One of the most important gestures in American democracy is the peaceful transfer of power from one president to the next- even if those two presidents completely disagree with one another. For years, American presidents have handed off power to the next in line without threatening democracy. However, that cannot be said of the Trump Administration and its sycophants who tried (and, in fact, are still trying) to undermine our democratic process and invalidate the 2020 presidential elections.
Wisconsin Republicans have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to dig up fraud stemming from the 2020 presidential election, and yet are conspicuously silent on one clear, incontrovertible aspect of the election: that the Wisconsin Republican party tried to have their own fraudulent electors cast votes for president, even though Democrats won the state of Wisconsin in the Electoral College and were legally the party that was to supply the electors.
This was one of many attempts to invalidate the 2020 election and unconstitutionally install Donald Trump as president for an un-earned second term. In addition to false electors, there was also a plan to get Vice President Mike Pence to – as Donald Trump himself put it- overturn the election. “Overturn” is an incredibly telling word for the former president to have used. It means he knows he lost, but didn’t want that to stop him from continuing to serve as president.
Again and again, Republicans have shown their disdain for democracy. They want to rule, and believe they have a right to rule. That is why, any time a Democrat wins, they see the victory as inherently illegitimate. Baseless cries of widespread voter fraud invariably follow a Democratic win. That is what leads to fraudulent electors, insurrections, and countless attempts to restrict voting.
Republicans fear a fair fight, because they know they will lose. Their positions are unpopular, which is why they’ve spent the last 30 years in an all-out fight to remake the United States Court system. That way if they lose at the ballot box they can rely on their lifetime-appointed partisan judges do the legislating for them. Every chance they get, they are trying to rig the system- by gerrymandering, preventing a duly-elected President from filling a Supreme Court vacancy, abusing the antiquated filibuster process, and even attempting to overturn an election result.
Republicans have become a party of anti-democracy, and it is time that we all start to recognize it, admit it, and fight back against it.
