OK, let’s face it.This is going to go all the way and when it gets there it’s not going to be good. The question is no longer whether the bad stuff can be avoided. The question is whether it can be survived.
The Republicans started down the road that led us here back in the 70’s. Under Gingrich, Rove and the rest of the creeps they’ve worked hard to sell our republic out to the Kochs, the Mercers and the rest. And why not? The work was easy,the risks were low and the money was good. Perfect employment for greedy amoral hucksters with no skill or talent for honest work.
The risks were low because none of the sh*t they were pulling was illegal. Evil,immoral, dishonest and despicable – but not illegal. That’s why it’s taken fifty years; the wealthy could afford to take the time to unroll a slow-motion revolution, preparing each step in advance to make the previously illegal legal before committing the crime. Exhibit A; Citizens United. To do that kind of thing, of course, you need to corrupt the Supreme Court, but even that is just a matter of patience and the kind of industrial-grade hypocrisy McConnell, Ryan and the rest are so damn good at.
Now, though, Putin has leaned in and changed the game. Suddenly, despite their careful efforts to keep it all above board and below the radar the GOP find themselves neck deep in corruption, criminality and treason. They always were, of course, but now it’s in full public view. That in itself is a frightening situation for these abject cowards but it gets even worse for them; they no-longer serve our own home-grown Oligarchs. Now they’re answerable to the Russian ones; and when they cut somebody dead it’s not a metaphor.
So, it’s beginning to dawn on the GOP leadership that although they signed up to the Lucifarian principle that it’s better to reign in hell than serve in heaven the operative axiom is now “Better to serve in hell than die from Polonium”. What started out as a bit of freestyle economic looting for fun and profit has turned into a question of life and death, for them as well as the republic.
For the GOP leadership it’s too late to hide and too late to recant. If the rule of law survives they’re going to jail for pretty much ever imaginable variant on criminality and mobbed-up corruption – and more than a few will go to the gallows for treason. This has gone too far for even rich white guy privilege to protect them. If they are to survive the republic has to die, and they know it. That means their survival depends on hanging on to power no matter what. And that, combined with their abject failure in government, means that they have no choice but to steal the mid-term elections.
Stealing elections is nothing new to the GOP, of course. As demographics and basic human decency have moved inexorably against them the party has had to rely more and more on gerrymandering, voter suppression, voter purges,selective undercounts and the rest of their repertoire of dirty tricks. This time, though, too much hangs on the outcome to allow subtlety. This time they have to come out of November 8thin control of congress, no matter how blatantly they have to steal that outcome.
In short, the administration will steal the midterms, no matter what happens,because the continued freedom, wealth, power, privilege and even survival of too many of them depends on doing so.
Strangely, perhaps,the fact that the stolen election is already baked in makes the blue wave even more important, not less. When they do steal the election our survival, and that of the republic, will depend on that theft being so blatant and undeniable that it robs the regime of all legitimacy.
Illegitimacy won’t stop them, of course, but it will influence how the civil war plays out.
Make no mistake, there will be a civil war. Once the election has been stolen there will be no other way out. We will have to fight to save the last shreds of the American experiment, the GOP fight to escape accountability and Putin will need to see the US is destroyed if he’s to be safe from future reprisals. It’s going to be bloody, too — the Russians already have their fifth column in place in the form of the NRA and the forty million or so hate-fueled idiots that the GOP has been breeding for the last fifty years.Thus, the survival of the republic will depend on whether our military sides with us and whether the civilized world stands by us. Both of those things will depend on it being undeniably obvious that the regime is illegitimate. If it can credibly claim to reflect the will of the people then it’s all over bar the screaming.
So – getting out the vote matters this time around like it never has before. It won’t prevent the second civil war but it might just make it possible to win it. For many of us the size of the blue wave will be a matter of life and death.