Opinion

The months leading up to Nov. 3, 2020, were for Donald Trump almost a carbon copy of what he had done going into the presidential election four years previously: He thumbed tweets, whined at his rallies and complained to anyone who would listen that the election had been "rigged" by Democrats. Of course, after election eve in 2016, we never heard another peep out of him about the dastardly Democrats and the wily ways they had rigged the election against him, because he won.

This article was originally published at Salon

Sane America has had enough.

After almost two years of a horrific pandemic that's killed almost 620,000 Americans — with nearly 20,000 of them from Michigan — and deadly, faster-spreading variants emerging because selfish and ignorant people refuse to get vaccinated — those of us who have tried to do everything right have no more f–ks left to give.

More than 615,000 Americans have died during this life-changing pandemic. In recent weeks, the delta variant of the coronavirus has led to a dramatic increase in infections, hospitalizations and deaths. Even with the widespread availability of vaccines, we have not been smart enough, determined enough or strong enough to finally defeat this public emergency. If we could successfully put a man on the moon 50 years ago, surely we can figure out how to eradicate this virus. But we have not.

The first vaccine was rolled out last December. Two more were available soon thereafter. Yet just 50% of all Americans are fully vaccinated as of now. This fact is both alarming and tragic. It is alarming because Americans do not seem to understand the importance of immunization in defeating the coronavirus. It is tragic because this painful and sorrowful pandemic will not be stamped out soon at this rate.

Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-NC) was ridiculed Tuesday evening after a random tweet saying the book 1984 is becoming America.

The first important bit of information for Cawthorn to know is that all novels are fiction. The second point is that it is obvious Cawthorn has never read the book. The George Orwell dystopian future details the consequences of totalitarianism, state surveillance and dictatorial regimes from repressive leaders. Orwell was a democratic socialist and was writing his book as a critique on Stalin's Russia and Nazi Germany after the war had ended.

Donald Trump and his allies and followers were involved in a conspiracy against American democracy, the Constitution, the general welfare and the rule of law. Trump may have been president by title, but not in spirit or through his actions. At almost every opportunity he betrayed the presidential oath and worked to undermine the United States and its interests.

The examples are legion: Trump was elected with the help of a hostile foreign power and appeared to do its leader's bidding throughout his presidency. Trump engaged in acts of democide against the American people through sabotage and willful neglect in response to the coronavirus pandemic. Trump is directly and indirectly responsible for the deaths of more than 600,000 people in America. He was impeached twice — something unprecedented in American history — for crimes against democracy and the Constitution.

On Dec. 28, a top official in the Trump Department of Justice circulated an extraordinary, potentially history-altering letter to his colleagues, writing that “I see no valid downsides" to issuing the letter and proposing that they “get it out as soon as possible."

In that letter, reported this week by ABC News, Jeffrey Clark falsely claimed that there were such “significant concerns" about the legitimacy of the election in Georgia that Gov. Brian Kemp ought to call the state Legislature into special session to overturn the results and give Donald Trump the state's 16 electoral votes.

Historically, major political parties in America are diverse organizations as they are divided into wings and sometimes factions with their own interests. To be successful, the parties every four years must sublimate their internal differences and unite behind a presidential candidate. This process has been commonly called "threading the needle," appealing to the vast moderate population in the center of the political spectrum while maintaining the support of the more extreme voters further from the center. In the Post-World War II era, the Republicans became adept at the process of uniting its conservatives, moderates, and liberals while even satisfying the rightwing fringe. The Republicans became a "big tent." But today, the party has abandoned its broad appeal to the center in favor of using an Electoral College advantage, gerrymandering, voter suppression and appealing mostly to white voters. How did this happen and what does it mean for the future?

By the early 1950s, the Republicans had lost five consecutive presidential elections. Hoping to reverse the trend in 1952, the party nominated a war-hero moderate, General Dwight Eisenhower. Conservatives backing Senator Robert Taft of Ohio for the nomination were bitterly disappointed but had nowhere else to go, and liberal Republicans were largely satisfied. The Republican Party's rightwing fringe was less concerned with economic issues and more interested in the anti-Communist crusade led by Joseph McCarthy. Eisenhower deplored McCarthy's tactics and his attacks against Eisenhower's World War II commanding officer, George Marshall. But when Eisenhower went to Wisconsin campaigning for president, he gave a speech endorsing McCarthy for re-election to the Senate and making no mention of Marshall. That was good enough to thread the needle, keeping the support of Republican moderates and winning many conservatives of both parties while satisfying the McCarthyite fringe. McCarthy called Eisenhower's nationally televised speech in Milwaukee "wonderful."

As the highly contagious Delta variant surges, public health officials are trying to keep the focus on the urgent need for more vaccinations.

But with increasing vehemence, Trump Republicans are falling back on their old game of deflecting attention by blaming immigrants crossing the southern border.

Race has been a mainstay in the media this year. Everyday there is another racism story in the news, on a podcast, trending on Twitter or being joked about on late night television

As a critical race educator and activist I have spent most of my life inserting race into the conversation. You would think this focus would have me thrilled. Finally everyone is talking about race.

We've become so inured to Donald Trump's proto-fascism that we barely blink an eye when we learn that he tried to manipulate the 2020 election. Yet the most recent revelation should frighten every American to their core.

On Friday, the House oversight committee released notes of a 27 December telephone call from Trump to then acting attorney general Jeffrey Rosen, in which Trump told Rosen: "Just say the election was corrupt + leave the rest to me and the R congressmen." The notes were taken by Richard Donoghue, Rosen's deputy, who was also on the call.

After over a year of isolation during Covid, my hunger to reunite with friends grew more and more desperate. Last spring, when New York City became the epicenter of the Covid-19 pandemic and I volunteered as an emergency medical technician, I often telegraphed to a better future that involved traveling to a warm-weathered island with my girlfriends, telling stories deep into the night, laughing for days.

This article originally appeared at Salon.

Joe Biden had more votes than Donald Trump during every day of voting in the 2020 presidential election in Maricopa County, Arizona, according to a new report by a team of experienced election auditors who have used public records to show why the Arizona state Senate's "audit" of the election is a "hoax."

"Joe Biden was never behind Donald Trump during the entire election period in Maricopa County," said the August 3 report, "Lessons from Maricopa County: Slow Facts versus Fast Lies in the Battle Against Disinformation," demonstrating this finding with charts and tables based on public election records released on November 20.