America is at stake

NPR posted this video today. Here is what I wrote on the 50th anniversary of the March, in 2013.

This morning we are hearing that a 17-year-old self-appointed vigilante has been arrested for the murder of two Black Lives Matter demonstrators Kenosha, Wisconsin Tuesday night. We are also hearing Vice President Pence claim that the election is about whether America remains America.

Pence is right. If he and Donald Trump are re-elected, the United States will continue to deteriorate due to coronavirus, police violence against minorities, and an economy that generates wealth for only the few. This Administration has been committed to mistreating Latinx immigrants, blocking resettlement of refugees who flee their home countries due to violence, depriving millions of Americans of health insurance, suppressing voting, advantaging the wealthy, and loading the courts with incompetent and extremist judges. An Administration that claims to be in favor of law and order has generated more felony convictions for the President’s friends and supporters than any previous presidency.

No one in America any longer admits to being a racist. The days of George Wallace declaring “segregation now, segregation forever” are over. Still, it is white supremacy that permeates today’s ruling party. The President has declared himself a “nationalist,” which his supporters rightly understood to mean “white nationalist.” He has welcomed the support of blatant white supremacists. Last night, speakers at the convention lauded the police who shot a black man seven times in the back in front of his children. They failed to mention the homicidal 17-year-old vigilante. Anyone with brain cells understands what they are thinking: killing black people is necessary to maintaining white people’s hold on power, otherwise known as law and order.

I am certain that most Americans today do not agree with that perspective. Trump will lose the popular vote November 3, likely by a far larger margin than he lost by in 2016, about 2.7 million votes. The main question in this election is whether the added weight the Electoral College gives to mostly white, less populated states will grant Trump the margin he needs to get re-elected, despite the votes of a majority of American citizens. Two out of three elections won by Republicans since 2000 were won with a minority of popular votes.

There is another question, as a lawyer friend points out. If Trump finds the day after the election that he risks losing in the Electoral College, he will try to prevent Republican-governed states that voted for Biden from reporting their election results. This could block Biden from a majority in the Electoral College. That would throw the election into the newly elected House of Representatives, where each state has only a single vote. Despite the Democratic majority there, a majority of state delegations are Republican now and may continue to be in the new Congress, even if the Democrats win big in many states. So Trump has two chances to foil the popular will even after the election: in the Electoral College, and if he succeeds there, and in the new House.

So yes, Pence is right. America that re-elects Donald Trump will not be the America of “all men are created equal.” It will be an America in which a mostly white minority governs over the objection of the majority. George Wallace would be happy. I will not be.