<b>January
25, 2021</b>
The
Wreckage left behind
Whether Donald Trump will be a force or
even a continuing focus of attention for very long after this month is
unknown. However, there grew up around
him a political and cultural malaise which may persist without his help. This is not due to anything created by him;
he is the epitome of negative leadership.
In effect, he removed a dam which held back a reservoir of antisocial
tendencies which have flooded the landscape.
His effect on the country was epitomized by the mob scene at the Capitol
on January 6.
There are numerous manifestations of the
Trump disorder.
1. Stupidity of opinion leaders
There really is no other way to describe
the statements and attitudes of some of Trump’s defenders, including lawyers
who have served him in one capacity or another. L. Lin Wood hinted at armed rebellion, calling on the soon-to-be-former-president’s supporters to “stock
up on Second Amendment supplies.”1
Last year Joseph DiGenova was more explicit: he advised us to buy guns because we “are in a civil war.” He
declared that there would be no “civil discourse in this country for the
foreseeable future;”2 certainly there will be none by
him. Lest anyone think that he had come
to his senses, he offered this in late November: "Anybody who thinks the
election went well, like that idiot Krebs who used to be the head of
cybersecurity. That guy is a class A moron. He should be drawn and quartered.
Taken out at dawn and shot."3
DiGenova and Wood are embarrassments not only to the legal profession,
but to the educational system; Trump uncovered quite a few of those.
Sidney Powell, although ousted from the
elite Trump team led by — more examples— Rudy Giuliani and Jenna Ellis, turned
up on Lou Dobbs’ show to agree with him that “this president has to take, I
believe, drastic action, dramatic action to make certain that the integrity of
this election is understood or lack of it, the crimes that have been committed
against him and the American people.”
Picking up on Dobbs’ compliant about the failure of the Justice
Department to uncover imaginary fraud, she sad: “ I'm about to think the entire
FBI and the entire Department of Justice need to be hosed out with Chlorox [sic]
and fire hoses.”4
The following day, Dobbs decided that
Attorney General William Barr, having failed to find all of that alleged fraud,
was part of the “deep state” who “joined in with the radical Dems.” Referring
to some charge or other about vote tallying, Dobbs wondered: “Could it be that
antifa was running the election for Democrats in that room?”5
One of Rudy’s witnesses, Melissa Carone,
not content with her foolishness at a hearing, declared on sarahpalin.com: “The
Obamas funded that Wuhan lab to make COVID.”6
At the recent pro-Trump rally in DC, Alex
Jones, apparently having tuned in to QAnon, bleated this: “We will never back
down to the satanic pedophile globalist new world order and their walking-dead
reanimated corpse Joe Biden.”7
Another speaker at the rally, Republican
Congressman-elect Bob Good, offered up the freedom-is- ignorance line. Addressing a maskless crowd, he declared:
“This looks like a group of people that gets it. This is a phony pandemic.” “It’s great to see your faces, you get it.
You stand up against tyranny. Thank you for being here today, thank you for
saying ‘no’ to the insanity.”8
Incoming Representative Marjorie Taylor
Greene, a QAnon fan, said that Republicans who don’t continue to contest the
election results are supporting “the Chinese Communist Party takeover of
America.”9 (That was one of her more rational
comments). Lin Wood, in a series of tweets on January 1, proclaimed the
following:
(1)
For two months we have focused on accusing the Democrats of attempting to steal
the 20/20 election for Biden. . . . Over time, we have learned that the
Democrats were joined by CCP & other foreign countries.
(2)
We have also learned that the Globalists like George Soros & the Elitists
like Bill Gates were involved. CIA too . . .It all seemed so clear we
overlooked one of the main participants in the theft of the election: THE
REPUBLICANS.
(3)
These groups aspire to the goals of Communism. A ruling elite & an
oppressed class of people who exist to serve those in power.
When
arrests for treason begin, put Chief Justice John Roberts, VP Mike Pence . . .,
& Mitch McConnell . . . at top of list.10
2. Conspiracy theories.
The use of convoluted tales to explain, or
explain away, developments is not new.
