Republican War Against Democracy

-by Bob Fitrakis and Harvey WassermanFor Donald Trump’s GOP followers, the real issue in the 2020 election is democracy itself.They want it abolished.Their primary allies are the Coronavirus, state legislatures like those in Ohio and Wisconsin, and the US Supreme Court.The campaign just hit a new level in Wisconsin. Using the Pandemic, its gerrymandered GOP legislature made voting in the April 7 primary as dangerous as possible.

by NoahIn keeping with the president's intense psychopathology, the Trump owned and operated "Supreme" Court chose illness and death over the Constitutional right to vote for untold numbers of Wisconsin citizens earlier this week when they decreed from on high that there would be no extension of voting time, due to the pandemic, for citizens to get, fill out, and send in absentee ballots.

Our heroic jefe, Señor Trumpanzee, is not just a war-time president, he's fighting a war on two fronts-- one against the COVID-19 pandemic-- who could have known?-- and one against democracy. Yesterday, Alex Isenstadt reported from the front lines in Trumpanzee's war against democracy.

That should be apparent to anyone who's been watching the metastization of the worst features of right-wing populism within the American conservative movement and within the Republican Party.

American lame duck periods-- between early November's election and early Jannary's inauguration, are usually extremely dysfunctional-- but they were even worse before 1933 when they lasted until March. In 1933m the 29th Amendment to the Constitution moved the beginning of the new Congress to January 3 (and the inauguration of the president to January 20), shortening, but not eliminating the lame duck period.

I was shocked when the Florida Republican Party seemed so calm when Amendment 4 passed in November. It's going to probably mean a million new voters, many of then not especially GOP-friendly. Florida was one of only 4 states, the others being Kentucky, Iowa and Virginia, where convicted felons do not regain the right to vote after serving out their sentences.

In a wave election-- with a DCCC recruiting some real garbage, dumb-as-a-brick candidates to run-- you get some really ignorant freshmen in Congress. And we do. So some of them might not know who Kevin McCarthy is... let alone what his role has been and what his likely intentions are.

The outgoing Michigan congressional delegation has 9 Republicans and 5 Democrats. Starting in January it will be 7 Democrats and 7 Republicans-- and that despite gerrymandering.

Have you been wondering how much Mark Harris paid professional Republican Party vote thief Leslie McCrae Dowless to steal the 2018 election for him? It was over half a million dollars, probably a lot over half a million dollars. How slimy is Harris?

About 5 years ago a closeted Republican retired from Congress-- not a case like Mark Foley who was really forced out because he was found to be molesting underage pages-- but just a garden variety gay guy who, though notorious inside the Beltway, was relatively unknown for his homosexuality in his own district.