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Supporters of President Donald Trump protest on Monday outside a meeting of the Michigan Board of State Canvassers. The board certified a vote count in favor of President-elect Joe Biden. (Photo: Getty)
Get Ready for Donald Trump's Shadow Government--via Twitter and Fox News
Other Republicans, in fear of the wrath of Trump’s supporters, will obstruct Joe Biden at ever.
Nov 23, 2020
Leave it to Donald Trump to run brazen subversion--refusal to accept the decision of the voters in the presidential election--as a clown show, marked by wingbat lawyers, delusional tweets, and hailstorms of lies.
The noise, however, should not delude us: Trump is leading an American counter-reformation right to the edge of secession, if not beyond.
And at the core of this is America's continued struggle with race.
Trump's defeat revives the horrors Republicans felt with the election of Barack Obama: the stark realization that a party built on racial division as the party of white sanctuary could not survive in a multiracial democracy.
Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, the president's lapdog, who just survived a challenge by an African-American Democrat, gave the game away when he declared--on Fox TV, naturally--"If we don't challenge and change the U.S. election system, there'll never be another Republican president elected again. President Trump should not concede."
Trump's defeat revives the horrors Republicans felt with the election of Barack Obama: the stark realization that a party built on racial division as the party of white sanctuary could not survive in a multiracial democracy. Beginning with Barry Goldwater, Republicans grounded their party in the South, building a majority with race-bait politics to divide working people. Trump was the extreme expression of the strategy, rising to notoriety by questioning Obama's citizenship, winning with a campaign raising racial fears of lawless immigrants, and governing in the interests of the wealthy, the country club and the special interests.
Trump has sought to undermine this election from the start. For years, he and his party engaged in systematic voter suppression--using gerrymandering, voter intimidation, purges of the voting rolls, restricting the time and places for balloting, imposing new ID requirements and more. Then, even before a vote was cast, Trump charged there would be massive electoral fraud.
If Trump had won, he would have said it was against the odds. Having lost, he claimed it was rigged. Then he unleashed his clown lawyers to paper the courts with lawsuits challenging votes without evidence.
When even Republican judges rejected his claims, he continued to claim the election was stolen, even as he uses his lame duck period to deepen the crises he leaves Biden. He has withdrawn from the open skies agreement with Russia. His Treasury secretary has closed down loan facilities for small businesses that the head of the Federal Reserve says are important in fighting the recession. He's done nothing to get the Republican Senate to pass a rescue package to aid the millions still unemployed. Legislators fear he will shut down the government unless he gets big money to build his wall.
Trump won't succeed in maintaining power, but he is already succeeding in convincing his followers that the Biden presidency is illegitimate.
The last time the election of a president was contested--with race at the center of the dispute--was in 1860 with the election of Abraham Lincoln, when the slave states seceded and the country descended into the Civil War.
The Jefferson Davis of this time, Donald Trump is not likely to lead a formal secession. Instead he seems intent on using this lame duck period to undermine the incoming administration. As a lame duck, he is essentially unaccountable, particularly with the Republican Senate not willing to provide a check on his misfeasance. Clearly, there should be a bipartisan committee drawn from both houses of Congress to oversee the lame duck period and limit the damage a bitter untethered president can do.
After he leaves office, Trump is likely to set up a sort of shadow government, using his tweets and media appearances to denounce the Biden administration. Republicans, in fear of the wrath of his supporters, will obstruct Biden at every turn.
What Trump has made clear is that this subversion won't end when Biden is inaugurated. It is likely to get more turbulent rather than less. The stakes are very high.
Will the multiracial majority be able to build a governing coalition that can begin to address the fundamental reforms that Americans so desperately need? Or will the embattled minority sabotage that possibility, divide the country or even move toward secession once more? In rejecting the verdict of the voters, Trump is charting a road to division.
Americans must find a way to reach out, come together and go a different way.