Conspiracy theories long have been a part of American politics, the
claims of Senator Joseph McCarthy being a prime example. “False flag” stories
have been used to explain away inconvenient events, such as school shootings;
more recently, the Capitol invasion has
been so dismissed. (See below, at
footnote 32). The Trump years have seen an explosion of conspiracy mongering,
the evidence-free claims of election fraud being the most widespread and the
most dangerous.
3. Lying.
Falsehoods in the service of political
advantage also hardly are novel, but Trump lied so constantly that he
encouraged the same conduct by his aides and supporters. Consider this, offered by his staff as cover
for Trump’s playing golf in Florida while the pandemic raged, after vetoing the
defense bill, and after his veto threat put the aid bill in jeopardy and
threatened a government shutdown: “As the Holiday season approaches, President
Trump will continue to work tirelessly for the American People.”11
Much of what I described as stupidity also
falls under this category if we assume, as I think we must, that some of those
who say foolish things or spread tales of evil conspiracies realize that their
statements are ignorant or false. Trump
has encouraged this tendency to say whatever seems to advance an agenda. Certainly the repeated, ludicrous claims of
election fraud straddle these categories.
In another sense a lie has come to the
fore, the pretense of the Republican Party to a principled theory of
governance. The pretense, and its
falsity, were described by Stuart Stevens in his recent book: ”Donald Trump did
not change the Republican Party as much as he gave the party permission to
reveal its true self. . . . We were only now seeing what they always were,
freed from any need to pretend.” “A
party rooted in decency and values does not embrace the vicious hate that
Donald Trump peddles as patriotism.12 I discuss this further under item 9
below.
4. Public ignorance.
If the leaders are fools, it’s hardly
surprising that followers are. At a rally in Michigan on September 10, Trump
shamelessly boasted: “We brought you a lot of car plants, Michigan! We brought
you a lot of car plants. You know that, right?” The crowd roared its assent.
As one observer put it, any “member in good standing of the ancient
‘reality-based community’ could have told you that since the coming of Trump no
new car plants had been built in Michigan, that since his ascension not less
than three thousand Michiganders had lost jobs in the vital auto sector.”13 Perhaps Trump was citing alternative
facts.
The crowd’s response illustrates a category
of foolishness: willful ignorance.
Millions going maskless is a major example. Denial of the reality of climate change and human contributions
thereto is another. As with the auto
plant issue, people have been misled, but the capacity for credulity or
rejection of facts was there to be used.
Anti-vaccine agitation no doubt will arise again as the coronavirus
vaccines become widely available.
5. Faux populism.
Trump has tapped into, pandered to, and
encouraged feelings on the part of many that their world is disappearing, that
they are being left behind, that they are ignored — when not harmed — by
ill-defined “elites.” Believing, somehow, that he was on their side, they
became his base, or part of it. As
Trump and Republicans have no intention of serving their interests, of making
their lives better, this is a false populism, a swindle. Hacker and Pierson have labeled this
“plutocratic populism,” an alliance between “organized money and organized
outrage.”14
An abiding question about the popular
support for Trump is whether it really is primarily by the “working class.” Those who attend his rallies may fit that description, but, assuming
that we define the class by income, those who
vote for him do not. Exit polls
show that Biden won the votes of those making under $100,000 per year, and
Trump won those making more than that.15 The makeup of the mob at the Capitol demonstrates that many of
his followers do not fit the supposed model.
6. Tribalism; terror of liberalism.
The success of the populist ploy has been
aided by the increasing tribalism of American politics. It is a factor in the willingness of Trump’s
followers to believe, or at least claim, that the election was stolen. Tribalism has been fed by both sides; it
will be interesting to see whether Biden can suppress that tendency among
Democrats sufficiently to achieve the unity he aims for.
A factor in the tribalism of the right, and
of Republican success in creating a pseudo-p0pulist revolt, is a resentment of
liberalism, and hence of Democrats.
