THREAD
A REPEAT OF 2016—BUT WORSE—UNLESS WE ACT
With just a little more than two months to go until the 2020 election, things feel more like 2016 with each day that passes.
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Herd mentality has set in, leading to outsized confidence that we will resoundingly knock Trump out of office with the election.
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Even as violence currently spreads on our streets, no one can imagine how Trump’s sinister agenda and gross incompetence could lead to anything other than a decisive defeat, presumably followed by a smooth transition of power.
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People hear what they want to hear and see what they want to see.
This failure of imagination happens as everyone has lulled themselves into denial over the threat posed by a deeply divided country.
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As people cheered on Biden's Democratic National Convention speech as the best speech of his career (a claim that seems biased by the fact that it was also the most publicized speech of his career), they forgot that much of the country remains in a different camp.
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Because of the divisions in our country, the following appears to be the most likely outcome for 2020: we will have a heavily discredited election, and neither of two competing groups in the population will accept the results if they are not in their favor.
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In any society, having two large groups with entirely opposing viewpoints on the validity of an election—even if one is objectively right and the other is objectively wrong—is a dangerous setup.
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The 2000 Bush versus Gore election foreshadowed our predicament today.
Only, now, many more years of political disillusionment have accumulated, at the same time as we find ourselves in the midst of a pandemic and economic crisis, all layered on persistent racial injustice.
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Just as Trump had no bottom in 2016, he still has no bottom today—only that the bottom in 2020 is bound to be far worse than the bottom in 2016.
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Just as Trump exploited divisions in 2016, he will again exploit divisions today—only that this effort in 2016 was about winning the election, while the effort today is about retaining his grip on power, possibly indefinitely, and ruling with oppression.
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Few people can fathom these possibilities, and, as a result, we have not appropriately strategized for them.
But what will Trump’s bottom be today? Well, he has already directly told us of two lows he will go to.
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First, he will use a combination of tactics—including an attack on the Postal Service and the possible deployment of law enforcement officers to the polls—in an attempt to steal the election.
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Second, and related, he will foment violence to remain in power and possibly even to start a civil war, as exemplified by his deployment of federal paramilitary forces to our cities and his campaign’s recruitment of the “Trump Army.”
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snopes.com/fact-check/tru…
Many of those in denial over the foregoing realities remain fixated on pursuing exclusively election-based strategies to defeat Trump—a problem that I have dissected in another thread.
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Just as in 2016, when so many were in denial that Trump could win enough votes to achieve victory through the Electoral College, now they are in denial that Trump could employ any other means outside of the traditional electoral methods to hold on to power.
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All told, 2020's greatest challenge is no longer even about whether we have enough votes to defeat Trump; it appears likely that we do. Instead, the greatest challenge is about whether this majority of votes will matter in the face of Trump’s assault on our democracy.
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Thus far, widespread denialism among citizens appears to be playing directly in to Trump’s agenda.
“He’s just a reality TV star,” people say, adding, “He is too incompetent to pull off a coup.” Others proclaim, “He can’t do THAT—they would never allow him to go that far!”
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In the backs of their minds, many of these folks believe, “In any case, it won’t happen to me.”
The translation of all of this: our society is willing to risk everything, just when everything is at sake.
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But based on what concrete evidence should we expect Trump to be stopped now, by our traditional governing institutions?
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To date, Trump has proven plenty competent in destroying our institutions, separating children from their families and locking them up in cages, spreading racial hatred, teargassing protestors, dismantling the USPS, and deploying paramilitary officers, to name a few things.
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To outside observers, our country’s path is obvious. Suyi Davies Okungbowa (@IAmSuyiDavies) summarized it on June 7 using words better than I could ever find.
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Our society must urgently overcome its denialist disease—a task I have previously addressed in a trilogy of threads.
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Admittedly, the assessment here is dark. But let me be clear: we still have time to change our trajectory and to turn the tide against Trump.
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If we spend the next several months engaged in mass peaceful protest—the ultimate solution throughout history in resisting oppression—we can change our fate, giving ourselves a second chance to rebuild our many broken systems.
24/END
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