Fear of President Trump’s authoritarianism isn’t hysteria, and disputing the legitimacy of his rule isn’t anti-democratic. EricLevitz writes
What happened in 2000 can happen again. Photo: BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images Last week, the attorney general of the United States argued that mail-in ballots are inherently corrupt, that Democrats will likely produce 100,000 fake votes in Nevada on Election Night, and that liberals are “projecting” when they accuse Republicans of undermining confidence in the integrity of the upcoming presidential election.
“Someone will say the president just won Nevada. ‘Oh, wait a minute! We just discovered 100,000 ballots! Every vote will be counted!’ Yeah, but we don’t know where these freaking votes came from,” Barr said, promising to watch “Key Largo.” The concerted effort by Republicans in Washington and Florida to discredit the state’s recount as illegitimate and potentially rife with fraud reflects a cold political calculation: Treat the recount as the next phase of a campaign to secure the party’s majority and agenda in the Senate.… The Republicans’ strategy in Florida reflects their experience in the 2000 presidential recount in the state.
In isolation, an Atlantic column that makes a few fair points in service of a flawed thesis might not merit extended criticism. But in its sweeping imprecision, Hamid’s argument risks validating the Republican Party’s more demagogic efforts to portray liberal dissidence as the real authoritarianism and stigmatize modes of rhetoric and resistance that may prove necessary for disempowering the conservative movement. So it’s worth scrutinizing Hamid’s argument in some detail.
Liberals had enough trouble accepting the results of the 2016 election. In some sense, they never really came to terms with it. The past four years have witnessed the continuous urge to explain away the inexplicable, to find solace in the fact that the voters betrayed them.
Hamid never explicitly says what he fears liberals will do if Trump wins reelection. If his argument is merely that Democrats must not foment secessionist movements, court faithless electors, or embrace fatalism, then it wouldn’t be objectionable. Having a lawless president secure reelection against the will of a plurality of the voting public — and with the aid of myriad acts of discriminatory disenfranchisement — will do grievous harm to our fragile facsimile of a democracy.
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