There are legitimate and strong differences of view between
conservatives and liberals, but resentment often is disproportionate to real
differences and degenerates into claims that liberals are un-American (and
communist; how quaint!), a tendency manipulated by the right into irrational
fear and hatred. Trump constantly
played the victim, culminating in his claims that the election was stolen,
which reenforced a sense of victimhood in the base.
7. Race-related bias and inequality.
It is no secret that racial bias and
inequality persist, the former seemingly embedded in police departments. Trump refused to acknowledge the problem, demanded
“law and order,” denigrated racial-justice protesters and underlined his
disdain by insisting that Confederate names remain on military bases. The
agitation by white supremacist groups suggest that racial tensions will endure
and may even be exacerbated by efforts of the Biden administration to improve
conditions for minorities.
8. Religious delusions.
In a recent column, Michael Gerson aptly
noted that supporting and justifying Trump’s attempts to overturn a fair
election “has driven some Trump evangelicals to the edge of blasphemous
lunacy.”16 He offered as an
example the mumblings of a radio talk-show host named Eric Metaxas, who has
said: “This is a fight for everything. God is with us. Jesus is with us in this
fight for liberty.” Also: “Trump will
be inaugurated. For the high crimes of trying to throw a U.S. presidential election, many will go to jail.” Another
example is Guillermo Maldonado, a Florida pastor and Trump supporter, who has
advised his congregation not to receive a COVID-19 vaccination, but to “believe
in divine immunity” instead. He claims
that God warned him about a “satanic global agenda” that is trying to “bring
the Christian church under governmental control.” These evil forces “want to stop President Trump because he’s
against that agenda.”17
That’s our Donald: defender of the faith.
9. Decline of the Republican party and conservatism: repudiation of
democracy; authoritarianism.
In the comments that follow, I will refer
to characteristics of Republicans or the Republican Party. There are exceptions to the negative picture
I’ll paint, including election officials who would not be intimidated, members
of Congress who rejected plans to manipulate the electoral vote and those who
voted to impeach. There are numerous
Never Trumpers and other critics, some of whom, in a sense, aren’t exceptions,
having left the Party. Senator Romney
projects honesty and sense, but Senator Ron Johnson, peddling election-fraud
theories,18 Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene babbling about the
Biden Crime Family, and the last proposing to impeach President Biden,19
are more typical.
The decline of the party has been underway
for decades. A <i>Washington
Post</i> article in 2002 by Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein summed
it up: “The GOP has become an insurgent outlier in American politics. It is
ideologically extreme; scornful of compromise; unmoved by conventional
understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy
of its political opposition.”20 Trump’s presidency was
made possible and supported by that condition, which grew worse.
A tendency to manipulate elections has been
part of the Republican playbook for some time, utilizing such tools as
gerrymandering and closure of polling places.
Refusal to accept the recent election result built on that tendency. It
is not just partisan fervor or ignorance; it is an abandonment or an active
rejection of democracy, of the right of the people to elect their leaders.
Beyond a point, long since reached, claims of fraud are an attempt to undermine
the system.
On Dec. 1, Michael Flynn, newly pardoned,
put forward a plan in authoritarian form to overturn the election.21 He tweeted a link to a lengthy paid
advertisement placed in the Washington Times by a group named We The People
Convention. The ad spoke of “the current threat to our United States by
the international and domestic socialist/communist left.” We face, it said, “well-funded, armed and
trained marxists [<i>sic</i>] in ANTIFA and BLM
strategically positioned in our major cities acting openly with violence to
silence opposition to their anti-American agenda.”22 Of course, Trump’s loss was due to
fraud. His enemies used “this corrupt
and provably fraudulent” election “to illegally and un-constitutionally deny
the American people their most sacred honor, right and privilege - which is the
right to elect their Representatives!”
Irony obviously is lost on this group.
What is the remedy for this crime? “When
the legislators, courts and/or Congress fail to do their duty under the 12th
Amendment, you must be ready Mr. President to immediately declare a limited
form of Martial Law, and temporarily suspend the Constitution and civilian
control of these federal elections, for the sole purpose of having the military
oversee a national re-vote.” Undo a
fictional election theft with a real one.
