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From March to August this year, we supported @fairdealguyana and other partners as Guyana teetered on the brink of autocracy for 5 months because a wannabe President-for-Life refused to concede the election long after it was clear he had lost the vote. https://bit.ly/3eKQInq
In Guyana, as in the US, the outcome of the vote was clear to anyone with eyes. In Guyana, as in the US, the international community immediately and vocally called on the losing incumbent to accept the result and peacefully transition. https://bit.ly/2Udmpwa
In Guyana, as in the US, the loser launched a barrage of legal claims designed to subvert the democratic process, sow confusion, and delay the inevitable outcome.
In Guyana, those strategies took the nation to the brink of violence. Averting it took effort, courage, and active resistance to racism. Melinda Janki, an international lawyer and human rights advocate there, told me: “They tried to make us hate one another; and we said ‘No’.”
In Guyana, they waited five long months to transition to a legitimate government and begin the difficult work of moving ahead. https://bbc.in/3lnrOgq
In Guyana, the coup attempt failed only because the public refused openly, vocally and incessantly to accept an illegitimate regime and an anti-democratic outcome.
We must learn the same lesson. And we need to learn it now.
We must learn the same lesson. And we need to learn it now.
The sitting *President of the United States is refusing to concede the election after telegraphing for MONTHS that he would not accept an outcome that did not keep him in power.
The Trump campaign has sued seeking to stop Pennsylvania from certifying a Biden win. https://bit.ly/3eNv0zf
It has launched a barrage of suits in Michigan, Nevada, Arizona and Georgia. https://n.pr/36jIFKC And demanded a hand recount in Georgia that includes a “check for felons and ineligible persons,” in an overt effort to disenfranchise voters after the election is already over.
That Joe Biden won both the popular vote and electoral college is not in legitimate dispute. That Donald Trump is refusing to concede is also not in dispute. The critical question is how we respond if we want to keep our democracy.
I have seen many in the media and in the DNC suggesting that we should ignore the Trump sideshow. That Trump is an addled wingnut, and we should wait patiently while the supposed grown ups around him break the loss to him gently.
That is demonstrably NOT what is happening here.
That is demonstrably NOT what is happening here.
The Attorney General of the United States has abandoned 40 years of policy to authorize DOJ to investigate alleged voting irregularities before results are certified—prompting career DOJ officials to resign their posts rather than carry out Barr’s orders. https://bit.ly/36lneZO
The Senate Majority Leader has supported Trump’s legal maneuvers while celebrating down-ballot wins based on the same ballots. https://bloom.bg/3nckEvJ
The Chair of Republican Party has urged state and Republican leaders to take up Trump’s cry of “voter fraud”. https://bit.ly/36jHFWS And some of those local leaders are obeying.
Attorneys General from 10 Republican-led States are supporting Trump’s lawsuits in key states. https://bit.ly/3ncIJ5L
State officials in Wisconsin are expressly considering substituting their own views and their own electors, for those chosen by Wisconsin’s voters. https://bit.ly/3ndBfiR
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has called on Michigan and Pennsylvania to do the same. https://bit.ly/3pcQ7A1
Trump allies have repeatedly and explicitly called for violent support of his cause both before and since the election. https://bit.ly/2Iu7nQ3
And in the space of 24 hours, Trump has replaced at least 4 civilian leaders in the Department of Defense with allies he expects to be more loyal. https://twitter.com/AVindman/status/1326282555952418816?s=20
And at the end of every legal road sits a GOP-dominated Supreme Court from which Trump expects the same degree of loyalty and subservience. An assumption we put to the test only at great national peril. https://twitter.com/ericbradner/status/1320928465365979138?s=20
In the face of this, the Trump administration’s refusal to initiate the transition, and it’s instructions to agencies to prepare budgets for next year, are not smoking guns, they are predictable steps in an active, ongoing effort to subvert the democratic outcome of the election.
And so today, a week after voting ended, and days since the voter’s overwhelming choice of Joe Biden became undeniable, the US Secretary of State announced that there will indeed be a smooth transition. To the second term of the Trump Administration. https://bit.ly/3eON0co
The United States is in the midst of an active, overt, slow-motion #coup by an ousted autocrat-in-waiting. He is being supported by elected and appointed officials across the country. To pretend otherwise may be comforting. But it is also reckless.
We can hope this is a sideshow, and go on waiting for the GOP “grown ups” that, in 4 years of Trump’s chaotic presidency never arrived. Or we can accept that the GOP we keep hoping will rein Trump in, prefers him unbridled. And that we are racing down a short road to autocracy.
For decades, people in Guyana, Suriname, countries around the world have faced what we face now. When they've won, as in Guyana, it's because they resisted. We need to learn that lesson from them. And Resist.
Not later. Now. And until he is gone.
Truly. Irrevocably. Gone.
Not later. Now. And until he is gone.
Truly. Irrevocably. Gone.
