Today — the 11th day of the 11th month — is honored as Armistice Day or Veterans Day or Remembrance Day. It was established to mark the end of the First World War, at the 11th hour of this day. It has evolved as a day to work towards peace, and to commemorate all those who have given their lives to defend their countries and to preserve the values those nations hold dear.
Hostilities formally ended “at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month”, as agreed in the Armistice signed by Germany and the Allies.
The “11th hour” has also come to signify being on the brink of something. The Urban Dictionary offers: Used to describe the final moments of a given event, or situation where change is still a possibility. Right before a deadline. Used in a sentence: “Joe rode in on his white horse at the 11th hour to retrieve America’s dignity from a dumpster fire of bad behavior.”
The very definition of selfish
Today, when I hoped to read headlines about the selfless acts of military heroes and heroines, I read instead about incredibly selfish acts. Not by military leaders, but by dozens of Republican party leaders.
And what are they doing that I believe we should call “selfish?” They are willingly, nay willfully, ignoring the legitimate and already counted ballots that give their complaisant president the boot. They are willing to taint those ballots cast by American citizens for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris as somehow illegitimate. Suspicious. Phony. Fake.
The accusations of fraud from the president and his allies were noticeably absent from states where Mr. Trump and his fellow Republicans did well.
The New York Times, reporting on false claims of election fraud
The same ballots, I hasten to add, that re-elected them.
How is this selfish, if all Republicans are doing is trying to preserve someone else’s grip on power? Well, ask yourself how popular this populist president is with his base. Then ask how many sitting legislators owe their own popularity with voters to their willingness to go along with whatever lunacy flows from Donald Trump’s mouth and twittering fingers. If Republican elected officials appear to diverge from blind allegiance, they believe his followers will turn on them. In turn, they might lose their powerful positions. Poor dears would have to go back to lawyering or lobbying or making hay.
An election is not a game
Politics has been described as a game, the goal being to beat your opponent in a chesslike test of strategy. Now, the sole strategy is to repeat lies often enough to convince your voters you must be telling the truth.
For example, to claim that only the presidential row of dots on all those ballots is invalid is patently ridiculous. If Democrats could figure out how to rig ballots on this scale, why on earth wouldn’t they have flipped the Senate? Or maintained their House majority? Or — perhaps even more useful — flipped state legislatures, to give themselves the power of redistricting and eliminating Republican-favored gerrymandering?
What emerged in The Times’s reporting was how, beyond the president, Republicans in many states were engaged in a widespread effort to delegitimize the nation’s voting system.
To pretend there could be sufficient fraud to actually change election results is disingenuous. Republican and Democratic election officials around the country went on the record to say this claim, too, is absurd.
Furthermore, to deny American voters their voice — sent in properly by mail or absentee ballots or whatever their states called them — is shameful.
And finally, bringing our country to the brink of autocracy by disavowing only selected results of a freely held, fairly conducted election is deeply dangerous.
Do the right thing to truly honor America’s veterans today
Undermining the public’s confidence in impartial conduct of elections goes hand-in-hand with undermining trust in an independent media. (And we know what good work the current president has done in this area. His efforts put him in the same league as successful autocratic leaders before him.) Apparently, far too many Republicans appear willing to squander America’s trust in elections. Like war, this loss of trust will come at a high price. Restoring it will likely take years.
Veterans Day brings many high-flown speeches about honoring the noble sacrifices made by our veterans. How they died “to preserve America’s way of life and our democratic values.” Republican orators are very fond of wrapping themselves in the flag and making such pronouncements.
If Republicans wish to give more than lip-service to those sacrifices, they could start by honoring a core democratic value in America. The peaceful transition of presidential power.
Exactly. It was four years ago today that Obama invited Trump into the White House to discuss their transition.
He is going to have to be dragged out of the White House, which I would pay cash money to see.