L. Lin Wood also endorsed the ad, and
Sidney Powell retweeted a call for military tribunals and for Trump to invoke
the Insurrection Act.23
A Republican Washington State
Representative waved the flag of rebellion.
He, declared that “Joe Biden is not now, nor will ever be my
President.” That led him to ponder: “Is
the ‘coup’ against the sitting President the start of a second ‘Civil War’ here
in the USA?” Stand up: “This is about
America. It’s being destroyed by evildoers. Patriots, will you join with me? I
need to know. Lets [sic] raise
the banner.”24
Other GOP state lawmakers endorsed martial law and use of the
Insurrection Act to keep Trump in power.25
One of the stranger attempts at overturning
the election was a motion by Texas in the Supreme Court for leave to file a
complaint designed to overturn the results in other states. The exact relief requested was that the
Court “Declare that any electoral college votes cast by such presidential
electors appointed in Defendant States Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, and
Wisconsin are in violation of the Electors Clause and the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S.
Constitution and cannot be counted.”26 Trump filed a motion to intervene in support of the complaint,
and 106 House Republicans submitted a brief in support. Texas rather obviously
did not have standing to challenge elections in other states and, on December
11, the Court denied Texas’ motion to file on that ground.27
Stranger yet was a suit filed in a US
District Court in Texas by Republican Representative Louie Gohmert of that
state, supported by some Republicans from Arizona, attempting to force Vice President Pence, as presiding officer in
the Senate, to throw out Biden electoral votes and, apparently, replace them
with self-appointed Trump electors.
Again, not surprisingly, the complaint was dismissed.28
Most of the lawsuits alleging fraud were
frivolous, but at least they stayed, barely, within the constitutional
system. Efforts to persuade
legislatures to appoint Trump electors in place of those pledged to the winner
of the election in swing states (i.e., Biden electors) cited a provision
of the Constitution, but misused it. Trump
pushed this remedy in Michigan, Georgia and Pennsylvania.29 His aide Stephen Miller also backed that
scheme.30
The same ploy was endorsed in an open
letter, signed by many alleged conservatives: It demanded that legislatures in
Pennsylvania, Arizona, Georgia, Wisconsin, Nevada, and Michigan “exercise their
plenary power under the Constitution and appoint clean slates of electors to
the Electoral College to support President Trump.” Standing alone, that would accomplish nothing. Therefore, “both the House and Senate should
accept only these clean Electoral College slates and object to and reject any
competing slates in favor of Vice President Biden from these states.”31 No such “clean” slates were submitted by
states, so the alternative would be to accept self-appointed electors, as
blatant repudiation of an election as could be imagined.
In order for this ploy to succeed, one
member of the House and one Senator had to challenge electoral votes from
several states. Representative Mo
Brooks (R-Alabama) announced his intention to challenge, and was joined some
days later by Senator Josh Hawley (R- Missouri). Hawley’s political stance had been dubbed “performative
populism,” <i>i.e</>., populism for show; his electoral ploy
certainly fell into that category.
Eleven more Republican Senators and more than one hundred Republican
Representatives then jumped on the anti-democratic bandwagon-to-nowhere.
This scenario began to play out, but the
assault on the Capitol disrupted the session.
Upon resumption,some
objectors backed down, but Senator Hawley, apparently still believing that
following Trump will lead to the White House, went ahead with his challenge to
the Pennsylvania votes, joined by Ted Cruz (R-Texas) on the path to
nullification. They lost, 92 to 7, a fitting end to another show of pretended
indignation at pretended electoral fraud.
