In Star Wars: Episode III: Revenge of Sith, when Supreme Chancellor Palpatine declares the emergence of the first Galactic Empire, Senator Bail Organa looks on as Senator Padme Amidala says, “So this is how liberty dies…with thunderous applause.”
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, paralyzing political divisions threatened democratic government that proved unable to resolve polarization and endless debates but the character whose dialogue chronicled the tipping point when the Galactic Republic became the evil Empire was played by Natalie Portman, who was with Stacey Abrams and Bee Nguyen, Democratic nominees for Governor and Secretary of State in Georgia, working over the weekend to avert a similar disaster in the United States.
Her movie character watched helplessly as galactic senators signed over their rights to a Sith lord but Portman has been among the millions of Americans who are fighting against an inexplicable tide of GOP resurgence. The actress narrated an episode on Republican senator Kelly Loeffler, an episode of NowThis News’ longest-running show, “Who Is?” during the crucial lead up to the special runoff election for U.S. Senate from Georgia on January 5, 2021.
Unfortunately, as Democrats across the country pound drums over the power to ban abortion that the US Supreme Court handed down, working class Americans were responding to their tone deaf failure to address economic anxiety caused by corporate greed and lingering supply chain failures stemming from the pandemic.
A day after the southern state voters rejected the GOP, election loser Donald Trump incited a mob of terrorists to sack the US Capitol building in an effort to disrupt the certification of President Joe Biden’s victory, which was taking place in Congress on January 6, 2021.
There are 27 elections for secretary of state taking place in 2022, many of which will be won by Republicans who dispute the outcome of the 2020 presidential contest and may very likely cheat in the next election.
Heading into the 2022 elections, there are 23 Republican triplexes, 18 Democratic triplexes, a situation where the governor, attorney general, and secretary of state are all members of the same political party. Nine states have divided governments where neither party holds control over those three offices.
A governor, attorney general, or secretary of state are all vested with authority that can undermine our republic.
For example, a secretary of state may impede citizens from casting their ballots, prevent a fair and accurate tally of those votes or simply refuse to certify the results of an election. This could throw the choice of president to the House of Representatives, where the mechanism for electing the leader of the free world is stacked in favor of Republicans by virtue of constitutional compromise intended to protect the institution of slavery and the Supreme Court’s refusal to prohibit cheating in the process of redistricting.
“Republicans enter the final days of the midterms with the political winds at their backs and the slight momentum in the battle for Senate control,” writes Jessica Taylor, of the Cook Political Report. “While a handful of races remain incredibly tight, and polls show they could go either way, the far better national environment for Republicans has many Democratic strategists we have talked to staring down a gloomy prospect.”
The fickle electorate has previously reward Republicans for obstructing Democratic policymakers from pursuing solutions to the problems that other GOP officials caused.
For example, President Barack Obama’s inability during his first 21 months in the White House to lift America from the depths of the Great Recession, a consequence of the Bush Republicans’ failed oversight of recklessness on Wall Street, ultimately helped Tea Party extremists gain control of Congress in 2010.
That led to Draconian austerity measures which not only slowed economic recovery but endangered the financial situation of the richest country on the planet.
Republicans held up a routine but necessary increase in the debt ceiling that caused credit agencies to inflict a downgrade on the world’s reserve currency!
Similarly, the GOP impeded Obama’s administration on gun violence reduction, justice initiatives and economic development to such a degree that frustrated Americans elected the radical and unstable President Donald Trump.
Even after the attempted coup d’état on January 6th was followed by the pronouncements of numerous Republicans that MAGA extremists pose a genuine danger to the republic, GOP candidates who have openly expressed disdain for democracy remain viable in races all across the nation.
Republicans who are literally promising to cheat are seeking election to offices in charge of counting ballots but they have not been disqualified in the minds of American citizens.
Abraham Lincoln once said that Americans were facing a test to whether a “nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal… may long endure.”
The likely answer is that it cannot, but some of us will wait until the ballots are tallied in full before counting Americans out, if only because they hope we will once again have fair elections.
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