing to sacrifice anything, including our democracy—in order to sustain himself in power.
In the 2021 election, the Republican Party lost the presidency and control of the U.S. Senate. Record voter turnout resulted in victories for democratic candidates in traditionally red states like Arizona and Georgia. For the first time in decades, an incumbent lost the White House. But President Trump, in his arrogance, refused to acknowledge his loss. In fact, he started telling the “Big Lie”, that the election had been stolen. He repeated this lie so often and so loudly that some of his most ardent supporters believed it.
On January 6th, he gathered a mob of rabid followers, whipped them into a frenzy, and induced them to attack the Capitol Building. Five people died and countless more were injured. Like Custer’s charge at Little Big Horn, this attack was foolhardy, reckless, and selfishly motivated. The only difference between them is that the attack on the Capitol continues.
Today, the Republican Party is dominated by Trumpists; unfortunately, the traditionalists have been undermined by segments of the party beholden to Trump’s coalition of white supremacists and neo-Nazis. Representatives like Louie Gohmert, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Ted Cruz, and Ron Johnson are determined to follow in the footsteps of Donald Trump. The few centrists left—Mitt Romney, Lynn Cheney, and Bill Cassidy—have been censured by many of their fellow Republicans.
The GOP has lost both congressional houses and the presidency. Common sense might suggest that it’s time for the party to rethink their strategies and their platform. So, have the Republicans decided to regroup and to attract young and minority voters, to try and retool their message for a new generation of voters?
Nah. Mitch McConnell, Ron Johnson, Kevin McCarthy, Ted Cruz, and other Republican congressman have decided to circle their wagons and shift their attack to limiting voters’ rights. Instead of listening to their constituents, paying attention to the polls, or attempting to shape policy to serve the needs of the American people, the Republicans have instead decided to make it harder to vote. Arizona Republican Senator John Cavanaugh was refreshingly candid in the reasoning on the matter. “Republicans are more concerned about fraud, so we don’t mind putting security measures in that won’t let everybody vote — but everybody shouldn’t be voting.” (Intelligencer, March 11, 2021).
In Georgia, where Democrat senatorial candidates Raphael Warnock and Joe Ossoff eked out narrow victories, state Republicans have proposed legislation making it more difficult to vote. They want to restrict early voting periods, voting by mail, require photo ID at the polls, shorten early voting windows, and even make it a crime to pass out water to voters waiting in line. Similar legislation is pending in Arizona and Michigan. Expect other red state legislatures in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Texas to follow suit.
They cannot—or will not—let go of the Trumpist white supremacist rhetoric. Ron Johnson recently put his foot in his mouth when he said he never felt threatened during the Capitol riots, that “I knew those were people that love this country, that truly respect law enforcement, would never do anything to break the law, and so I wasn’t concerned.” He went on to add that if the rioters “were tens of thousands of Black Lives Matter and Antifa protesters, I might have been a little concerned” (CNN, March 14th, 2021).
He has—of course—been condemned for his racist comments, which he says never intended as such, but he’s not alone in his complicity to Trump. Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert, far-right militia sympathizers, are under investigation for leading tours through the Capitol Building the day before the Capitol attack, tours which included militia members and white supremacists who were subsequently seen at the riot.
The Republicans lost control of the United States Senate last fall and then blindly followed Trump into a treasonous war on democracy. Refusing to acknowledge his loss—much like Custer refused to listen to his scouts—Trump mounted a foolhardy charge into the very heart of his enemy—democracy. It was ill-advised, reckless, and treasonous. Trump is a fool—and so are his minions.
The battle is over. If Ron Johnson and other extremists in the Senate may want to keep defending their hill—Trump’s hill—and their right to be racist fear-mongering opportunists, and to hold on to any vestige of power they can be repressing their own people’s right to vote, then they are indeed fighting for a lost cause.
The Republicans are not getting any new voters. They’re not even trying very hard to attract them. Their party is shrinking, in fact dying, so they are resorting to rigging the game. Apparently, the only way they’ll be able to win is to cheat, and that seems to be okay with them. As long as they persist in purveying the same arrogance and foolhardiness of their deposed leader in attacking the very system they were elected to serve, these representatives will end up just like him, their political careers dead on the battlefield.