Believe it or not, the election of 2020, up to and through Election Day, was pretty much a triumph of the American electoral system at all levels. At the height of a global pandemic, with hospitals overwhelmed, with corpses being kept in trailers, with supply chains fucked, we held a presidential election and that motherfucker was run amazingly well. Yes, there were the usual, preventable, bullshit problems of long lines at polling stations, especially in poor and non-white majority areas in Republican states. That's a huge bastard of a problem that needs fixing. But the combination of early voting and mail-in ballots, along with Election Day voting, worked. It should have been one of the great civic celebrations in US history, as in "Holy shit, we really did that. We really made it work. And it was the most secure election in this country possibly ever." We should have been cheering for election workers and officials at the local, state, and federal level like we cheered for essential workers. We should have been patting ourselves on the back for coming through and voting at the highest rate since 1900. We should have been beaming with pride at how awesome this country can be when it wants to be.
But we were not allowed that pride. We were not allowed that celebration. Instead, we were treated to an entire movement, led by the goddamn President of the United States, beating that triumph to death. They went after everyone with their lies about the "stolen" election. They fucked up the lives of those election workers and officials who had busted their asses to make sure they got the job done. And that's across the political board. They fucked up Republicans and Democrats in positions to run elections or count votes. They took this great moment and shit all over it. And then they took it further to shit all over the entire system, outlawing the things that made the election work, disenfranchising voters, shifting responsibility for elections to politicians who would undermine them.
You know, I watched as an election was actually stolen. That was in 2000. I know what that looks like. 2020 was a goddamn paragon of competency and effort. Yet Democrats didn't wage war on the entire election process (or even do as many reforms as should have been done once they were in power again, which, again, fuckin' Democrats).
When your country has done something undeniably, well, great and you disparage and destroy that, you hate your country. When it comes to elections, you can hate the voting results. Fuck, I've done that on any number of elections. You can hate the people who voted against your candidate. I will freely talk shit about Republican voters. You can hate anti-democratic things like the Senate and the Electoral College. I mean, fucking hell, those need to be amended out of existence. And, yeah, when your country does something shitty, you call it out and demand better. When your country's history is shitty, you say so and demand better. But when it's done something incredible? You can allow yourself to have a bit of patriotism. At the very least, it's okay to do a Jeremiah Johnson nod. Loving your country isn't the same as being blind about your country. So fucking nod and take a moment to say, "Nicely done." Then get back to solving the shit that's wrong. Relationships take work, goddamnit.
It's long been taken as an article of faith on the right that Democrats and the "left" (which has become such a nebulous term, along with "liberal" and "progressive" that it can describe anyone who leans even a little away from "fucking crazy") hate the United States. Trump says it all the fucking time. A regular line at his rallies of the damned is "We will throw off the sick political class that hates our country and they do hate our country." They think we hate in so many ways. Schools that accurately teach American history, with its good, its bad, and its very, very ugly, are seen as making children hate the country. If you believe diversity is a strength, you hate this country. And, in the eyes of Trump's devoted idiot hordes, if a grand jury and a court think he's committed crimes, then the judicial system hates America because, as you should fucking know, Trump is America and America is Trump. Or he's Jesus. Maybe both. It's hard to keep track anymore.
(Side note: When that fucking awful "God Gave Us Trump" video came out, all I could think was, "Well, let's hope this goes the same way as the last time God supposedly gave us someone." Although you'd need some pretty strong nails.)
They're running the same playbook that they've run since I can remember: they're the "real Americans" and we're the assholes who hate America. What's different this time is that they are using it to undermine our institutions. They love the country, but our election system is corrupt and must be destroyed because they didn't win in 2020. They love the country, but they they want to dismantle the federal government because something something Deep State. They love the country, but the justice system won't let Trump get away with rampant criminality and so it must be filled with cronies and hacks who will do his bidding. They love the country, but they want to throw out people who came here because they love this country.
The MAGA cretins don't love the United States. They love themselves and they love Trump. And that's it. Fuck everything else. Fuck your rights. Fuck your compassion. Fuck your laws. Fuck you if you don't love them and Trump, too. They hate us. They hate the country we want. They hate the present. They hate the future.
Trump had two great things that he had a hand in doing and any politician not Trump would have been proud to run on them: the successful 2020 election and the speed with which the Covid vaccination was developed. He should be running on hoping the 2024 election is even close to as successful as the 2020 one and on all the lives saved because of the vaccine. But he can't claim either of them because of the hate he's propagated for them both. So instead he runs on the hate and distrust.
Why bring this up? Isn't this shit obvious?
There's something else that's a regular line in Trump's stump speeches. He ends by saying all the things that "will" happen if he's elected again, and right there is this line: "We will love our country." It's just so clear. The love of country is conditional. It's transactional, like everything else in Trump's life. In other words, he's saying he doesn't love his country now and neither should his followers. That's why they're good with his tilt into dictatorship. It's the vile thrill of killing what others love.
(I know I've talked about the success of the 2020 election before, but it just sticks in my craw like a pubic hair I swallowed and I can't cough up.)
