And 70 million people voted for him

The latest episode of the podcast Gaslit Nation, titled Klown Kar Koup appeared last Wednesday. I waited until the transcript was available before I discussed it. The hosts are Sarah Kendzior and Andrea Chalupa. Both have studied authoritarian regimes. In the first part of the episode Chalupa reminded us that control of the Senate depends on two Georgia races that went to runoff to be held on January 5. If we help the two Democratic candidates – Jon Ossof and Rafael Warnock, we can sideline Palpatine Mitch McConnell. Then Chalupa gave an introduction to the two candidates. I’ll let you read that part. Both of them would be great additions to the Senate. Then Chalupa reminded us of the work of Stacey Adams, who lost being governor of Georgia because she ran against the guy who controlled the voting process. Adams has been hard at work against voter suppression and for voter turnout. Chalupa said to keep two things in mind:

Number one, play the long game. Fight like hell to plant seeds and fight like hell to make those seeds grow, and know that every failure is just fertilizer. You keep going. You keep marching. Number two, stop trying to win over white moderate voters. Expand your voting base by showing voters of color that the system does work for them, and that good things do happen when they vote and they get involved, okay?

Abrams’ efforts – and her book Lead From The Outside: How to Build Your Future and Make Real Change – provide a blueprint for how other Democrats can win in red states shifting towards blue. Her efforts were not about building the Abrams brand, but building democracy. Kendzior talked about two days of calm last weekend which included watching Joe Biden’s acceptance speech and not have to fact check for her kids every few seconds. Savor the win and the work we put into it. Enjoy the dancing in the streets. Enjoy that we did it in the face of historic levels of voter suppression (including lots that hasn’t been made public yet) and in the face of the pandemic. Let the sense of possibility uphold you for what comes next. One reason why I write these posts is to prepare myself and you for what might come. Hold on to that sense of possibility …

because you're going to need that strength and that vision of the future to propel you forward for the next two months, because we have said from the very first episode of Gaslit Nation that this time period between November 2020 and January 2021 is going to be one of the worst time periods of American history, full of violence on the ground, protracted court battles, authoritarian maneuvers. And we didn't even know about the pandemic.

Even without the nasty guy the forces, predominantly white supremacy, that put him in the White House will still be there, ready for a backlash in 2022 or 2024. That’s unless we pull it out by the root and confront it. The nasty guy did a lot of damage in four years. Chalupa said he would have done more if we hadn’t slowed him down. Chalupa then reviewed some of those actions: demanding a recount of 2016; the Women’s March and many more marches; protests against the Muslim ban, against kids in cages, for impeachment; building the Big Blue Wave of 2018; people showing up for each other; building independent media; and working to make sure Biden’s win was overwhelming. Those institutions that protected us were protected from the bottom up. Chalupa said that people were dancing because they felt relieved for their own safety and the safety of their children. The violent people were becoming emboldened.

Genocides begin with propaganda, and Trump is a propaganda machine. It starts with people emboldened to discriminate, to bully others, and the temperature turns up as the government passes more and more discriminatory laws and rolls back protections. We will not survive four more years of Trump, not this Trump or any Trump. So I want to make clear to everybody listening in other countries, this fuse of genocide exists everywhere, waiting for a leader to come along and light that fuse. No country is immune. You have laws, norms, a culture of accountability to keep the fuse out of reach. But in America, with Rupert Murdoch and the consolidation of far-right media–Rupert Murdoch, who is the son of eugenicist–the fuse has been lit for a while, and now we have a proud white supremacist refusing to leave the White House, and 70 million Americans voted for him. He's openly murdering hundreds of thousands with his greed and corruption and 70 million people voted for him. He let Putin–mass murderer Putin–put a bounty on the heads of US troops in Afghanistan leading to their deaths and 70 million people voted for him. Donald Trump is a mass murderer, and 70 million people voted for him and they repeat his propaganda back to you, calling his list of crimes fake news. We have to do everything we can now to be self-reliant and organize to get this fuse of genocide extinguished and out of reach through accountability and norms and just building a culture of tolerance and fairness for everyone.

