Monday, December 14, 2020

Patriots vs Traitors

Annamaria on Electoral College Day



Today - Monday, 14 December 2020 - Members of the Electoral College will cast their votes and declare that Joseph R. Biden, Jr. has been elected President of the United States.

In a sense, this is a triumph, not only of one man over another or one party over another, but for the United States Democracy over those who would destroy it.


My country long-ago taught the rest of the world that a peaceful transfer of power was possible in a democracy.  It began with our first, and I think most important President, George Washington.  After two terms in office, he stepped aside by refusing to seek another four-year term.  That act forced the country to elect a second President.  And since George Washington put the world's first nascent democracy on that path, the transfer of power has peacefully taken place.



Even twenty years ago, when Al Gore won 51% of all votes cast and a mob of preppy Republicans rioted, stopping the Florida vote count, and the Supreme Court then found for Bush, Gore capitulated. Because Gore played on the Patriots team.  Their motto: The sanctity of our democracy comes first.



I don't think anyone wants to read a recounting of what has gone on with lawsuits since Trump lost last month's election. I will just summarize by saying that all of the Republicans' efforts to overturn the will of the people with political wrangling have failed.  Their lawsuits have been dismissed as specious and without merit by every judge they have come before.  The Supreme Court, where four of the nine justices are Trump appointees, has repudiated Trump and his political lackeys by refusing to consider their last-ditch-effort lawsuit.



Which brings us to the Patriots' opposition in this game, a team I will call the Traitors.  In the final inning, these are the 18 state attorneys general and the 126 Republican members of the House of Representatives who have joined that spurious lawsuit that seeked not only to overturn twenty million votes in four states.  They also tried to throw US citizens' faith in our electoral process in the dumpster.  And set it on fire.  What has gone into the bin, I pray forever, was their vicious effort to seize power by unconstitutional means.

I would like to say, "And that will be that."  But the battle between the Patriots and the Traitors is likely to go on. Hopefully that war will confine itself to the elephant in the room: the Republican Party. Many patriotic Republicans have sided with the Constitution. Michael Steele, for instance.  A former chairman of the Republican National Committee, Steele is quoted - regarding that final lawsuit - in this past Saturday's New York Times, saying "It's an offense to the Constitution and it leaves an indelible stain that will be hard for these 126 members to wipe off their political skin for a long time to come."


Also playing for the Patriots are the Republican former governor of New Jersey Christine Todd Whitman, about whom I never expected to say one good word.  That same Times article puts her in league with our own Kwei Quartey when it comes to the cult of Trump.  "I keep comparing it somewhat to Jonestown. They've all drunk the Kool-Aid. It just hasn't killed them yet."

There are other prominent Republicans who have objected to this attack on the Constitution, notably Mitt Romney and Chris Sununu who have scored for the Patriots.

Cheerleading for the Traitors are such incomprehensible enablers as the redoubtable Lindsey Graham and California's Kevin McCarthy.

The Traitors' General Manager Mitch McConnell showed the team colors in 2008, when he said he thought it was his job for "the next four years to make sure Barack Obama will be a one-term President."  In other words, he would rather see the United States of America fail than to see a duly-elected Democratic President succeed.

The Reds would have twice is much land.  The Blues double the population.

Trump is still fiercely questioning the legitimacy of his defeat.  Some of his loyal adherents are calling for red states to secede from the Union.  The last time States tried that, the Federal Government fought a bloody civil war to preserve the Union.  If the sore losers try it this time around, I am inclined to say, "Bye-bye.  You can have President Trump and try to live without the dole you've been collecting from the US Federal Government.  We'll keep all the tax money, which you have gotten more than your share of, for ourselves.  And any Patriot players and supporters who want to stick with the Union are welcome in the still United States of Sane America."

But, thank heavens, for now anyway, that outcome is not a serious threat.

When the Electoral College votes today, all paths to overturn the election will be gone.  We owe this to the great Patriot stars, many of them card-carrying Republicans.  They managed the elections in their states according to the rules, saw that the votes were properly counted, and truthfully reported the results.

Today, the game is over.  The Patriots have won this Peaceful Transfer of Power Tournament. The United States has endured the worst challenge to peaceful succession in its history.  

My pick for MVP is a lifelong Republican who voted for Trump: Gabriel Sterling, Voting Systems Manager for the Georgia Secretary of State's Office. You can watch his most memorable shots in the game here:



Today the Patriots are victorious! The Constitution lives. Hurrah!



13 comments:

  1. In the end, I'm hoping, and I believe, that American democracy will be victorious. This has been a stringent stress test that will go down in the history books, showing and telling the patriots and traitors. Their progeny will read about them in decades to come. "Your grandfather was one of the spineless, cowardly people who feared the president and put lies before country." How pathetic.

