Ballots and Bullets

As I may have mentioned, this is an election year.

I also may have said something about how millions of Americans will vote this November for an aspiring despot who wants to crush dissent, abolish democracy, and catapult the nation into a hellhole of authoritarian chaos. But I mumble sometimes, so maybe you didn’t catch it.

In any case, people are taking the inevitable Biden-Trump rematch seriously. Researchers have found that “an overwhelming majority of Americans believe democracy is ‘at risk’ in the upcoming presidential election.” They are correct, of course, because if Republicans regain power, they will burn the country down rather than give it up again.

So it’s a good thing that experienced officials are running our electoral system and focused on making sure the election is fair, accurate, and efficient. Well, at the least the election officials who aren’t running for their lives are focused on that.

You see, “since the 2020 election, state and local officials have faced a surge of violent threats, harassment, and intimidation.” This hostility is primarily from Trump supporters, who accused election officials “of rigging that race and subsequently hounded many out of office.” 

Because so many officials have quit in fear for their lives, more than 20% of election administrators “will be doing the job for the first time in 2024.”

Yes, this is yet another way in which Trump has manhandled the nation, perhaps permanently. Before 2020, “threats against election workers were virtually nonexistent,” but now they are frequent. And the abuse has often been “more severewhen directed at officials who were women, people of color, religious minorities, or LGBTQ.”

Now, you may be saying, “This is all the fault of the woke mob,” or Antifa or whatever imaginary group of progressives that the GOP conjures up as the latest boogeyman.

Well, keep in mind that “support for political violence runs mostly along party lines.” About one-third of Republicanssupport violence as a means to get their way, compared to 13% of Democrats. More specifically, Republicans who like Trump are nearly three times as likely as other Republicans to support political violence.

So yeah, we can safely say it’s that guy’s fault.

In this golden age of political bedlam, America is “grappling with the biggest and most sustained increase in political violencesince the 1970s.”

And as bad as the 1970s were, American political violence back then was “perpetrated more often by radicals on the left and focused largely on destroying property.” But the contemporary version of the Symbionese Liberation Army isn’t interested in blowing up an empty bank. Today’s political violence “is aimed at people — and most of the deadly outbursts … have come from the right.”

Basically, you are far more likely to be shot by a neofascist than by an animal-rights activist.

How grim is the potential for carnage during this year’s election season? Well, many election offices have installed “bulletproof glass and security doors amid threats of violence.”

For all of you who thought voting was a dull obligation, that is certainly one way to spice things up.

Welcome to the new version of American democracy.