The House, where Republican opposition to democracy is stronger,
defeated the challenge 282-138.32
The invasion of the Capitol encouraged by
Trump caused a good deal of soul-searching on the part of Republican
officeholders, but that appears to have been a temporary phenomenon. The assault wasn’t enough to test the
loyalty those attending a meeting of the Republican National Committee two days
later. “Party members, one after
another, said in interviews that the president did not bear any blame for the
violence at the Capitol and indicated that they wanted him to continue to play
a leading role in the party.”33 The Oregon Republican Party organization issued this exercise in
irresponsible fantasy: “The violence at the Capitol was a ‘false flag’
operation designed to discredit President Trump, his supporters, and all
conservative Republicans; this provided the sham motivation to impeach
President Trump in order to advance the Democratic goal of seizing total
power.”34
10. Disregard for public welfare.
Republicans have not, for some time,
demonstrated any concern for the lives of ordinary people which, of course,
makes their populist ploy stunningly dishonest. Tax cuts for the rich and deregulation are not benefits to the
average citizen. Economic inequality
and the concentration of wealth at the top have increased over time, aided by
Republican policies. Tables appended to
Capital in the Twenty-First Century, by Thomas Piketty, demonstrate the
changes. As of 2010, the top 10% of the
population by income received 47.9% of total income, the top 1% 1received 19.8%
of the total, and the top .1% 9.5%. The
corresponding figures for 1980 were 34.6%, 10.0% and 3.4%.35 Not surprisingly, charts of marginal tax
rates for the wealthy show a change in the opposite direction.36 The 2017 tax cuts will make matters worse.
A table showing the full distribution of
income further demonstrates the degree of inequality: rounding off the Piketty
figures, in 2010, the top 10% received 50% of total income (the top 1% received
20%), the next 40% received 30% of the total, and the bottom 50% received 20%.37
Another measure of the failure of equitable
distribution of income is the minimum wage.
In real terms, the federal minimum wage peaked in 1968 at $8.68 (in 2016
dollars). It was last raised in 2009 to $7.25 per hour but, by 2017 had lost
about 9.6% of its value to inflation.38 The House passed a bill in 2019 to raise the
federal minimum to $15 by 2025. Mitch McConnell responded with the usual
excuse: “Research shows that hiking the minimum wage to $15 would kill jobs and
depress the economy at a time when it’s thriving for the American people. We
are not going to be taking that up in the Senate.”39
Trump
and the Republican Senate acted irresponsibility regarding the pandemic.
Trump’s principal contributions have been inaction, in which he was joined by
some Republican governors, combined with dangerously inane suggestions. As part
of his flirtation with herd immunity as a substitute for useful action, Trump
reportedly mused: “Why don’t we let this wash over the country?” In other words let the coronavirus spread
unchecked. As Dr. Fauci pointed out,
many would die.40
As I noted earlier, Senator Rand Paul and a Republican state
representative also toyed with that “solution.” A tragic part of
Trump’s legacy is the death toll from covid, which passed 400,000 on his last
full day in office. To be sure, he
could not have prevented all of the deaths, but sensible, responsible attention
to the crisis could have saved many, especially if he had set the right
example, rather than reenforcing strong tendencies toward dangerous behavior.
For months, the Republican Senate also
responded to the coronavirus crisis with inaction, then demonstrated its policy
priorities during debates in December on the aid bill by demanding an
employer-liability shield and a meal/entertainment deduction for businesses,
while refusing to aid struggling states and cities. No doubt this approach to lawmaking would have persisted had the
Republicans retained a majority, and may still do so through obstruction.
The Party had nothing left but floundering
attempts to overturn the election. It
has no principles, not even a program other than pandering to the Trump base
while serving the interests of the rich.
11. Political violence; mob rule.
The potential for violence in the streets
has been with us for a long time due to political polarization and the ready
availability of guns, but tribalism and supremacist impulses have made it far
worse. Violence, occupation and
vandalism are not unknown to demonstrations on the left, but it is primarily on
the right that volence exists as a deliberate tactic and as an automatic
reaction. Louie Gohmert provided an
example of the reaction; after the District Court dismissed his complaint he,
in keeping with the right-wing mood, pronounced: “Basically, in effect, the ruling
would be that you got to go to the streets and be as violent as antifa and BLM
(Black Lives Matter).”41 Steve Bannon mused about putting the
heads of FBI Director Christopher Wray and Dr. Anthony Fauci on pikes “as a
warning to federal bureaucrats.”42 The gathering of armed
protesters outside the home of the Michigan Secretary of State, protesting
non-existent fraud, is an example of the tactic. Proud Boys prowling Washington
DC was a more dangerous manifestation, as was a protest in Olympia, Washington;
several people were stabbed in DC, one shot in Olympia.
