Hallucination nation
There long has been a lunatic fringe, a paranoid streak, and a plethora of conspiracy theories in the United States. But never had four out of ten Americans suffered from a collective delusion such as the current election hallucination.
The 2020 election congealed many of the fluid fallacies long in circulation into a singular, solid delusion taken as a self-evident truth by tens of millions of people: the conviction, vast evidence to the contrary, that the Democrats stole the presidential election, and that Donald Trump was the real winner.
Polls show that a big majority of Republicans do not believe that Joe Biden won the election fair and square. The fact that Biden’s victory was confirmed by countless court rulings, reconfirmed by multiple recounts and audits, and certified by Congress, does not matter to tens of millions of Republicans who call the whole thing the steal.
Ironically, those whose hallucinatory vision transmuted a clear and convincing victory by Biden in both the Electoral College and the popular vote into a stolen election were the ones who tried to steal the election—for Trump, and at his instigation.
The Trump coup attempt was two-pronged, consisting of a pair of distinct but mutually reinforcing offensives. One prong was carried out by a fifth column of Republican members working from the inside to prevent Congress from acknowledging the Biden-Harris win formally, quickly and definitively following the normal routine. While trying procedural maneuvers to foil that, the fifth columnists were aware they were engaging in a futile move. So, why do it? There was an ulterior motive, to allow time for the second part of the coup to unfold.
The second prong of the coup was carried out by Trump fanatics answering a call by the president to gather in Washington, assemble near the Capitol, storm the building and fight like hell to overturn the election results by violence, intimidation, and the destruction of ballots to prevent them from being tallied.
The President tried to maintain some level of plausible deniability by delivering mixed messages while signaling his real intent through a wink and a nod that was read easily by the mob, the members of which said as much in the aftermath.
As we learn more about what happened on January 6th, a picture of a choreographed pincer movement emerges, distinct but mutually reinforcing offensives. While the coup insiders played dilatory games on the floor of Congress, the rioters had the time to assemble and march to the Capitol and breach the building. Once inside, the mob could create such chaos and destruction as to make it impossible to count all the ballots and complete the legal transition of power as mandated by the Constitution.
What gives further credence to this version is the testimony of the general in command of the National Guard that was forbidden from deploying the Guard by the acting Secretary of Defense for three hours after the frantic call from the DC and Capitol police asking for help. This would have been the time needed for the seditionists to destroy ballots, kill lawmakers, and overthrow the government.
Thus, the MAGA maniacs, who really believed the BIG LIE about a Trump victory, and Trump, who knew he lost but wanted at any cost to avoid going home with a loser label and his tail between his legs, were ready to wreck the machinery of democracy and, if necessary, sacrifice the lives of members of Congress and even the Vice President.
The right-wing terrorists that assaulted the Capitol were gunning with special zeal for Democratic leaders like Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and progressives, specifically Alexandra Ocasio Cortez. But for the bravery of the Capitol police, some strokes of luck, and the fact that these fascists were more like a lynch mob driven by blind fury than the kind of disciplined terror cells that have killed hundreds of people in Paris, Madrid, and other European cities, there would have been more dead.
Deluded people living inside a hallucination do not abandon their separate reality from one day to the next. There will be other explosions of fascist violence. At this very moment, the Department of Homeland Security is warning law enforcement agencies about plans for another assault on the Capitol this week.
Eventually, defeat, prosecution, prison, and the weight of reality and time will cool the fires, but the Big Steal, like the Lost Cause, is now embedded in the minds of many Americans like a false memory that will have a long half-life and inspire new lunacies. The Confederates seceded from the Union and lost the war but the South has risen again and again in the guise of the Southern Strategy, Newt Gingrich, Donald Trump, and the 21st century GOP.
But the immediate consequence of the election hallucination is a pervasive, organized push by the GOP to change the rules of the electoral game to prevent as many people as possible who vote Democrat, especially African Americans, to be able to cast a ballot.
Voter suppression, gutting the Voting Rights Act, gerrymandering, and similar ploys are the methods the Republicans plan to turn their delusion—that they constitute the majority—into reality. By slicing districts and the electorate they are trying to turn a new demographic majority into an electoral minority.
It may yield the GOP some short-term results, but it is the political equivalent of smoke and mirrors and will eventually dissipate.
This election was the last stand for the reactionary racist status quo that has been the American reality forever (despite spurts of fairness and freedom like the New Deal, the civil rights movement, and the Great Society). That is what explains the feeling of desperation and extremism of the Capitol attack.
The failure of the two-headed coup did not prompt whites caught up in the politics of racial entitlement to change their tune but instead to seek new ways to maintain their supremacy. We are seeing the results now in a campaign of minority disenfranchisement in one red state after another.
I am saddened to see the governors of so many states, specifically Republican states like Texas, Mississippi, and North Dakota, throw common sense to the wind and open wide to the virus in the name of an illusory concept of freedom that death negates.
But as a progressive, I am optimistic about the near future. President Biden’s aggressive use of government resources to fight Covid-19, to roll out vaccines, and to convey consistent, science-based messages to the American people has led to a sharp decrease in coronavirus infections, hospitalizations, and deaths.
The caveat is that Republican governors and legislatures are, knowingly or idiotically, doing everything you would do to reverse all that painfully won progress. The latest data indicates they may be succeeding—Covid-19 rates have stopped dropping during the last seven days.
The other good news is that Biden’s COVID Relief package is astronomically popular, including among about 60 percent of Republicans. The Republican Senate’s lockstep opposition can only deepen the wedge between GOP ideology and the interests and desires of the American people. It is good news that overall, Biden’s approval rating is high, much higher than it ever was for Trump, and that the Republicans are engaged in internecine warfare and a purge of the dissidents from Trumpism.
The Republicans seem engaged in a dance with Thanatos; in Freud, Thanatos is the death instinct and the counterpoint to Eros, the life instinct. Machiavellians like me count this as good news. By doubling down on their xenophobic and racist ideology, they drastically reduce the potential reach of their appeal. By opening their states, they are killing their own voters. By vocally or tacitly supporting the ugliest and most ill-intentioned riot in recent history where police were killed and injured, they betray the cynical racial tint behind their law-and-order message of the last half century.
Trump started his rule denouncing American carnage in places like Chicago. He ended it by bringing carnage inside the halls of the Capitol. Trump and the Republicans besmirched the Republic. It is time to expose Trump and the GOP for what they really are and apply the maximal justice proportionate to their appalling behavior and ultimate betrayal.
