We are all familiar with the stories of Japanese Imperial Army soldiers isolated and out of contact on tiny islands that for years after the end the war continued fighting serving a cause that had ended with loyalty and devotion. The dedication to death of the Imperial Japane3se soldier seemed incomprehensible to Western eyes and was a cause of grave concern when planning the invasion of Japan’s home island. Major loss of life was avoided by Emperor Hirohito’s unprecedented radio announcement of the Empire surrender.

Surrender is the concession that you have lost the war and it is the permission structure that allows dedicated and loyal soldiers to lay down their arms and fight no more. It was the case for Imperial japan, for Nazi Germany, and the traitorous South in the American Civil War.

Following Biden’s victory in November there were a number of pieces published with the sentiment that while it would be nice if Trump conceded the election it was in no way a requirement. They argue that legally a defeated candidate’s concession held no weight on the matter, the process did not call for it and the transfer of power will proceed without. This is true for the legal argument. Nothing in the law requires the defeated candidate to give a concession speech or act with the honor that we expect from our election leaders but there is much more to this than legality.

Wednesday’s assault on Congress, instigated by the President after months of lies, was an attempt to prevent the peaceful transfer of power by a political force that has not accepted defeat and it has not accepted that defeat because there has been no surrender, no concession. Trump’s refusal to acknowledge the facts of the matter not only dishonor our process but in no unsubtle ways advises his followers that the fight is not over, that they do not have permission to lay down their metaphorical and all too often real arms in the fight. The absence of a surrender does the exact opposite it lays out the expectation that every true follower will continue the fight and never recognize their collective defeat. Concessions are not optional they are critical to political process but we must face the reality that Trump will never concede. His narcissistic ego will not allow it he will forever wail that he was cheated and in doing so will give continual permission for his followers to wage real war on his behalf. When senior Republicans asked, “what harm does it do?” in allowing Trump rants and lies about the results of the election aided and abetted by the likes of Cruz, Hawley, and McConnel, this is the answer, putsches and violence and we have yet to see the end of that.

We cannot force Trump to concede. Because we cannot obtain from Trump what our system so desperately requires, we cannot extend an olive branch of healing to either Trump or his followers. In the debate should Trump be prosecuted to the full extent of the law some have argued our nation requires  that we do not to heal our divisions and that may have worked in a world where Trump conceded but that is not the world we live in. Trump has not surrendered his war on our democracy and so we cannot abandon the fight. Our system of self-government would not survive if we did. Trump must be prosecuted for all his crimes and the so must every single person who violates the law for his cause.

I have no illusion that the years ahead are going to be difficult. I fully expect that of the millions who have accepted the lies that this election was ‘stolen’ there more than a few willing to commit violence even after Trump’s departure from the White House. The attempts to kidnap a sitting governor, to subvert elected government are not over.

When the enemy army is in the field and pressing their attacks, no matter how hopeless, is not the time to abandon your positions and give them the field.

Despite the snarky title of this post Wednesday’s assault on our government is a deadly serious incident. Violent, right-wing reactionaries stormed our nation’s capital with the intent to prevent the transfer of power to next president who had been legitimately, freely, and fairly elected. They did this after months of lies from the head of our government who himself had been supported by his party in these lies of ‘stolen’ election. Even after the invasion of the congress with Representative, Senators, and journalists in fear of their lives, and people had died, more than 100 Republican Representatives still voted to disenfranchise millions of Americans and to overthrow this election. As I write this five people have died from this riot, this act of political terrorism, and cowards who were more than happy to bask in the glow of Trump’s abuse of power are scuttling for safety and demanding they we respect them as principled people. They are not, they are merely self-serving, greedy, cowards that are now seeking to save their skins and careers after standing by and watching this man corrupt his office and refuse to take any rational action to save lives during the worst global pandemic in a century.

It is a blessing that this action was performed by idiots but we are far from safe even after Trump is expelled from the office and a sane person replaces him.

Trump is the accelerant for the bonfire that is burning down our political house but he is not the arsonist. A sane, healthy, and reality-based political party would not have been ripe for Trump brand of white-grievance, fascistic politics. Trump walked in and took controls of a base that had been built over decades, one that the elite like Hawley and Cruz thought they could command and are even now trying to wrest back from him. That base, the ones that been encouraged to think Obama was a foreign-born Muslim, that had been taught to never trust any source outside of the Conservative bubble, that had fully supported every action to make it harder for the ‘wrong’ kinds of people to vote, are the same people who stormed the capital and waved treasonous flags during their putsch. This is not conservatism. Around the world there are sane, rational conservative political parties. This is the modern GOP, it is vile, it is racist, and it is solidly anti-democratic. Trump did not create it; he merely took it off its mask and revealed the monster underneath.

