An Attack on Democracy Itself

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

Earlier this week at one of his Hate Fests, Herr Trump roared that "impeachment" was an attack on "democracy itself."  On one level that is, of course, just Trump being Trump.  Bullies don't speak in moderation or with clear forethought when the option of yelling and hurling insults is available.  Trump distracts, and he bellows, and he lies, and lies, and lies.  That's who he is.

But on another level Trump's statement is ironic almost to the point of absurdity.  "Democracy" is about government by the people.  It is far more than just vote-counting, an aspect of democracy that seems paramount to Trump.  Our democracy is about a system of government which, at its base, is predicated on the notion of everyone having the right and ability to vote for people to "represent" us in government.  If we were a true democracy, we would all show up - someplace - to decide every issue - like they do in New England town meetings.

Most of us are content most of the time in letting others represent us at the various levels of government, and when we get to the point that we are not happy with our representatives in government (officials at any level) we engage in established practices to remove them from office:  vote them out in the next election, or "recall" them by a vote, or "impeachment" through an established process.  All of those options are part of our democratic process - our particular representative democracy.

The irony of Trump's very false indignation lies in these facts:

• Trump's political party, the GOP, is continually involved in schemes to limit the voting franchise for certain groups of people, especially the poor and non-whites;
• GOP state legislatures are notorious for gerrymandering, or drawing ridiculous district boundaries to limit the power of opposing groups to elect representatives to our representative democracy;
• Trump's federal government been relentless in its efforts to include citizenship questions in the upcoming federal census, questions which they openly hope will limit minority and immigrant involvement in the census and will skew the results in a way that will result I'm more electoral power going to more conservative states and districts;
• And . . . and this is a big one . . . if we are going to talk about democracy in terms of vote totals, Donald Trump actually lost the 2016 election by more than three million votes!  He won by a quirk in the Constitution that was inserted to give rural areas a bit of unearned power - something called the Electoral College.  

Trump won the presidency by the same fluke that elected George W. Bush in 2000:  the Electoral College.  It could be argued that the Electoral College gave us the never-ending wars in the Middle East and the current wave of bigotry and white nationalism that is spreading across the United States.  It clearly has not been of benefit to the nation.

If our big orange fuhrer wants to wax indignant about something being an attack on "democracy itself," perhaps he should start there.

Or perhaps he should just shut the hell up!