The share of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents who believe that President Joe Biden’s 2020 election win was not legitimate has ticked back up, according to a new CNN poll fielded throughout July. All told, 69% of Republicans and Republican-leaners say Biden’s win was not legitimate, up from 63% earlier this year and through last fall, even as there is no evidence of election fraud that would have altered the outcome of the contest.
How many of those 70% knows it’s a lie, but went along with it. There’s a reason why I support rejecting Republicans and I would go as far as not funding red states along with boycotting businesses residing from those states.
That would backfire spectacularly. We must always keep in mind that Republican policies keep their citizens in a state of disinformation and dilapidation. If your life is already miserable, denied education and resources so as to never escape what few jobs are left, you’ll latch onto anyone promising salvation. That is the whole reason we saw J6ers go as far as they did.
The long road has the best chances of keeping the country in one piece. Dispelling falsehoods piece by piece, enacting programs that modernize not just infrastructure but local economies as well. Bring the success of the coasts inward to lands exploited and abandoned by corporations and their elected goons. As difficult as it sounds, we’re looking at another reconstruction era for those kneecapped by decades of Republican control.
I also support the rising tides raise all boats approach. There is so much hate for these poor, white, uneducated, disenfranchised swaths of middle America. It is too easy to just say they deserve what they get, instead of dragging them (kicking and screaming I might add) into the 21st century. Even if many of them are a lost cause, we shouldn’t be so keen on throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
I see no realistic solution that does not include fighting Republicans for the hearts and minds of the average working class American. This is why Democrats continue to struggle even with overwhelming statistical advantages. The corporatist wing of the Democrats continue to block the kind of New Deal, Social Democracy, Keystone policies that actually win elections.
You change the material conditions of millions of people, and see how fast they jump on board. Most people cannot see the forest through the trees when they are drowning in the inevitability of automation and skilled labor killing their livelihood. We need to force the Democrats to take bold action to better the lives of the whole country, or we will suffer the consequences of political inaction. It starts with the local first. The bottom up, grassroots approach can work. It just takes time, determination, and a desire to refocus the agenda away from culture war naval gazing and onto real world solutions.
Keep fighting the good fight!