The United States of America joined in the first World War to ‘Make the world safe for Democracy.’

We fought in the Second World War to defeat fascism in the west and in the east, liberating millions of people and bringing them into the light of self-governance.

We stood with the United Nations and saved the people of South Korean from subjugation by the anti-democratic forces of communism.

Our nation stood guard and paid with both blood and treasure to defend the free world against the tyranny of Soviet Communism defending the rights of all people to self-determination.

In the struggle for self-determination and democratic ideals the Republican Party led the way, always ready to defend democracy.

Today, that party stands against democracy.

It stands against free, fair, and legitimate elections favoring power over principle. GOP’s leading voices are calling to the disenfranchisement of millions of Americans, to subvert and overthrow an election that they lost for the ego and greed of one man, to make a mockery of a century of defending freedom, and the leadership of the party shows no intention to rebuke or punish those throwing aside our most cherished ideal, self-determination.

The new Senate is coming into session and normally the decision with which party to caucus is scarcely a decision at all, but these are scarcely normal times. To caucus with the Republican Party is to reward that party for its anti-democratic behavior with an extension of the power it is already abusing.

No reduction of marginal tax rates will erase that fact.

No amount of sensible de-regulation will defend our elections.

No appeal to traditional values will restore the defense of democracy.

If you caucus with the Republican party the good works you have done will be destroyed and you will simply be part of the machinery griding to dust what has been built for generations. That is a deeply unpleasant fact.

If you caucus with the Democratic Party, the entire conservative community will turn on you like ravenous wolves and it is likely that you will lose your positions and your offices, but you will not be destitute, none of you, and it is best to remember that hundreds of thousands of Americans have died for these rights and these ideals and now it is your turn to sacrifice so much less than they did.

The choice is yours and yours alone.

You three have the power, no matter the outcome of tomorrow’s election, to decide the course of this nation and your party and for better or worse it is what you will be remembered for.

I remember clearly from one of my Political Science courses the professor asking the class, “When is a government Legitimate?” The answer is when people accept it as legitimate. There is no objective test, rule, or criteria that can be applied to determine legitimacy it is something acquired through consensus often an unspoken and intuitive attitude.

Donald Trump and worse yet major elements of the Republican Party have gravely and perhaps irreparably damaged the legitimacy of the U.S. Government.

Andrew Jackson, a president many hold in contempt, still recognized the legitimacy of the government even after losing in what he considered by way of ‘a corrupt bargain,’ in 1824.

Richard Nixon after losing a closely fought campaign in 1960 to Kennedy, a campaign that many felt had been influenced by potential corruption from Chicago, recognized the new Administration’s legitimacy.

Al Gore, after losing critical court battles but winning the nation’s popular vote, conceded the election to Bush and did not challenge the process as illegitimate.

In each of these cases there were some who refused to accept the outcome as legitimate. There always are but critically not the principals involved. Not the candidate themselves and not the leaders of the parties, this is not the case for the 2020 Presidential contest.

Trump is a lying narcissist, a damaged emotional wreck of a human being immature and unable to act in any manner other than greedy self-interest. (An Objectivist hero you might say.) His refusal to accept that he actually lost the election was not only predictable but heavily predicted. Because he occupies the office of POTUS that alone is enough to damage faith in the government’s legitimacy but when his refusal became a litmus test for national Republicans the damage to our nation grew.

Cowed, subjugated, and terrified of the base that they had spent decades cultivating GOP politicians refused to acknowledge the truth that Trump had lost. They filed laughable suits, they implored state government to overturn the election and made motions to disenfranchise millions of voters. And those that did not participate in these direct assaults on the very nature of our government turned a blind eye to the carnage, implored that this was simply ‘the process’ and coddled the mad child-king as he shredded faith in our system, as he destroyed legitimacy.

Foolishly they believe that once the administration has passed, they will be able to return to a pre-Trump state, but time flows in only one direction and it can never be rewound. The bell has been struck, millions of people now believe that this election was illegitimate, and that the new administration is inherently criminal.

I fear that McConnel, Fox News, and all the rest have given birth to many more Cesar Sayocs.

Why is Trump’s Support So Damned Stable?

One undeniable fact of the entire Trump administration and his candidacy both in 2016 and 2020 is that his popular support from the voters of the Republican party remained steadfastly high no matter the external factors.

When Trump arrived on the major political landscape via that golden escalator ride down, (in cinema elevators and escalators down are symbols of trips to hell but this was for us and not for him though time will ultimately tell) he leapt to the head of the GOP pack has remained there ever since.

His policy proposals were outlandish and often violated Republican ideology such as promising to raise taxes on the wealthy and promising to give every American access to full, cheap health care. Some took this to be a sign that the GOP base didn’t have the same policy desires as the GOP elite.

