King For A Day?

 

Friends, the powers-that-be were undeniably taken aback by Donald Trump's victory in 2016, and they reacted with predictable horror and sanctimony.  They also mobilized as never before to ensure that this outrage would never be repeated.  My latest article is about the extraordinary measures taken by some of the most powerful forces in our society to engineer Biden's win and Trump's loss in 2020.  In that respect, it's a cautionary tale for all Republicans, conservatives, patriots, and Trumpers.  I also, however, contemplate how close all this establishment might came to total defeat in 2020 -- and thus how tenuous is their hold on power.  It's an intriguing juxtaposition, to say the least!

The Grand Old Party: Royally Screwed, Or Soon To Inherit The Throne?

Since President Trump's — disputed, but definitive — defeat in the presidential election as of the early morning hours of January 7^th, Republicans have been more than a little shell-shocked. Not only did they surrender the presidency and the Senate to the Democrats, all in the space of a few hours, but they were blamed for an “insurrection” to boot, threatening serious, even permanent, damage to their brand. It sure looked like the GOP world had come crashing down.

What's more, a majority of Republicans emerged from the carnage of election 2020 fervently believing that the contest had been “rigged”. Although these claims of election fraud and malfeasance have been pooh-poohed by Democrats, progressives, journalists, and social media watchdogs, the truth is that the press and Big Tech did take unprecedented action to shield the Democratic ticket from scrutiny, while politicians and election authorities worked feverishly to alter the terms of the election itself to Joe Biden's undeniable advantage.

What's worse, these strategies worked. Thus, going forward, Republicans and conservatives naturally assume that the Left, having gamed the system successfully in 2020, will double down on these nefarious tactics and “rig” the next election even more emphatically.

In other words, as futile as our efforts seem to have been in 2020, in 2022, 2024, and beyond, Republican losses may be virtually guaranteed. The system's bias in favor of Democrats may be so ingrained as to be indefeasible. Republicans might as well apply for asylum in Brazil, or Russia, or Hungary now, while the getting's good.

As if to confirm this bleak narrative, Time's Molly Ball recently published a piece that revealed the contours of a “conspiracy to save the 2020 election” (from Trump), involving coordinated efforts by left-wing activists, labor groups, social media companies, journalists, political veterans, and even major corporations and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. These unlikely allies had two things in common: a disdain for Trump and a desire to frame the 2020 election and to manage news and information so as to assure his defeat.

As Ball puts it: “...the participants want the secret history of the 2020 election told, even though it sounds like a paranoid fever dream–a well-funded cabal of powerful people, ranging across industries and ideologies, working together behind the scenes to influence perceptions, change rules and laws, steer media coverage and control the flow of information.”

Ball claims this unholy alliance wanted only to “fortify” the election, not to rig it. Be that as it may, the group never seems to have considered the possibility that, in a free and fair election, they might lose. In fact, they had plans for massive street demonstrations in the event that it looked as though they were losing — an eventuality they planned to fight tooth and nail.

How, Republicans might reasonably ask, are we supposed to stand against such a formidable assemblage of establishment forces? How was Donald Trump ever supposed to prevail against such a cabal? And, now that the powers-that-be have so successfully mastered the levers and springs of “democracy”, why should they not use their dominion to throttle the GOP once and for all? Surely it would be naive to imagine that we could win another consequential election ever again.

And yet...

Compelling though this narrative might be, it misses a crucial realization: based on Molly Ball's own telling, and by the conspirators' own admission, their victory in 2020 was a very near thing. She recounts a number of points in the 2020 race and its aftermath where the narrative and circumstances threatened to spin out of the control even of these ingenious masters of fate.

What's more, we have only to contemplate the raw results of the 2020 election to perceive just how close the Left and the establishment came to their worst nightmare: defeat on all fronts.

Donald Trump came within 42,844 votes of flipping three critical states that would have given him an electoral college victory — and that's despite the avalanche of questionable, mail-in votes that Biden received.

Meanwhile, Republicans came within just 31,751 votes of taking a majority in the House of Representatives — despite predictions that Democrats in that chamber would easily pad their advantage. The slightest alteration in the winds of political fortune, therefore, could have reelected Trump and turfed Nancy Pelosi out of the Speakership.

Assuming we grant David Perdue a handful of extra votes in November 2020 as well, and thus a win over Jon Ossoff, Republicans would have recaptured the presidency, the House, and the Senate, just like in 2016, except that in this case the establishment would have seen the calamity coming, would have organized every possible resource and subterfuge to prevent it...and would have failed anyway. That's how close Trump and Republicans came to victory, and how close our most powerful enemies came to ignominious defeat.

What we have in these two stories, then, is two competing and seemingly opposite narratives, yes, but also two halves of the same whole: the Yin and the Yang of modern American politics.

On one hand, never before have dominant political, economic, and social forces colluded so fully, so nakedly, and yet so masterfully to stage-manage a federal election. Given the sophistication and the sheer clout of these worthies, it is difficult, if not impossible, to imagine that any man, any party, or any movement could long defy their will.

On the other hand, we live in an age when Donald Trump and the Republican Party, despite these ferocious headwinds, and despite the adverse conditions of a global pandemic and a severe recession, could and did improve their standing in the House of Representatives, gain seats in state legislatures, and come within a hair's breadth of winning complete control over all levels of government. A more stunning demonstration of the powerlessness — of the insignificance! — of the establishment would be hard to conceive.

If this surreal juxtaposition has Republicans and conservatives, not to mention Democrats and progressives, out of sorts, it's because it should! These are, so it seems, the best of times, the worst of times, and without a doubt the weirdest of times by a country mile.

To every Republican, conservative, and Trumper who would his scratch his head, therefore, and ask himself whether he should despair or rejoice, I say: both, and simultaneously! The moment demands nothing less.

Dr. Nicholas L. Waddy is an Associate Professor of History at SUNY Alfred and blogs at: www.waddyisright.com. He appears on the Newsmaker Show on WLEA 1480.

 

And here it is at American Greatness:

 

https://amgreatness.com/2021/02/10/the-grand-old-party-royally-screwed-or-soon-to-inherit-the-throne/