Kendzior reviewed how dangerous Bill Barr, the head of the Department of Overturning Justice, is and what he has been doing on behalf of the nasty guy and the GOP over the years. Beyond Barr’s giving federal prosecutors approval to pursue voting irregularities we haven’t heard much from him. What is he planning? Kendzior said:

None of this should surprise you, the fact that Trump refuses to concede, the fact that he's trying to monetize his refusal to concede (constantly demanding money from his supporters), the fact that he is trying to cause as much destruction whether he stays in or doesn't. The next two months are about that. The process itself is its own goal. It's not just about the outcome. The process is destruction, theft, violence between Americans. If he manages to stay in power, all the better. … Biden is the president-elect, he should act like the president-elect. We should act like Biden is the president-elect. But we also need to be very aware and talk in plain terms that this is an attempted coup. This is the Republicans, backed by a transnational crime syndicate, trying to create a one-party autocratic state. This has been their goal the entire time and it was completely predictable that they would take it to this level.

The nasty guy has been trying to stir up his supporters, getting them out on the streets and fighting people who voted for Biden. Kendzior is also worried about foreign countries, like Russia, who will try to take advantage of the chaos. The worries are greater because of a series of firings and resignations of key people in national security. Chalupa mentioned the book How Fascism Works by Jason Stanley. Chalupa said one part of the book is, “The fascist needs to always be the victim.” Kendzior again:

I was thinking about all the parties–these spontaneous street celebrations that happen over the weekend–those are as effective as protests in communicating the disgust and the rejection of Trump and his administration. That is the people expressing their will in a way that is rarely covered in the media, where they would always try to seek out the downtrodden Trump supporter and make them into victims to accompany Trump's own sense of victimhood, his own sense of martyrhood.

And a bit later:

Trump has made a number of bureaucratic changes. This is a strange thing for any lame duck president to do. The most significant among this is that the Secretary of Defense, Mark Esper, either resigned or was fired. There's some debate as to what happened. As for himself, he said he was not willing to be Trump's yes man.

Which means yet another “acting” Secretary of Defense (and periods where there was no SoD at all), and that means no oversight or accountability. That can mean all sorts of weapons deals and take all sorts of actions without public knowledge. There is Secretary of State Mike Pompeo issuing cryptic and aggressive comments about Iran and jetting off to Israel to meet with Netanyahu, also the target of protests. Netanyahu is vulnerable, the nasty guy is vulnerable and they seem to be talking about a war with Iran. Kendzior reviewed that the nasty guy has dealt in arms trading and is now a part of the Russian Mafia. What are they going to do to protect their asset? Kendzior said:

One thing that has just terrified me from the moment he took office, is that Trump has had a 40-year fascination with nuclear weapons and with using them. And he is a fatalist. He believes that the world is going to end in nuclear war. He has said this for decades. He's also said, if we have nuclear weapons, why don't we use them? For Trump, it's like... You know how most old people have some sort of bucket list wish, like, I want to go skydiving or I want to travel to Europe? I am worried that Trump's bucket list is like, “I want to be the guy who launches a nuke. I want to be the president who does that. I want to be the person who pushes that button.” Let me remind you that Trump has unilateral power over launching nukes.

Chalupa discussed the election from the Democratic view. The party is divided between centrists and progressives. The centrists are blaming the progressives for the loss of Democratic seats in the house. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez responded that every Democrat in a swing district who co sponsored Medicare for All won their reelection. So don’t reduce the conversation to “anything progressive is toxic.” Chalupa said voters approved police reform measures in six states and police oversight boards in a dozen cities, and not all in blue states. The Green New Deal helped retain seats. Chalupa added:

According to a World Bank report, climate change could force over 140 million to migrate within countries by 2050. That's just 30 years away, and the US is held hostage by a climate change denying fascist party and the Democrats are wringing their hands over being too bold in a time of crisis. Democrats are out there now telling people to trust the science, because of the coronavirus. Now is the time to build on that and urge them to also trust the science on climate change and all the compounding crises of climate change.

Chalupa reviewed how wimpy the Democrats have been since the Bill Clinton years, then said:

Again and again, Democratic leadership have let Republicans set the narrative and jumped through the hoops Republicans held up like little show poodles. Meanwhile, the big changes have come from outside the system, like the Indivisible guide moveon.org, the Stacey Abrams Movement, all built by people outside the system because official Democratic Party leadership eats its own and lets Republicans dominate discourse in our country. You can set the narrative by saying, “hey, we're in a time of crisis, and we have to do something about it,” just like you have to say that right now about the pandemic.

I had written above that the nasty guy has been trying to stir up his supporters, getting them out on the streets and fighting people who voted for Biden. There was a Million MAGA March in Washington yesterday. Attendance was more like tens of thousands. David Neiwert of Daily Kos reported that after sundown it turned violent. The nasty guy tweeted his encouragement. And promoted the lie that the “violent left” incited it all.