An Urgent Message From Our Co-Founder
Dear Common Dreams reader, It’s been nearly 30 years since I co-founded Common Dreams with my late wife, Lina Newhouser. We had the radical notion that journalism should serve the public good, not corporate profits. It was clear to us from the outset what it would take to build such a project. No paid advertisements. No corporate sponsors. No millionaire publisher telling us what to think or do. Many people said we wouldn't last a year, but we proved those doubters wrong. Together with a tremendous team of journalists and dedicated staff, we built an independent media outlet free from the constraints of profits and corporate control. Our mission has always been simple: To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. Building Common Dreams was not easy. Our survival was never guaranteed. When you take on the most powerful forces—Wall Street greed, fossil fuel industry destruction, Big Tech lobbyists, and uber-rich oligarchs who have spent billions upon billions rigging the economy and democracy in their favor—the only bulwark you have is supporters who believe in your work. But here’s the urgent message from me today. It's never been this bad out there. And it's never been this hard to keep us going. At the very moment Common Dreams is most needed, the threats we face are intensifying. We need your support now more than ever. We don't accept corporate advertising and never will. We don't have a paywall because we don't think people should be blocked from critical news based on their ability to pay. Everything we do is funded by the donations of readers like you. When everyone does the little they can afford, we are strong. But if that support retreats or dries up, so do we. Will you donate now to make sure Common Dreams not only survives but thrives? —Craig Brown, Co-founder |
© 2023 Chicago Sun-Times
Jesse Jackson
Jesse Jackson is an African-American civil rights activist and Baptist minister. He was a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1984 and 1988 and served as shadow senator for the District of Columbia from 1991 to 1997. He was the founder of both entities that merged to form the Rainbow PUSH Coalition.
Leave it to Donald Trump to run brazen subversion--refusal to accept the decision of the voters in the presidential election--as a clown show, marked by wingbat lawyers, delusional tweets, and hailstorms of lies.
The noise, however, should not delude us: Trump is leading an American counter-reformation right to the edge of secession, if not beyond.
And at the core of this is America's continued struggle with race.
Trump's defeat revives the horrors Republicans felt with the election of Barack Obama: the stark realization that a party built on racial division as the party of white sanctuary could not survive in a multiracial democracy.
Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, the president's lapdog, who just survived a challenge by an African-American Democrat, gave the game away when he declared--on Fox TV, naturally--"If we don't challenge and change the U.S. election system, there'll never be another Republican president elected again. President Trump should not concede."
Trump's defeat revives the horrors Republicans felt with the election of Barack Obama: the stark realization that a party built on racial division as the party of white sanctuary could not survive in a multiracial democracy. Beginning with Barry Goldwater, Republicans grounded their party in the South, building a majority with race-bait politics to divide working people. Trump was the extreme expression of the strategy, rising to notoriety by questioning Obama's citizenship, winning with a campaign raising racial fears of lawless immigrants, and governing in the interests of the wealthy, the country club and the special interests.
Trump has sought to undermine this election from the start. For years, he and his party engaged in systematic voter suppression--using gerrymandering, voter intimidation, purges of the voting rolls, restricting the time and places for balloting, imposing new ID requirements and more. Then, even before a vote was cast, Trump charged there would be massive electoral fraud.
If Trump had won, he would have said it was against the odds. Having lost, he claimed it was rigged. Then he unleashed his clown lawyers to paper the courts with lawsuits challenging votes without evidence.
When even Republican judges rejected his claims, he continued to claim the election was stolen, even as he uses his lame duck period to deepen the crises he leaves Biden. He has withdrawn from the open skies agreement with Russia. His Treasury secretary has closed down loan facilities for small businesses that the head of the Federal Reserve says are important in fighting the recession. He's done nothing to get the Republican Senate to pass a rescue package to aid the millions still unemployed. Legislators fear he will shut down the government unless he gets big money to build his wall.
Trump won't succeed in maintaining power, but he is already succeeding in convincing his followers that the Biden presidency is illegitimate.
The last time the election of a president was contested--with race at the center of the dispute--was in 1860 with the election of Abraham Lincoln, when the slave states seceded and the country descended into the Civil War.
The Jefferson Davis of this time, Donald Trump is not likely to lead a formal secession. Instead he seems intent on using this lame duck period to undermine the incoming administration. As a lame duck, he is essentially unaccountable, particularly with the Republican Senate not willing to provide a check on his misfeasance. Clearly, there should be a bipartisan committee drawn from both houses of Congress to oversee the lame duck period and limit the damage a bitter untethered president can do.
After he leaves office, Trump is likely to set up a sort of shadow government, using his tweets and media appearances to denounce the Biden administration. Republicans, in fear of the wrath of his supporters, will obstruct Biden at every turn.
