Elections or a Creeping Coup?

23 Oct, 2024, No comments

Pretending that Harris vs. Trump is a fair fight only serves fascism.

U.S. presidential elections traditionally draw enormous global attention. Rightly so, because whether Trump or Harris wins, the consequences will be significant. Trump not only threatens climate policy and peace but also democracy itself. But what if the democratic process has already been severely compromised? An upcoming "win" for Trump would then not be so much an election victory but more the completion of a creeping coup. That would make it the third time.

Elon Musk is doing his part for Trump

With $45 million a week in campaign money, including illegal voter bribery through giveaways . His employees are posing as the Harris campaign to scare voters away. Russian dictator Vladimir Putin has financially supported Trump for decades and was electorally active in the U.S. in 2016 through hacking and social media manipulation. The Wikipedia page on this foreign interference is as long as a short book. According to Harvard University, it was crucial for Trump's narrow "victory." In 2020, the interference wasn’t enough, but according to the FBI and CIA, Vladimir is, of course, trying again in 2024.

This direct interference is just one part of a bigger problem. The electoral system itself invites abuse. With only two major parties, the goal is not to get many votes, but more than the other. Voters in a country without a basic registry must actively register and indicate their voting preference in a public register. That register is then used by the two big parties to remove opposing voters under the pretext of "suspected fraud." Suppressing votes is easier in the U.S. than in Europe—and especially lucrative.

None of this is new.

After slavery was abolished in the U.S. in 1865, the Black community was systematically disenfranchised. Thanks to the civil rights movement in the 1960s, many of these “Jim Crow” laws were abolished. However, as the political climate has shifted rightward in many states for decades, these practices are making a comeback. Republicans, now the dominant party in the South, enforce strict voter ID laws—documents that Black and Indigenous people are less likely to have. For example, you can vote with a gun license (a "white" hobby), but not with a student ID (students tend to vote Democrat). Polling places are scarce in Black neighborhoods, and early voting, popular among minorities and often organized through churches, is curtailed—like Sunday voting. Civil rights groups estimate that these tactics suppress hundreds of thousands of votes in states like Georgia alone.

Voter purges also happen through sophisticated methods like "caging." Since the 1990s, Republicans have sent mail to Democratic neighborhoods and removed voters whose mail is undeliverable. In 2000, Al Gore was denied victory when 58,000 voters in Florida were wrongfully purged simply because their names resembled those of criminals (who are often Black and ineligible to vote).

And now it's full throttle to capture power

Under Trump, voter suppression has been ramped up. Republicans in battleground states deploy thousands of "vigilantes" to actively disenfranchise voters. Many of these states have also passed laws that make it easier to ignore election results . After all, the president is not elected directly by the people but via the Electoral College. Thanks to new laws, states like Georgia and Texas can now disregard election results and assign electors to Trump under false claims of "voter fraud."

Trump still refuses to acknowledge the 2020 result and continues to fuel his radical base with fraud allegations. This is part of a broader strategy to push the election outcome to the Supreme Court. As early as 2000, the Court shamelessly sided with Bush, stating that "further counting of votes in Florida could undermine the legitimacy of his victory." Bush and Trump then packed the Court with more far-right judges, and Obama’s nominee, Merrick Garland, was unlawfully denied confirmation. Now, little can go wrong for Trump there.

Kamala Harris, who is highly capable, is not without a chance. But she needs a clear majority. Obama and Biden managed that. But even then, state legislatures or the Supreme Court could distort the outcome. Yet we in Europe continue to believe in the integrity of these elections. Focusing on the election spectacle instead of the structural manipulations blinds us to reality. This lack of international pressure for reform gives would-be dictator Trump more credibility (and freedom) if he indeed is declared president.

Why don’t the Democrats themselves denounce all this manipulation?

Complaining about the rules of the game is difficult when you're the only one playing the democratic game. You quickly appear like a sore loser. During John Kerry’s concession speech in 2004, his body language and choice of words made it clear he knew he had really won, but saw no room to complain about it. Even Trump's openly violent coup attempt in 2020 is rarely called that by Democrats or democrats. As a center-right party in a deeply unequal country, Democrats have little reason to engage the half (!) of the population that doesn’t vote in an inclusive democracy.

Regardless of all this, if Trump becomes president, both Europe and democratic America will likely accept the result without much criticism. This starkly contrasts with the strong critiques our government and media level against leaders like Erdoğan in Turkey or Maduro in Venezuela. Ironically, there seems to be less going on there than in the U.S., but they are leaders the Netherlands doesn't want. And that’s remarkable, because from Trump—and inevitably Vance afterward—we’re going to suffer far more than from Maduro or Erdoğan.

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11 Jun, 2020, No comments

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