So I’m writing this on Monday, December 14, 2020. At this moment, the Electoral College is casting ballots and, if all goes according to plan, will shortly confirm Biden’s election. But, clearly, the Trumpsters are going to make trouble. Already, Stephen Miller has gone on TV to say that an alternative group of Electors will meet and send their votes to Congress in opposition to those of the official ones.
Who these “alternative” Electors are and why Congress should pay the slightest heed to them is something that Mr. Miller did not bother to explain. But, that doesn’t matter. It is one more bit of theater by which the GOP will attempt to cast doubt on the last election, and elections in general.
While I expect (and pray) that they will fail in this, still, if they succeed, then I can only hope that they get exactly what they deserve. For here’s the curious thing: the history of the last century shows rather clearly that those who work to bring about a dictatorship are frequently the first to fall victim to it. (For example, Trotsky and the Old Bolsheviks; Fritz Thyssen, Gregor Strasser, Ernst Rohm, and a host of German conservatives; Mao’s many early supporters who found themselves, later, “allowed” to jump from tall buildings…)
No, such things are not inevitable. And, yes, we must beware of false parallelism. We are not Russia, Germany, or China…
Still, if I were Miller and others of his ilk…
I would be terrified of my own success.
This is a composite image which I produced using Photoshop. The actual, original photo of Stephen Miller is credited as follows: By Gage Skidmore [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons - File:Stephen Miller by Gage Skidmore.jpg, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=56212271
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