What Trump has made clear is that this subversion won't end when Biden is inaugurated. It is likely to get more turbulent rather than less. The stakes are very high.
Will the multiracial majority be able to build a governing coalition that can begin to address the fundamental reforms that Americans so desperately need? Or will the embattled minority sabotage that possibility, divide the country or even move toward secession once more? In rejecting the verdict of the voters, Trump is charting a road to division.
Americans must find a way to reach out, come together and go a different way.
Jesse Jackson
Jesse Jackson is an African-American civil rights activist and Baptist minister. He was a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1984 and 1988 and served as shadow senator for the District of Columbia from 1991 to 1997. He was the founder of both entities that merged to form the Rainbow PUSH Coalition.
Leave it to Donald Trump to run brazen subversion--refusal to accept the decision of the voters in the presidential election--as a clown show, marked by wingbat lawyers, delusional tweets, and hailstorms of lies.
The noise, however, should not delude us: Trump is leading an American counter-reformation right to the edge of secession, if not beyond.
And at the core of this is America's continued struggle with race.
Trump's defeat revives the horrors Republicans felt with the election of Barack Obama: the stark realization that a party built on racial division as the party of white sanctuary could not survive in a multiracial democracy.
Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, the president's lapdog, who just survived a challenge by an African-American Democrat, gave the game away when he declared--on Fox TV, naturally--"If we don't challenge and change the U.S. election system, there'll never be another Republican president elected again. President Trump should not concede."
Trump's defeat revives the horrors Republicans felt with the election of Barack Obama: the stark realization that a party built on racial division as the party of white sanctuary could not survive in a multiracial democracy. Beginning with Barry Goldwater, Republicans grounded their party in the South, building a majority with race-bait politics to divide working people. Trump was the extreme expression of the strategy, rising to notoriety by questioning Obama's citizenship, winning with a campaign raising racial fears of lawless immigrants, and governing in the interests of the wealthy, the country club and the special interests.
Trump has sought to undermine this election from the start. For years, he and his party engaged in systematic voter suppression--using gerrymandering, voter intimidation, purges of the voting rolls, restricting the time and places for balloting, imposing new ID requirements and more. Then, even before a vote was cast, Trump charged there would be massive electoral fraud.
If Trump had won, he would have said it was against the odds. Having lost, he claimed it was rigged. Then he unleashed his clown lawyers to paper the courts with lawsuits challenging votes without evidence.
When even Republican judges rejected his claims, he continued to claim the election was stolen, even as he uses his lame duck period to deepen the crises he leaves Biden. He has withdrawn from the open skies agreement with Russia. His Treasury secretary has closed down loan facilities for small businesses that the head of the Federal Reserve says are important in fighting the recession. He's done nothing to get the Republican Senate to pass a rescue package to aid the millions still unemployed. Legislators fear he will shut down the government unless he gets big money to build his wall.
Trump won't succeed in maintaining power, but he is already succeeding in convincing his followers that the Biden presidency is illegitimate.
The last time the election of a president was contested--with race at the center of the dispute--was in 1860 with the election of Abraham Lincoln, when the slave states seceded and the country descended into the Civil War.
The Jefferson Davis of this time, Donald Trump is not likely to lead a formal secession. Instead he seems intent on using this lame duck period to undermine the incoming administration. As a lame duck, he is essentially unaccountable, particularly with the Republican Senate not willing to provide a check on his misfeasance. Clearly, there should be a bipartisan committee drawn from both houses of Congress to oversee the lame duck period and limit the damage a bitter untethered president can do.
After he leaves office, Trump is likely to set up a sort of shadow government, using his tweets and media appearances to denounce the Biden administration. Republicans, in fear of the wrath of his supporters, will obstruct Biden at every turn.
What Trump has made clear is that this subversion won't end when Biden is inaugurated. It is likely to get more turbulent rather than less. The stakes are very high.
Will the multiracial majority be able to build a governing coalition that can begin to address the fundamental reforms that Americans so desperately need? Or will the embattled minority sabotage that possibility, divide the country or even move toward secession once more? In rejecting the verdict of the voters, Trump is charting a road to division.
Americans must find a way to reach out, come together and go a different way.
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