Trump Intensifies the Tyranny of the Minority

The death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is shining a bright light on the reality that America is currently ruled by a minority government supported by a minority of citizens thanks to the Electoral College and the two senators per state structure of the U.S. Senate.  Republican senators plan to ram through the appointment of a new justice to the Supreme Court despite the fact that 62% of Americans oppose the move. Tellingly, Republican Senators in 2018 received 18 million fewer votes than Democrats yet claim they have a mandate that simply doesn't exist. Then there is Donald Trump who lost the popular vote by roughly 3 million votes who spreads hate and division with nearly every breath he takes. The question becomes when will the majority of Americans say "no more" and demand that their views and desires become the priority rather than those of a dwindling white population that clings to racism, religious extremism, and general backwardness?  Perhaps Bernie Sanders was right, we need a political revolution.  A column in the Washington Post looks at Trump's divisiveness and the Senate Republican's efforts to thwart the will of the majority.  Here are column excerpts:

President Trump has blamed just about everybody but himself for the country’s multiplying woes: China, the World Health Organization, Democrats, his predecessor, his opponent, governors, mayors, the press, scientists, antifa and his own appointees. So it was perhaps inevitable that we would arrive at this point: Trump’s White House is now blaming the voters.

[W]e have a divisive president. The voters aren’t divisive. . . . There is partisan polarization, but voters aren’t really divided on the issues. They simply don’t like what Trump is doing.

This isn’t the first time Team Trump has blamed voters. Back in 2015, when Ben Carson was surging in the Iowa Republican caucuses, Trump said Iowans were fools for believing a personal story Carson told.  “How stupid are the people of Iowa?” Trump asked. “How stupid are the people of the country to believe this crap?”

The American people are not stupid, and they are not with Trump. The “silent majority” Trump often refers to is in fact a boisterous minority artificially amplified by the electoral college, the Senate’s structure, gerrymandering and the Supreme Court’s rollback of voting rights. Trump lost the popular vote by 3 million in 2016 and he has been below 50 percent public approval for his entire presidency.

And what of the Senate majority, which now claims to be fulfilling a mandate from the American people? Senate Republicans received 18 million fewer votes than Democrats in 2018, and 10 million fewer votes in 2016.

Vast majorities of Americans are concerned about the coronavirus, support the mandatory wearing of masks and say they avoid crowds. Trump mocks mask-wearing, holds mass rallies and boasts about playing down the virus. Monday he falsely said covid-19 “affects virtually nobody” under 18. Meanwhile, The Post reports, his Pentagon spent $1 billion of pandemic-relief funds on military hardware.

Americans overwhelmingly oppose choosing a new justice now. A Reuters/Ipsos poll finds 62 percent, including half of Republicans, saying the winner of the election in six weeks should make the choice.

Nearly 90 percent of Americans, of all stripes, have pleaded for more civility from public officials. Yet this week, Trump attacked Ginsburg’s granddaughter three days after the justice’s death and claimed that Democratic leaders had ghostwritten Ginsburg’s dying wishes. Trump also celebrated the “beautiful thing” of authorities shooting a television correspondent with a rubber bullet at a nonviolent protest.

Most Americans disapprove of Trump’s handling of the pandemic. Trump gives himself an “A-plus.”

Two-thirds of Americans have at least a fair amount of trust in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Trump and political appointees have attacked the CDC director’s remarks about vaccines, attempted to edit the CDC’s scientific bulletins and accused CDC scientists of “sedition.” Now the CDC has retracted (correct) information it had posted three days earlier warning about airborne viral spread.

About three-quarters of Americans believe citizens should be allowed to vote by mail — even after Trump tried for months to undermine it as fraudulent.

Americans favor the continuation of enhanced unemployment benefits and pandemic aid to states. Trump and his allies demanded cuts to the former and refused the latter.

More than 8 in 10 Americans insist that Obamacare’s protections for those with preexisting conditions remain in place. Yet the Supreme Court is poised to invalidate Obamacare, at Trump’s request, including protections for preexisting conditions. Obamacare may well go down because of the vote of the new justice that Republicans plan to jam through to confirmation against the wishes of the American people.