Almost a full two years after his loss, former president Donald Trump continues to refuse to accept the results of the most secure election in the history of elections. Countless civil and criminal investigations surround the former president, including alleged tax fraud in Manhattan, racketeering and fake electors in Georgia, espionage in Florida, campaign finance violations, witness intimidation, obstruction of justice, and the Department of Justice’s widespread investigation into the former president’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Throughout these investigations, Trump continues to fuel his extremist movement, endorsing candidates who agree with the “Big Lie,” encouraging supporters to harass and attack government officials working against the former president, and even acknowledging the uproar he is causing in a message to the Attorney General:
“President Trump wants the Attorney General to know that he has been hearing from people all over the country about the raid. If there was one word to describe their mood, it is ‘angry.’ The heat is building up. The pressure is building up. Whatever I can do to take the heat down, to bring the pressure down, just let us know.”
Yet his message continues to spread, and he continues to garner support from Americans and from fellow Republicans. Across the country, people are empowered by Trump’s claims, choosing a variety of different ways to support their former president.
Some are choosing to run for elected office, with MAGA candidates running at all levels of government, including senators, governors, attorneys general, and most importantly, secretaries of state. With 43 election-denying candidates in 27 states advancing to the general election, there is a good likelihood that our future elections will be controlled by
people who do not believe in democracy. One of these candidates, Republican nominee for Michigan AG and Trump endorsee Matthew DePerno, is currently under investigation for allegedly tampering with voting machines during the 2020 election. All of this while running for the position of the top prosecutor in Michigan.
Others however are choosing more violent means of expression. On one end of things, armed supporters are gathering outside FBI buildings protesting the treatment of the former president. Supporters continue to threaten FBI and DOJ officials involved in the investigations, including the federal judge currently assigned to the former president’s case. Further, more extreme supporters are acting out their violence, including the domestic terror attack on the FBI field office in Cincinnati, and the QAnon supporter who attacked his family and was killed in a shootout with police.
And instead of suppressing these efforts, the former president is continuing to pour gasoline on the flame of election denial. He continues to lie on his social media platform Truth Social almost daily, spouting lies about the election and the investigations surrounding his affairs. He is gradually becoming more accepting of QAnon, recently embracing the movement on Truth Social and at his rallies. The former president knows what his supporters are willing to do, yet he leaked the unredacted version of a document containing the names of the agents working on his case, encouraging their harassment. He called President Biden an “enemy of the state,” alongside criticism of the entire executive branch’s corruption.
All of this while continuing to deny the results of the 2020 election, and without a single modicum of repudiation for the acts of his supporters. In his letter to the Attorney General, the former president asked if there is anything he could do “to bring the pressure down.” Trump knows what he needs to do, and is actively doing the exact opposite, silently supporting the violent and anti-democratic actions of his MAGA cult.
This deafening silence is giving rise to a new movement in America, cementing the Republican party’s fate, not as the party of Lincoln, but the party of Trump. Republicans, with and without Trump, continue to undermine the will of the public. They push to gerrymander states in their favor, enforce voting policies that prevent minorities from voting, promote candidates who believe in the big lie, and continue to support the supreme court’s efforts to overturn cases on abortion, gay marriage, contraception, interracial marriage, and election integrity. The party has become afraid of Trump, and the massive base of support that he wields, and it has led them to become a party that is opposed to the ideals of America and the people within.
These threats are all gravely concerning to our democracy, and they leave the country teetering on the edge of a cliff. And all of this before Trump has even announced his bid for the presidency, an announcement which will likely bring even more instability and division within American democracy.
America is once again approaching a crossroads, and it is up to us to decide which path to take. Just two years before the breakout of the American Civil War, the soon-to-be first Republican president of the United States Abraham Lincoln said:
“A house divided against itself cannot stand …
I do not expect the Union to be dissolved — I do not expect the house to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided.
It will become all one thing or all the other.” Make sure you make your voice heard in November, because this may be the last time anyone will be listening.
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