Real Monsters Don’t Die So Easily
What Donald Trump awakened will take more than an election victory to overcome
No matter how many times I watch the sci-fi thriller Alien, the film’s final scene always makes my toes curl, just as it did years ago when I first saw the movie in a theater. My apologies in advance for the spoilers. The ending goes something like this:
After an acid-blooded creature stalks and kills the other crew members of the Nostromo, a commercial space exploration ship, Ripley, the film’s heroine, deploys the ship’s auto-destruct sequence. She is the only person left aboard the massive ship in the far reaches of space.
She plans to activate the Nostromo’s self-destruct mechanism to destroy the creature on board when the vessel explodes in outer space. As Ripley races to board the small shuttle docked on the ship, a computerized voice counts down the time remaining to detonation.
Ripley makes it inside the small shuttle with minutes to spare. Racing to put distance between the shuttle and the ship before it explodes, Ripley pilots the shuttle out of range just as the Nostromo explodes. No longer in danger, she can finally relax.
As Ripley prepares for the long trip through space, she realizes she is not alone aboard the shuttle. Somehow, the alien creature found its way from the Nostromo and onto the shuttle. It seemed to be hibernating.
As she stares at the creature in horror, the monster begins to awaken.
We are witnessing an attempted coup d’état.
This is not hyperbole. By definition, a coup d’état is an illegal, unconstitutional seizure of power by a political faction, usually one previously in control. How else can one describe Trump’s actions?
The primary difference between Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election and that of Zimbabwe’s Mugabe, Turkey’s Erdoğan, or some other tinpot dictator is its poor execution.
That said, simply because the coup’s perpetrators are inept c-team players, or that it may not succeed, or the media’s insistence on treating an autocratic power grab as another leg in the horse race does not alter the lasting adverse effects of what Trump has done to America’s democracy.
The President of the United States is attempting to overturn the results of an election — disenfranchising millions of voters — for no other reason than that he did not win. His coup attempt is also part wrestling-inspired grift inspired by his decades of involvement with the WWE (more on that phenomenon at a later date), intended to milk every last dime from his radicalized base, attempts to subvert a free and fair election no less dangerous.
I previously wrote about Republican disdain for democratic norms, the way Trump surrogates telegraphed their strategy for contesting the election should they lose. I would love to claim status as a world-class prognosticator, but even the casual observer could see Trump coming a mile away.
Months before the election, Trump said time and again that the only way he could lose was if Democrats cheated, that the only way Biden could win was if the election were “rigged.” At rallies, he told his supporters he would win either at the polls, in the Supreme Court, or the House of Representatives.
Trump sowed the political field with doubt, undermining election integrity. He even poisoned the US Postal Service’s ability to deliver mail, to slow down voters’ efforts to avoid in-person voting during a pandemic.
When the electorate overcame those obstacles, voting for Joe Biden in overwhelming numbers, Trump responded to his loss with a deluge of social media propaganda and frivolous lawsuits, long on conspiracy theories and short on evidence.
After deriding mailed ballots as rife with fraud for months, Team Trump’s lawyers now claim electronic voting machines cannot be trusted. Their cumulative legal argument is, in effect, that only the only legitimate votes are those cast in favor of Donald Trump.
The Republican Party is accommodating Trump's subversive behavior.
Trump’s election in 2016 gave oxygen to the Republican Party’s authoritarian leanings, exposing the GOP as an anti-democratic movement centered around white male supremacy.
The pandemic laid bare the Republican Party’s apparent goal to promote and expand the wealthy white elite's interests rather than those of the broader American citizenry. If a few people of color or low-income white folks benefit in the process, then so be it.
As with anything, there are exceptions. There is the usual pearl-clutching tweet of concern from Mitt Romney, Susan Collins, or Ben Sasse. But by and large, Republicans in the House and Senate are more than willing to go along with Trump’s assault on our electoral process.
Now, after weeks of shapeshifting conspiracy theories, more than thirty spectacularly unsuccessful lawsuits, and after watching willing congressional Republicans go along with the Big Lie, it appears the only thing saving the country from Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn a presidential election and thus the will of the American people, is the incompetence of its perpetrators.
The ‘Big Lie’ (German: große Lüge) is a propaganda concept coined by Adolf Hitler. The technique involves the use of a lie so enormous, no one would believe anyone “could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously.” The Boston Globe’s Timothy Snyder describes how pos-WWI German commanders — and later the Nazis made use of the Big Lie: “In the First World War, the conflict that defined our modern world, the Germans lost because of the overwhelming force assembled by their enemies on the Western Front. After the Americans entered the war, German defeat was a matter of time. Yet German commanders found it convenient instead to speak of a “stab in the back” by leftists and Jews. This big lie was a problem for the new German democracy that was created after the war, since it suggested that the major political party, the Social Democrats, and a national minority, the Jews, were outside the national community. The lie was taken up by the Nazis, and it became a central element of their version of history after they took power. The blame was elsewhere.”
Trump’s refusal to concede the election, stonewalling the Biden transition team, engaging in conspiracy theories, and frivolous lawsuits, with his Party’s tacit approval, are part and parcel of a “Big Lie” strategy.
It was election night, and my wife and I sat on the patio outside our home. To say we were distraught is an understatement. Having watched the initial election results, we decided to turn off the television and get some fresh air.
It’s happening again. They’re going to re-elect him.
We’d prepared for this eventuality, researching potential expat-friendly countries, filling out passport applications for our children. Could we make a new life in Costa Rica, or perhaps South Africa? If the choice was four more years of Trump or living in a new country, there was no contest.
When the networks called the race on what I call Biden-Harris Saturday, our household shouted out loud as we watched the televised celebrations. There were tears of joy — and relief.
They did it. They won.
But before long, we tamped down our enthusiasm. We realized there is so much more work to be done. After all, over 70 million of our fellow citizens voted for more of this. Many in Trump’s base are so radicalized now that even Fox News is too far to the left for them.
Like Alien’s Ripley, we realized that, although Trump may be gone, the monster he helped create is still alive, hiding in plain sight.
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