Once in office however his administration when it took decisive legislative stands stood firmly for the usual GOP goals including a massive budget busting tax cut for the wealthy, a legislative attempt to repeal the ACA, continuing judicial attempt to repeal the ACA, and massive deregulation. Hardly the package he ran on, but his voters clung tighter to him.

Trump also repeatedly violated GOP trade policy, instigating trade wars that directly and adversely impacted the rural communities that are the core of GOP voter support, but the GOP voters stayed true to the man.

A pandemic swept the nation and as of this writing a quarter of a million American have died of the disease and Trump shows no remorse, no sympathy, and no cares for anything dealing with the outbreak other than his own political fortunes and yet his support from the GOP voters is unwavering.

His corruption and graft are plain. His administration is filled with people charged with serious crimes. He turned a blind eye when an American resident was murdered. Unemployment exploded. But his support is unchanged.

Why?

He has given them judges, but all Republican presidents have given the base the judges that lean towards gun right and restricting abortion and yet their approval rantings rise and fall with the news unlike Trump’s.

The answer may lie in what has remained unchanged in Trump since that escalator ride. It isn’t policy. It isn’t programs or the economy or the health and wealth of the nation.

It is his petty vindictive cruel treatment of those not of his tribe. The mocking, insulting, crude treatment of all those outside of his circle and the circle that his base consider ‘true Americans’ is his only constant. This is what they love. This is the clarion horn that calls them to battle and devote themselves to this corrupt man.

The New Soviet Man

The central and critical element off a democratic system is that the loser of a contest accepts defeat and legitimizes the contest. Without this there is no democracy. The Soviets of the USSR allowed no elections because they were unwilling to accept any result which did not validate their authority. One party rule assures that you never, ever have to concede. Concession is democratic and refusing to concede is anti-democratic.

Trump refuses to concede. The GOP, with few exceptions, is either actively refusing to concede along with him or playing silent and hoping that their cowardice is unnoticed. Trump and the GOP are being anti-democratic.

Let’s be clear. This is not ‘waiting for the process.’ The process as it had been established and conducted for generations has been followed except by Trump and his acolytes. The votes are tabulated, when one candidate has a lead that mathematically can’t be over some by the remains votes the state is called, when enough states are called that the candidate has more than 270 electoral college votes that candidate is then the President-Elect.

In November 2016, to this nation’s horror, that was Trump when he breached the ‘Blue Wall’ and won WI by 22,748 votes, MI by 10,704, and PA by 44,292. Neither his opponent nor the Democratic party refused to concede for weeks, He was the President-Elect.

Biden has rebuilt the ‘Bule Wall’ with his victories in WI by 20,546, MI by 147,393, and PA by 66,334 and with the additional victories in AZ and GA his election is unassailable. No recount, which typically shifts votes by about 500, is going to change this outcome. Joe Biden is the President-Elect. To insist that Biden shouldn’t be referred to as President-Elect is undemocratic, undermine faith in the integrity of the election, and fuels the dangerous conspiracy theory that vast voter fraud is responsible for Trump defeat. With millions of devoted followers, some of whom who have already acted with political violence, remember the mail bombs sent to Democratic politicians, this is not only dangerous to our political institutions but to the citizenry as well.

Each supporter of the conservative movement has a choice, accept the results of a free and fair election by rebuking Trump and his lies or refuse to concede, damage our democracy, and become the New Soviet Man.

I despise cliffhangers. Books that leave you in a lurch for 20 years, television programs that think it’s cool to have massive dramatic shifts at the close of a season, and nail-biting presidential elections, all are terribly frustrating.

As I write this the states called for Biden total to 253 electoral college votes with Trump’s total coming up to 214. Biden needs just 17 more to win the election, Pennsylvania does it, as do any two of the other five so the odds favor Biden but until the votes are tabulated we will not know.

What is clear is that the massive crushing destruction of Trumpism has not occurred. Even if Trump is defeated, which seems likely, the electoral attraction of Trumpism will remain a potent force in Republican politics. His blatant racism, sexism, and cruelty will be a weapon available for politician with an equal lack of moral but with great talent and intelligence to wield against ‘the others.’

White, male, grievance politics are not equivalent to conservatism, but they have displaced conservatism as the motivating force in GOP ideology. There are valid issues and questions that can be approached from a conservative perspective, what is the proper role of government in the economy? where does the line lie between an individual’s rights and the collective good? These questions have nothing to do with wanting to ‘own the libs’ or inflecting suffering solely for the point of suffering. There is nothing conservative is disregarding the painful death of nearly a quarter of a million Americans because it is disruptive to your election or ignoring the rule of law because adhering to it brings a painful price.

America’s future is very much in doubt.