#David Corn, "Back From the Brink," Mother Jones, January + February 2021. - "He had questioned the legitimacy of elections, attacked the free press, called for the arrest of his political opponents, encouraged white supremacists, violated anti-corruption safeguards, implemented nepotism, advocated measures that limit voting, sought more control of the civil service, claimed unbridled executive power, treated the federal government (even the White House grounds) as his own private duchy, and embraced despotic leaders around the world." "He [Trump] gained support among Americans. He bagged 10 million more votes than he did in 2016. Nearly half of the electorate and an entire political party accepted, if not fully applauded, his war on democratic norms." "And after the election, 70 percent of Republicans, following Trump's lead, said they did not believe the election was free and fair." "The election demonstrated that this virulent current existed beyond Trump's narcissism. And this moment raises a pressing question for the nation: Can a slide toward authoritarianism be reversed? Is one 51-47 election enough?"
"And today, the current strains of authoritarianism in the United States relies in part on the tools of white supremacy, particularly voter suppression and racist demagogic rhetoric." This is what is so troubling to Larry Diamond, a Stanford professor who co-edits the 'Journal of Democracy'. Dimond notes: "It's not just Trump. You look at the widespread efforts at voter suppression, the cynical efforts of Republicans to create one set of rules for themselves, and another for the opposition... and you see much broader abandonment of democratic norms than you saw during Watergate, when it was mainly confined to Nixon and his clique..."
Diamond concludes: "Our democratic system is much more badly damaged and outmoded than it was after Watergate. Even with the 'autocrat' Trump out of the White House, the agenda of fixing our democracy is going to be much longer. and more arduous." "What do you do when half of the United States does not want to repair its democracy?"
#Nathalie Baptiste, "The Racist Next Time," Mother Jones, January + February 2021. - "Even well-intentioned liberals had no idea how serious the problem of deeply entrenched white supremacy is." "For decades, the GOP has been spinning tales about voter fraud, and has attempted to disenfranchise Black and Brown communities with voter ID requirements and other laws."
"According to political scientists Nicholes Davis and Steven Miller, 'The one consistent thread woven throughout American democracy is that white Americans' track record regarding matters of racial and democratic equality is poor. Democracy is undermined when intolerant white people realize it's a system designed to extend basic rights to everyone.'
"Nearly half of all voters chose Trump. Tens of millions took stock of the catastrophic handling of the coronavirus epidemic, the widespread economic suffering that Trump and the Republicans have done little to reverse, and the terrifying increase of white supremacist violence and decided: This is the America we want. And that's a problem that will endure long after Trump is gone."
#Elie Mystal, "The Center Didn't Hold," Mother Jones, January +February 2021. - "Trump failed to steal the election because he and his legal team are incompetent criminals, not because our democratic institutions defeated him." In predominately Black city after predominately Black city, Republicans urged courts, state boards of elections, and secretaries of state to throw away ballots cast by legitimately registered voters on the basis of 'voter fraud.' "
#Judy Berman, "Art can breathe again," TIME, January 18/January 25, 2021. - "The arts have suffered mightily with Trump in the White House. While his policies have made it harder to subsist as a creative professional, his dominance over the public sphere has distracted artists from their work, and audiences from their engagement with it." "More damaging have been his attempts to defund arts institutions such as the National Endowment for the Arts and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which helps fund PBS and NPR."
"Ironically, its the Trump years that have yielded consensus art -- art that glosses over ideological differences within, and beyond, the broad category of right and left."
#Trump's "Shakedown" Call - America's top election expert is accusing President Trump of breaking both federal and state laws in his "shakedown" calls to Brad Raffensperger, Georgia's Secretary of State. The expert, Rick Hasen, said Trump, in one call to Raffensperger, engaged in "belated ballot stuffing." Trump asked Raffensperger to "find him 11,780 votes", which would be just enough to beat out Joe Biden.
#House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R- Cal.) appealed to Jared Kushner, a Trump senior adviser and son-in-law, to use his influence to stop the rioting in the Capitol. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) appealed to Ivanka Trump to do the same; and Kellyanne Conway, former senior adviser, called an aide she knew was standing next to Trump. From 2 p.m. Wednesday to 8 p.m. that evening, Trump was paralyzed from taking any action, although he was watching the action in the Capitol.
ADDENDUMS:
*White House officials pushed Atlanta's top federal prosecutor to resign the day before Georgia's Senate run-off, because Trump felt he wasn't doing enough to "investigate" claims of election fraud.
*Kurt Erskine, Byung J. Pak's top deputy, was supposed to get the leadership of the Atlanta office, but "by written order of the President," Bobby Christine was appointed.
#Trump told Senator Loeffler before he landed for his final rally to support Loeffler's run-off election that he would "do a number on her" if she didn't announce her support for his electoral college challenge.
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