Thread by @Meidas_UWisco

Now that finals are over I’m going to start doing threads every once in a while on topics that I care about. Today I’m going to take a deep dive into why Trump and Republicans aren’t accepting the results of the election, why that’s harmful, and how we can fix it
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Side note: apologies for how long this thread got, I tried to be as comprehensive as possible
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First, let’s start with the facts. This election was the safest and most secure in US history (according to a Trump appointee). Yes, there was some voter fraud, but nothing that was out of line with past elections and nothing remotely close enough to swing any state.
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So when Trump tweets “The election was stolen” and “There has never been anything like this in our country” not only is he lying, but he is also convincing his supporters of those lies.
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If you don’t believe me, an NPR poll conducted last week says that only 24% of Republicans believe that Biden will be our next president. I’ve heard democrats say that “Trump will be dragged out of the oval office, so it doesn’t matter what they think”
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While it’s true that Biden will become the president no matter what, there is a much bigger issue at play here: Trump is actively undermining the legitimacy of our democracy and our democratic institutions.
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Let’s take a look at how we got here. Democratic governments rely on a concept that scholar and author Steve Levitsky calls “forbearance.” This means that even though one party disagrees with the other one,
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they work hard to do what’s best for the country, sometimes at the expense of their own policies. They see the other side as rivals, not enemies. That’s what happened most of the 20th century. The filibuster was used sparingly,
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supreme court justices were often confirmed unanimously, and the worst insult you would hear about a rival candidate is that they were inexperienced. Starting with Newt Gingrich’s term as Majority Leader, everything changed.
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The Republican party started to treat Democratic opponents, not as rivals, but as existential threats to our country. This can be seen in the rhetoric changes: democrats were now “unamerican” and “socialists.”
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This came to a head with the birther movement in 2008. Republicans and Trump spread rumors that Obama was not born in America-a complete lie and pretty racist. Even though Obama won, this new type of rhetoric worked. The GOP was seeing a lot of success in down ballot races.
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They have controlled the Senate for a long time and have had stints controlling the house and have had a complete stronghold in many state governments which hold important powers including redistricting and approving constitutional amendments
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This rampant partisanship extended into the media with Fox News starting to become more opinion based and less factual. The left also does this (think MSNBC), although I believe Fox is more successful at converting people into hating the other side.
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This development coincided with the creation of social media. Facebook and Twitter’s algorithms work so that people only see news and personalities from their side (watch The Social Dilemma on Netflix for a more thorough explanation)
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Now, with both sides treating the other side as the enemy, and people only seeing their side, proper law making goes out the window. Winning at all costs became the strategy that the parties adopted, and that has been parroted by the media.
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This created a perfect environment for Trump to enter. He appealed to disillusioned Republicans who were upset in the lack of progress in our government and in the “radical left” who is trying to destroy the country. His message hit home, and he bent the GOP to his will.
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With the support of prominent Republicans, and a massive base of supporters that are loyal to him, not the party, Trump unleashed the authoritarian playbook. He started by discrediting the media that doesn’t support him. We saw this from day one.
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He attacked traditional liberal media outlets, but also sites that were known to be generally unbiased like the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal. These attacks were incredibly successful with Trump supporters only getting news from outlets that parrot his rhetoric
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Trump essentially said whatever served him best without regard for the truth and any dissenting opinions or unbiased fact checks became “fake news.” So now Trump is the only one that gets to speak the truth.
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He took full advantage of this created power, attacking liberal policies and politicians as “radical” and “dangerous.” He helped propagate conspiracies such as the “Biden crime family” and QAnon which claimed that the democratic elite was involved in a pedophile ring
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This creates an environment where the truth is entirely relative and the other side is the enemy, capable of not just turning the country socialist, but also kidnapping kids (pizzagate) and drinking their blood (QAnon).
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Now that no one can trust even basic facts, we can flash forward to 2020. Trump starts discrediting the election months before it takes place. He claims that the democrats are going to “rig” it and that Biden has a plan to steal the election from his basement.
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While completely baseless, these claims are parroted in the conservative media and the narrative emerges that if Trump doesn’t win, the election has been rigged. That is insane, yet a large portion of the population started to believe it.
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Slowly but surely, people started to doubt the legitimacy of our democratic process. After the election ended, this only increased. Anyone on the right that even claimed (correctly) that Biden won was fired, discredited, attacked, or otherwise outcast from the GOP.
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So, we live in a country where 100 million people don’t believe that Biden won a free and fair election, and where a majority of congressional Republicans support that effort. Democracies are built on legitimacy and now, there will be some people who don’t trust elections
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or the democratic process for the rest of their lives! Trump has degraded the trust in our basic institutions like the Supreme Court, who Trump attacked as “disloyal” after they ruled against him. Even when Biden enters the Oval on January 20th,
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millions of people will think that he is an enemy of the state who stole the election. Trump has all but guaranteed that hyper-partisanship will continue and that Biden can’t unite the country. All his policies will seemingly be aimed at furthering his “coup”
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and all his unifying statements will come off as disingenuine. Trump has caused irreparable damage to the legitimacy of our democracy, so much so that we have already seen spats of violence during proud boys rallies and seen election officials threatened with death!
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Now, what I’m saying may sound terrifying. That’s because it is, and I fully believe that we face an existential threat to our country. However, our democracy, while weakened, is still strong and good, honest people can stop this threat.
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Vote for the right candidates, donate to the right causes, and take time to educate your friends who may not have trusted the election. By taking the time to learn the other side’s opinions and making a conscious effort to extend an olive branch,
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we can create a better country for our kids. Here’s how we can start to fix it. 1) The first priority needs to be to create a shared truth. Facts need to be facts in order to even begin to trust the other side again.
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Call out lies and partisanship that you see, even on liberal outlets. Disagreements about policy are the bedrock of this nation, but when we resort to personal attacks and hate, we become more divided. 2) Reward social media posts that don’t resort to those kind of attacks
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and instead calmly explain why one candidate or policy is better for the people, not why a person is worse. Finally, 3) espouse these values to your kids. They represent the next generation,
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and if they fully believe in bipartisanship and doing what’s best for Americans instead of winning at all costs, we can build a better future, with our democracy intact. Thanks for reading!
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