Artwork by Michael DiMilo
By Geoff Carter
Perseverance is usually a virtue. The determination to keep going—no matter what the odds—until a goal is reached, a task completed, or a dream attained is usually a noble aspiration. But when determination swells into blind ambition or becomes nothing more than a single-minded fixation, it can result in the destruction of everything in its path—even its original goal.
History is full of examples of those who overreach. Napoleon was not satisfied with the conquest of Europe. He had to have Russia, too, which led—of course—to his downfall. Hitler (obviously no student of history) fell into the same trap. Nor are these examples limited to despots and tin gods. After the attacks of 9/11, the American government used illegal interrogation methods to gain information from terrorist suspects, justifying their actions in the name of national security. They—we—engaged in waterboarding and other forms of torture. For the nation that enjoys regaling itself as the bastion of world freedom and democracy, this was nothing but jingoistic hypocrisy—another devastating and shortsighted overreach.
Last November, Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election quite handily. His opponent, Donald Trump, refused to accept the outcome of the election, maintaining that he was the victim of election fraud. This was no surprise. Even before the first vote had been counted, Trump stated that the election would probably be stolen by the Democrats; then, late on election night, contradicting all electoral predictions, Trump declared himself the winner.
While his fanatical followers seemed to believe this hogwash, no one else paid it much serious attention. When the final tally was counted, Biden had earned 306 electoral votes to Trump’s 232 and had eclipsed his opponent’s total by seven million votes. It was not quite a landslide—not quite.
Trump cried foul, and fraud, immediately, focusing on the battleground states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, North Carolina, and—surprisingly, Georgia. Instead of acknowledging his inevitable defeat, Trump stubbornly refused to admit defeat. His campaign filed dozens of lawsuits. Trump even attempted to coerce Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger into changing the vote count to his favor. Trump told Raffensperger he needed 11,800 votes to carry the state that he was (somehow) sure he had won. To his credit, the Secretary held firm and refused to do the president’s bidding.
Stymied, but not giving up, Trump then turned to his last bastion of support—his followers. Inviting them to a rally in Washington, D.C., on January 6th, the date on which the election results were to be certified, citing his grievances and stating that the election had been stolen from him—and his followers—Trump brought the rally to a frenzy, inciting them to attack the Capitol. Which they did.
We’ve all seen the horrendous footage of the attack on the Capitol Building that day. We’ve all heard reports of the courageous Capitol Police officers who put their lives on the line to protect our democracy. We saw the Capitol defiled. The crisis was narrowly averted. But not resolved.
Trump and the Republicans have still not given up this pathetic fiction of a stolen election. Even after the January 6th attack, Senators Ted Cruz, Ron Johnson, Josh Hawley, and Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, Matt Gaetz, and others are still siding with the fanatic trying to reclaim the presidency. They espouse the myth of the stolen election—and they are not alone. The bulk of the Republicans are still lining up behind the remnants of Trump’s corrupt administration and his traitorous white supremacist allies. Just this morning, House Republicans voted to strip Liz Cheney, one of the few outspoken critics of Trump—and his big lie—of her party leadership position.
And there’s more. The Arizona State Senate recently voted to hold another recount of Maricopa County’s presidential election returns. This followed a November hand count of ballots and, more recently, a forensic audit of votes, neither of which found any discrepancies. Then, failing to uncover—or manufacture—any hard evidence, the Trumpists, much as they did in Georgia, attacked the integrity of the election itself.
Finally, still unwilling to accept empirical results of a legal democratic election, the state Republicans pushed for yet another audit—and got it. This latest recount seems to be a poorly executed partisan fiasco. According to David Graham’s article “The Unfolding Disaster in Arizona” published in the May 7th, 2021, issue of The Atlantic, the recount has been plagued by inconsistencies. Cyber Ninjas, the company hired to run the audit, does not seem to be qualified to be conducting election audits.
Cyber Ninjas’ irregularities are only the tip of the iceberg. Since the state severely underbudgeted the audit, the Arizona State Senate is now accepting private donations—from mostly Republican donors—to help fund the recount. Even though the process of overseeing the audit is typically non-partisan, with both parties being fairly represented, in this case, most of the observers are Republicans. It has recently come to light that auditors are now examining ballots for bamboo fibers on the assumption that they had been flown in from China. And so the idiocy goes on.
The Arizona Republicans are hell-bent of conducting this untrustworthy, illegitimate, illegal, and absurd recount to what end? What is it they hope to accomplish? Even if the recount uncovers some wrongdoing, the procedures by which it was run are so outlandish and illegal that the results will never be taken seriously. And what if they were? Even if by some God-forsaken miracle the Arizona vote was overturned, it would do nothing to affect the results of the election.
The Republicans know they are losing their grip on the power base (along with their grip on reality). That is why they are trying to pass restrictive voter laws in nearly every battleground state. They know they don’t have the votes to win legitimately. They know that unless they cheat, they can’t win. And so, they blatantly lie, cheat, manipulate, coerce, bully, and deprive the very people they serve of their right to vote.
They can’t win and they know it, but they believe they are chosen to lead—or they need to believe it. And, like the Nazis marching on Stalingrad, they refuse to admit defeat. In the face of insurmountable odds and refusing to acknowledge that they are wrong, they forge ahead. They won’t give up. This is neither courage nor fortitude nor loyalty. It is stupidity and the result of years of narrow-minded greed, arrogance, and contempt. They aren’t Americans anymore. They are too far gone. They are traitors.
And history will remember them—we all will—for being exactly that.
Very well said!
Thanks.