Trump encouraged violent, anarchic behavior
by his claim of a rigged election — which prompted threats to election workers
— and more directly by some of his comments, such as calling for followers to
“liberate” states which annoyed him and, more recently, encouraging protests
against the counting of electoral votes, tweeting on Dec. 19: “Big protest in
D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!”43 That succeeded, bringing protesters to
Washington who, with Trump’s further encouragement in his speech to the crowd,
became a mob which invaded the Capitol.
There may be more such events. The Capitol
mob may have been Trump fans but, even if he fades away in disgrace, there will
be many ready to carry on the destruction.
The mob, and the base generally, seem to epitomize the line from an old
movie: “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!” Never mind whether the grievances are real;
the heart of Trumpism is simply grievance — real, exaggerated or imaginary —
and increasingly it is accompanied by violence..
12. Repudiation of the Union.
The Civil War did not end thoughts of
disunion. Several states have taken a
step in that direction by toying with nullification of federal laws. The League
of the South is a “Southern nationalist organization . . . whose ultimate goal
is ‘a free and independent Southern republic’.“44 Refusal by
Republicans and by Trump’s fans to accept the result of the election taps into
this secessionist mood, shown by the waving of Confederate flags at protests,
including the occupation of the Capitol, and by explicit threats. After the Supreme Court rejected the ploy by
Texas, talk of secession surfaced.
Among those suggesting it was Texas GOP Chairman Allen West, who said that “perhaps” it’s time for
“law-abiding states to bond together and form a Union of states that will abide
by the constitution.”45 A
Republican Texas state representative announced that he is “committing to file
legislation this session that will allow a referendum to give Texans a vote for
the State of Texas to reassert its status as an independent nation.”46 The chairman of the Wyoming Republican Party
mused: “Many of these Western states have the ability to be self-reliant, and
we’re keeping eyes on Texas too, and their consideration of possible
secession.”47
If this gained traction, it would be the final repudiation of its
history, tradition and character by the party of Lincoln.
<br>__________________
<br>1.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/lin-wood-firearms-stock-up-trump_n_5fd8124ac5b
62f31c1ffb41d
<br>2.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/in-america-talk-turns-to-something-unspoken-
for-150-
years-civil-war/2019/02/28/b3733af8-3ae4-11e9-a2cd-307b06d0257b_story.html?
