US faces greatest peril since Civil War as Republicans scheme to retain power - opinion

I am still at pains to internalize what sinister schemes Republican leaders in the House and Senate are concocting only to retain power, at whatever cost to the country and its future. 

The Republicans are terrified of the changing demographics of this country. Many demographers have concluded that by the year 2045, whites will become a minority in the country, with Hispanic, Black and Asian Americans who overwhelmingly vote for Democrats becoming the collective majority. In reality, the Republican Party is already the minority party and their numbers will continue to shrink with the demographic evolution.

Indeed, if the presidential elections were truly free and fair and not skewed through the grossly uneven representation created through the Electoral College – which gives outsized influence to the least-populated states – it would be most unlikely that another Republican president could set foot in the White House. For this reason, the Republican Party will resort to any means, regardless of how racist and corrupt they may be, to tamper with elections in order to change their outcomes in their favor.

Instead of adjusting to the demographic reality facing the United States and developing new policies and socio-economic programs to meet the new challenges and attract more Hispanic and Black voters to their ranks, the Republican Party has chosen to resort to extreme conservatism and white supremacy to shield their turf.

As of December 15, 2021, 32 bills across 17 states were passed that interfere with electoral administration, creating criminal and civil penalties for election administrators and public officials. 

Florida, Georgia, and Virginia created electoral fraud law enforcement units after the 2020 election, despite no widespread fraud in any of these states. A Wisconsin GOP election commissioner bragged about the state’s voter suppression efforts against Black and Hispanic voters. 

A new Arizona law passed in March 2022 requires documented proof of citizenship in order to vote. In 2021, restrictions passed in Florida and Georgia add barriers to voting by mail, restrict the use of ballot drop boxes and more. On a federal level, in 2018 the Supreme Court ruled in favor of an Ohio law that removes individuals from voter rolls if they haven’t voted in a two-year period, even if they remain eligible to vote.

Other than enacting these new laws and rules to impact election results in favor of white people, Republicans need a popular leader who is shameless and a bigot like former president Donald Trump, who is openly a white supremacist and will do anything to regain power. Indeed, it is not for the love of Trump, who a growing number of Republican leaders despise, but for the millions that follow him who have been deliberately misguided and misinformed but still bask in his lies and whose votes the Republican Party needs to win an election.

THE FACT that Republican leaders cling to such a loathsome character boggles the mind. But to grasp the magnitude of how corrupt the GOP has become and how low it has descended by following this irredeemable criminal, a quick look at Trump’s character and misdeeds will tell the whole sad story.

Trump and his indictments, lawsuits and convictions

In this year alone, Trump has faced multiple indictments and civil lawsuits. In April, he was charged with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in the first degree (all related to hush payments to Stormy Daniels). The following month, Trump was found liable for sexually abusing E. Jean Carroll in 1996. This month, he was indicted on 37 felony counts related to mishandling classified documents. A civil case against Trump for fraudulently overvaluing the company’s assets and his personal net worth is scheduled to begin in October. 

Last December, the Trump Organization was convicted on 17 counts and was fined $1.6 million over a 15-year tax fraud scheme. And in November 2016, Trump settled a lawsuit against Trump University and paid $25 million over fraud allegations.

In addition, there are still other ongoing investigations against Trump which likely will lead to new indictments, including in Fulton County, GA, where Trump attempted to illegally overturn the 2020 election result. He is also being investigated for his role behind the January 6, 2021 insurrection. Indeed, none of the above can come as a shock. He is the only president in American history to be impeached twice – in 2019, on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress and in 2021, on charges of insurrection related to January 6 (on which 57 Senators voted to convict, including 7 Republicans, just shy of the 60 votes needed). The man’s vacuous narcissism simply knows no bounds: Every time he opens his mouth, he brings shame on the United States.

More alarmingly though, Trump embodies the darkness of nihilism; he is the very personification of a solipsist outlook on the world, which cares for nothing but oneself and which values nothing but self-aggrandizement. The truth is that he is a pitiful creature, whose loathsomeness and moral decrepitude should serve as a warning to all that a life pursued solely for the sake of one’s own power and privilege is a life that leads necessarily to ignominy and disgrace.

What is even more depressing is that the majority of Republicans continue to rally to Trump’s defense. Rather than acknowledge the overwhelming evidence against him, they choose to follow him blindly, insisting that his woes are a politically motivated witch-hunt when in fact it is that these Republicans are the ones who are haunted by their fear of never gaining power again.

Speaker Kevin McCarthy, the leading Republican in Congress (third in line for the presidency, no less) had the beastly audacity to tweet in reaction to Trump’s latest indictment, “I, and every American who believes in the rule of law, stand with President Trump against this grave injustice.” McCarthy reveals by this tweet that he endorses the criminal behavior of Trump and could not care less for the rule of law and the future of this great nation. He is just like his master, a bald-faced liar and hypocrite who put to shame the position of Speaker of the House of Representatives. And this is the man standing at the helm of the Republican party.

THE ONE most terrifying aspect of the felonious Republican conduct that must be emphasized is that the unauthorized disclosure of classified documents could put at risk the national security of the United States and the security of our friends and allies, the safety of the US military and the human sources and continued viability of sensitive intelligence collection methods. This is the highest of the Republican party’s moral and political bankruptcy and constitutes nothing less than a betrayal of the US and the commitment that every congressman is sworn to uphold to protect America from foreign and domestic enemies.

Indeed, the Republican Party has become naught but an organization dedicated to tearing down whatever vestiges of decency remain in this country. This is not the Party of Lincoln that chose to preserve the Union at all costs, but the party that chose to destroy it and would worship the devil, the likes of Trump, who will stop short of nothing to use the Republican party, just as the party uses him to reclaim power. This is the horror of this symbiotic relationship which poses the greatest menace to America today, which must be arrested.

Trump has not only utterly corrupted the soul of this nation; he represents and epitomizes the moral, epistemic, and spiritual decay of America. He is the single most naked symptom of our ruination as a country that values truth, justice, the rule of law, and the light of reason.

If the Republican Party continues to travel this perilous path, it will be tantamount to political suicide, and they have Trump to thank for the party’s demise as we know it.

The writer is a retired professor of international relations at the Center for Global Affairs at NYU. He teaches courses on international negotiation and Middle Eastern studies.