This week, I watched, amazed, as one Gabriel Sterling, an elections official in Georgia, delivered an update that went beyond the mundane details of the recount. (Thank you, Georgia Public Broadcasting.) It was full of “cold, hard fury” (as one Twitter commenter described it). If you haven’t seen it, here is the GPB clip via Twitter.
You can read a transcript of his remarks on NPR here.
Like many who watched Sterling describe his outrage, I was impressed. He lashed out at the aggressive, intimidating, near-violent behavior of protesters attacking him, his boss, Secretary of State Raffenberger, and some poor Joe who happened to work for Dominion software. For one thing, you don’t often see public officials at an official presser spitting mad at the lectern. For another, you almost never see a Republican official contradict the whims of the current occupant of the White House.
What made it electrifying was his accusations of complicity on the part of his fellow Republicans. He called out — though not by name — anyone who condoned, or by failing to criticize out loud is effectively condoning, attacks on ordinary officials and employees going about their routine jobs. Doing democracy’s everyday labor by checking machines, counting ballots, certifying election results. That they do their work properly should be unremarkable. That anyone of either party would unjustifiably attack their integrity is remarkable. What made Mr Sterling’s shaming really remarkable was that his shame-list did include the president by name. Very brave, given the president’s penchant for inciting violent retribution! I do admire him for speaking out, so articulately. So passionately.
But.
But where was Sterling’s voice — or any Republican official’s voice — when Michigan Governor Whitmer was being threatened? Where was his voice — or any Republican’s voice — condemning the president’s rants about election fraud in Democratic-leaning precincts? Which Republican said it was wrong to threaten violence against poll-workers and elections officials in those places?
Ah. They were silent when the mob came for Democrats. Many Republican officials — including a member of the coronavirus task force, for god’s sake! — and right-wing media outlets egged those mobs on. More and more gasoline! Higher and higher flames of Republican-voting anger and vitriol! That was all fine, until the ire was directed at Republican officials. Now, only now, it is outrageous.
But here’s what I really don’t get
The next day, Ari Shapiro (on NPR’s All Things Considered) interviewed Mr Sterling after his presser blew up the internet. This is the exchange that caught my ear:
SHAPIRO: Given the anger and the passion that you’re expressing – and you’re saying they’re showing a lack of leadership – tell me about your decision to vote for them anyway.
STERLING: The future of the republic is at stake, and I, as a lifelong Republican, cannot conscience the idea of having every lever of government be with the Democratic Party right now when they have said they are going to pack the Supreme Court and do other things that I have spent my entire life fighting.
Well, here’s a conundrum. This gentleman was perfectly happy to have his party control all the levers of government, without any check or balance from the loyal opposition. He accuses President-elect Biden of preparing to do something he has already said he isn’t interested in doing. He also doesn’t enumerate the “other things” he’s spent his life fighting to prevent. (Perhaps NPR told him he only had five minutes of air time.)
What could those dreadful things, those unname-able, innumerable things be, I wonder? What does he fight to prevent unified Democratic power from achieving? Universal access to affordable health insurance? Keeping the government out of women’s health care? How about ensuring the wealthiest Americans pay their fair share of taxes? Or curbing polluting businesses so all people — including those Georgian Republican voters — have clean water to drink and clean air to breathe?
Yes, more than one commenter in Twitter praised Mr Sterling’s righteous rage. Many called for Sterling’s Republican brethren and sistren to grow a pair and say “It has to stop.”
But many more commenters also made this pointed observation:
What price loyalty to party? If you truly want to see people mend their ways, maybe you give them more than a tongue-lashing. Maybe you need to deny the people who behave against your values a seat at the table.
A brief addendum
This Seattle Times column by Danny Westneat underscores my point about whether honest Republican voters really want their candidates to pursue the tactics Sterling disdains:
It’s a sorry truism of modern politics that refusing to concede as you make baseless claims is far more profitable than owning the defeat with honor.
Both Trump and [defeated gubernatorial candidate Loren] Culp also are savaging other Republican officials for not running with their unsubstantiated fraud claims. Culp has gone after [WA Secretary of State, Republican Kim] Wyman and state House Minority Leader J.T. Wilcox, R-Yelm.
“Don’t be surprised if there are people in your front yard one day with bullhorns, Mr. Wilcox, the people are upset,” Culp’s manager, taunted on Monday.
Again: Should we care if the losers tear down their own party and grift up their supporters?
Wyman argued to me Tuesday that we should. She said Culp has been making hollow claims about the election system since the spring, and that it threatens something bigger than just the election system.
“This is a person who is in law enforcement, making serious allegations of felony-level crimes,” Wyman said. ‘He’s duty-bound to provide some evidence, or else it’s just destructive of the whole system of government and rule of law. And so far he has not.”
Banner photo by Manel Vazquez from Pexels