utm_term =.c87d3f657d86
<br>3
https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/30/politics/joe-digenova-attorney-trump-campaign-chris-krebs-violence/ index.html
<br>4. www.mediamatters.org/lou-dobbs/lou-dobbs-urges-trump-take-drastic-action-over-alleged-
election-fraud
<br>5. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/fox-lou-dobbs-trump-election_n_5fc94c2cc5b68691fc
380d38
<br>6
https://archive.is/e6228
<br>7 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/alex-jones-joe-biden-trump-rally_n_5fd625fbc5b62f31
c1fe0b72
<br>8.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/bob-good-congressman-elect-pandemic-phony-trump-lrally_n_5fd58c8 bc5b6218b42e9c2949g
<br>9. https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/12/16/trump-mcconnell-election-biden-president/?utm_ campaign=wp_politics_am&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_politics
<br>10. https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/l-lin-wood-pence-execution-treason_n_5fef9625c5b6fd33110 de8de
<br>11. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-golfs-in-florida-while-covid-relief-hangs-in-the-balance_n_ 5fe6268bc5b6ff747980ffea
<br>12 It
Was All a Lie, pp. 199, 201
<br>13. https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2020/11/19/the-con-he-rode-in-on/
<br>14. https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/07/07/republican-party-uses-populist-
politics-advance-plutocratic-policy/
<br>15.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/11/03/us/elections/exit-polls-president.html
<br>16.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/prominent-evangelicals-are-directing-
trumps-sinking-ship-that-feeds-doubts-about-religion/2020/12/07/5ad8eb0c-38c3-11eb-
9276-ae0ca72729be_story.html?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most&carta-url=https%3A%2F%2Fs2.washingtonpost.com%2Fcar-ln-tr%2F2d64530%2F5fcfadae9d2fda0efb8267bd%2F5b65de00ade4e2779564ed94%2F18%2F69%2F5fcfadae9d2fda0efb8267bd
<br>17. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/guillermo-maldonado-covid-19-vaccine-evangelicals
_n_5fcfef83c5b 6787f2a9b8cc3
<br>18.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/12/16/weve-finally-identified-source-fraud-2020-election-its-ron-johnson/
<br>19. https://www.alternet.org/2021/01/marjorie-green/?utm_source=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign= 6366
<br>20.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/lets-just-say-it-the-republicans-are-the-problem/2012/04/27/gIQAxCVUlT_story.html
<br>21. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/michael-flynn-martial-law-new-election_n_5fc7d3e6c5b6f3 fe59724a45
<br>22. https://wethepeopleconvention.org/articles/WTPC-Urges-Limited-Martial-Law
<br>23 https://www.mediamatters.org/voter-fraud-and-suppression/right-wing-media-figures-call-trump-use-military-overturn-election
<br>24. https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/prepare-for-war-a-local-gop-official-goes-all-in-
with-election-conspiracy-theories/
<br>25. https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/12/16/north-carolina-republican-trump-insurrection/ ?utm_campaign=wp_politics_am&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_politics
<br>26. https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/sites/default/files/images/admin/2020/Press/
SCOTUSFiling.pdf
<br>27. https://www.supremecourt.gov/orders/courtorders/121120zr_p860.pdf26
<br>28. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/texas-judge-dismisses-ghomert-suit-against-aimed-
overturning-election-n1252658
<br>29.
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<br>30. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/stephen-miller-alternate-elector-fox-friends_n_5fd77e00c5b 62f31c1ff0b9f
<br>31.
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<br>32. https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/01/06/us/electoral-vote
<br>33.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/08/us/politics/trump-republican-national-committee.html?action= click&module=Spotlight&pgtype=Homepage
<br>34. https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/01/26/oregon-republican-false-flag-
capitol/
<br>35.
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Table S 8.2
<br>36.
http://piketty.pse.ens.fr/files/capital21c/en/Piketty2014FiguresTablesLinks.pdf. Figure
14.1
<br>37.
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<br>38.
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/01/04/5-facts-about-the-minimum-wage/
<br>39. https://twitter.com/senatemajldr/status/1151885990862237697?s=12
<br>40. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-task-forces-coronavirus-pandemic/2020/04/11/5cc5a 30c-7a77-11ea-a130-df573469f094_story.html
<br>41.
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<br>42. https://www.mediamatters.org/steve-bannon/steve-bannon-and-his-co-host-discuss-beheading-dr-anthony-fauci-and-fbi-director
<br>43. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trump-is-inciting-chaos-on-jan-6-both-in-
and-outside-the-capitol/2020/12/30/7c4196b0-4ad2-11eb-839a-cf4ba7b7c48c_story.html
<br>44. https://leagueofthesouth.com/
<br>45. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/texas-secession-supreme-court-election-case-allen-west_n_5fd42d47c 5b62f31c1fd43a3
<br>46. https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/529713-texas-lawmaker-to-file-bill-
calling-for-vote-on-secession-from
<br>47. https://trib.com/news/state-and-regional/govt-and-politics/wyoming-gop-chair-western-
states-paying-attention-to-texas-effort-to-secede/article_0f06d7df-6351-555e-89fc-11e2f4841e31.html
