Are You Ready for Minority Rule?

 “Things are always changing. This is just one of the big jumps instead of the little step-by-step changes that are easier to take. People have changed the climate of the world. Now they’re waiting for the old days to come back.” Octavia E. Butler, Parable of the Sower

It was cold in the apartment this morning. I started the coffee brewing and donned my heavy Chelsea Football Club sweatshirt. Although I didn’t want to, I looked at the news; it confirmed what I knew -- the GOP had succeeded in ramming Amy Coney Barrett down our throats eight days before the presidential election. 

Mitch McConnell achieved his dream of cementing minority rule, and said as much on the floor of the Senate. The cynical, corrupt man from Kentucky held the power, and he used it with ruthless efficiency. I wondered what might have happened if the tables had been reversed and the Democrats held a majority and tried to seat a moderate associate justice at warp speed. Would the Dems have trampled Senate rules, procedures and norms? I doubt it. They don’t have the killer instinct or sufficient disregard for the institution. For far too many years, the Dems believed they could deal with the GOP on level terms, as if both sides play by a common set of rules. They don’t. It was this naivete on the part of Barack Obama that drove me crazy during his first term. No matter how many times Republicans dissed him, Obama kept trying to find common ground. Obama wanted to make policy, the GOP only wanted to expand its power. Even if the GOP had been a minority party, I think McConnell would have found a way to block the Democrats from rushing to confirm a justice. Appeals to rules and fairness work on Democrats, but bounce off Republicans like BB’s off armor plating. 

I don’t know what will happen on November 3rd and in the weeks after. I’m not confident that Biden will win, despite early indications that the turnout will be record-setting. What I imagine, though, is that regardless of the results, Trump will preemptively claim victory, either on election night or the next day, and FOX News and Breitbart and all the other Trump mouthpieces will amplify his claim. Trump will blitz the public with tales of massive fraud, cheating, and fake absentee ballots. Lawsuits will follow in all the states where the vote tally is close. Trump might hold rallies in those states, and encourage his supporters to demand a halt to the count by marching on election offices in a sea of MAGA red. After living through the 2000 election, it’s not a stretch to imagine the final outcome being decided in Trump’s favor by a hyper-partisan Supreme Court. 

And then what? 

For many years the Dems believed they could deal with the GOP on level terms, as if both sides play by a common set of rules. 

Even if Biden prevails -- and let’s hope he does -- Trump will have more than two months to plant boobytraps, string Claymore mines, and retaliate against his perceived enemies. That’s a long interregnum, particularly with Covid-19 resurgent in many states. Trump & Company have surrendered to the pandemic, raised the white flag, folded the tents and let the horses and mules run loose. Damn the needs of the people, let them fend for themselves. The coming winter looks long and dark. Despair lives next door. In less than four years, Donald J. Trump has driven a wedge between millions of Americans. His talk of red and blue states, his sowing of mistrust in public health experts, and in simple measures like wearing a face covering; his constant lying about the severity of Covid-19, which he knew about in February; his demands for loyalty over competence; his grift and self-dealing; his cruelty and stupidity. The man is a reckless and destructive sociopath, and we are not free of his evil stench, not by a long shot. Trump may lose at the polls in a margin too big to steal, as legal analyst Glenn Kirschner puts it, but we shouldn’t for a moment think Trump will leave the national stage. His cult followers, the people who wear the red hats and can’t get enough of his act, will still believe in him, listen to him. If Trump calls them to Mar-A-Lago, they will go. If Trump tells them to march into the Gulf of Mexico, they will, like lemmings off a cliff. 

Tell me, please, what happened to America? 

In a week at least the fund-raising text messages and emails that daily barrage my phone will end. I remind myself that the antidote to despair is to focus on what is within my control. The present is a soap bubble. The old days aren’t returning. Octavia Butler is right -- things are always changing.