A referendum on democracy
For 233 years the pendulum of the great American experiment has swung by the logic of its own unique force of gravity — the will of the people. Even during America’s most troubled period in 1862, the midterm election swung toward the Democratic Party after the first term of the first Republican President. With almost clocklike predictability, if a Democrat is President, Republicans win the midterms, and vice versa. Tick tock. Tick tock.
Until now. This time, despite there being a Democrat in the Oval Office, Republicans have become so toxically unpopular that they could fail to secure a majority in the Senate and the House in November. Not only could they fail, they must fail. Because if they win both the Senate and the House, Republicans plan to never give them back. And they very well could succeed. That means that this election could potentially spell the end of the great experiment known as the United States of America.
For several years now Republicans have told us who they are and I think it’s high time we believe them. They told us who they are when they repealed Roe v. Wade, when they passed anti-voting legislation disguised as “voter protection” in virtually every red state, when they almost unanimously (and with characteristic cynical bad faith) endorsed the Big Lie and downplayed the horrifying attack on the Capitol. I think it’s time, as I say, to believe them.
The Republican secret weapon is their capacity to astonish, and I think our best policy is to stop being astonished and anticipate the worst from them. By doing so perhaps many of us will wake up and realise that this election is truly a referendum on democracy that we cannot afford to lose.
Therefore we must vote and vote in huge numbers. We must drag other like minded friends to the polls and get them to vote too. We must canvass by phone and by foot, donate and proselyte. We must do everything we can to make sure Republicans do not steal our country from us.
We must also find a way to dismantle the Republican Party. Republicans have become antithetical to democracy and therefore represent a daily threat to America’s very existence. All they have to do is succeed once, while we must remain hyper vigilant and victorious every time, an impossible and unsustainable situation. Republicans must go. And, as ever, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, comrades and friends, stay safe.
Robert Harrington is an American expat living in Britain. He is a portrait painter.