    I wouldn't be proud of my father's bio had he not stood up to the then military regime when I was a kid. (Later on, I was to do the same thing, but that's another story). Many take democracy for granted. I invite them to live in an autocratic country or under a military regime for a few weeks and see how they like it.

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    1. You and are in complete accord, Kwei. (No surprise!) The fear factor that you mention here is palpable. People who succumb to it are, of course, cowards. That's why I named Gabriel Sterling MVP. He had the guts to call out the President in public. The complete opposite of those spineless toadies who joined together to challenge reality rather than stand up to a bully.

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  2. Words to live by and to love by, AmA. Huzzah-huzzah!

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    1. If only Trump had not found a way to monetize his shenanigans. He might have shut up by now. Oh for the days when he was just a local BS artist that New Yorkers could laugh at.

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  3. Great piece, Annamaria! Yes, all avenues to overturning the result will be closed to them after today, but I foresee some scandalous pettifogging before we see President Biden inaugurated.

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    1. Jamie, you and I both know that the Traitor team is working on their play book to do everything they can to weaken Biden's chances of success. I, to "coin a phrase", dare call it treason.

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    2. The drama will continue to the end and beyond, stoked in large part by Trump's new Roy Cohn--and actual Cohn look alike (which may partially explain Trump's visceral draw to his philosophy over compassion and common sense)--STEPHEN MILLER.

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    3. I know, Bro. You and I are on the same page here, as usual! And we both harken back to to those black days of McCarthyism. Extremism does such damage, causes such pain. Here in the US, it has not prevailed, but every bout with it sets us back and hurts the citizenry. When will they ever learn? When will they EVER learn?

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  4. I say a lot of credit goes to Stacey Abrams who mobilized for the vote in Georgia, despite all the shenanigans, voter intimidation and threats of violence and gerrymandering. Also, Black people, especially women, who mobilized in the Southern and Midwestern states to get out the vote. And what they had to deal with is horrific.
    McConnell is still saying no to a stimulus/disaster relief plan. Outrageous. Food lines are long and growing. Evictions loom. Millions are unemployed.
    There's a lot at stake: the coffers of the Treasury, the military, control of government benefits and allocation of funds, including for Social Security. McConnell is just intransigent.
    It's going to be a struggle to overturn much of what the Trumpites did to turn back so much gained since the 1950s, including civil rights, women's rights, workers/unions' rights, LGBTQ rights and environmental protecitons.
    Also, I think what happened to Gore in 2000 was outrageous. Ballots were being recounted in Broward County, Fla., and right-wing senators flew down there and walked into the election board to stop this. It was coercion.
    SCOTUS shouldn't have sided with Bush. It's not right for a court to decide an election like that. It was very close.
    And I don't know that Gore shouldn't have challenged the SCOTUS decision.
    Look, the Democrats are carrying pen knives to a gun fight, as some have put it. That GOP is at war, won the tax cuts from the current guy in the White House, overturned environmental protections, workers and union rights and more.
    They wanted to win, no matter the method. They don't care about democratic rights; they just wanted to win.
    We shall see what happens, and what the 73 million people do now that their guy has lost.
    And we'll see what happens with SCOTUS now that it's loaded with right-wingers. Wow, would Ruth Bader Ginsburg be upset at who replaced her.
    So many rights and Obamacare are in danger.
    And we'll see what happens with the relief plan, given GOP opposition to helping people not be evicted or go hungry or without health care.

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    1. Kathy, you are so right to point out the many Democratic efforts that saved the Constitution. Our side, the Dems play on the Patriots team. I cited the Republicans in my account because they had to stand up to their party's leadership to do the right thing. And so I think they deserve special mention and a great deal of gratitude. Calming the anger and healing the rifts, where possible, I think is a key to helping Joe and Kamala succeed.

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  5. I agree with you on all of this, Annamaria, and I marvel at your ability to write so well on politics, taking us back to times we've almost forgotten. Let's hope 2021 brings us closer to the ideals of the Constitution we grew up with.

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    1. Thank you so much, Sujata. Your hope and mine are the same. And I also thank you for the marvelous discussion of your brilliant "The Sleeping Dictionary" last evening. I loved hearing from and seeing all those people! Even one logging in from Singapore!! Kudos!!

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  6. I cannot praise any Republicans, given the racism, misogyny, xenophobia, separating migrant families, putting children in cages (a crime), enforcing policies and denying science so over 300,000 people in the U.S. have died -- and none of them said a word. None of them tried to stop the guy in the White House, stood up to him, opposed his reactionary remarks his attacks, his "Liberate Michigan" to ultraright militias, and on and on. Who stood up to him for four years? None of them. Who opposed the appointment to SCOTUS of three right-wingers, thus packing the court? None of them.
    So, no kudos from me. And I"m not a Democrat. I'm an independent. I wanted the horrid bunch out of the administration with all of their terrible language and policies. and ties to the dangerous ultraright.
    Now we'll see what happens. I'll support what's progressive, oppose what isn't, step by step.

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