Democracy could be at stake this election

Stymied at the ballot box, Republicans have now filed 57 lawsuits to limit voting rights in what appears to be an effort to overthrow democracy.

We witnessed how fragile our own democracy is when the violent Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol threatened and delayed the peaceful transfer of power.

However, instead of becoming penitent, many Republicans became more angry and delusional. Other polls reported that more than half of Republicans say they’ll vote for politicians espousing the Big Lie that Donald Trump won the 2020 presidential election. That’s particularly alarming because 291 Republican candidates running in Congressional and state races in the Nov. 8 midterm election are election deniers.

Most notoriously, Kari Lake, the Republican candidate for Arizona governor, refuses to say whether she’ll accept the election results. Like many other GOP candidates, Lake abides by the disproven Trump-MAGA mantra: When Republicans win, elections are fair, but when Democrats win, elections are stolen.

According to a Sept. 28-29 Axios-Ipsos poll, 39% of Republicans will blame election fraud if the GOP doesn’t win control of Congress in the midterm elections.

Fanatical election deniers not only endanger our democracy but also our lives. Last year they targeted members of Congress with a record 9,625 threats. Also ominous, U.S. federal judges received more than 4,500 threats and other inappropriate communications last year, according to Ronald Davis, director of the U.S. Marshals Service.

One fanatic, attempting to kidnap House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, broke into her home and assaulted her husband. Threats of election violence—heightened by armed men intimidating voters at mail-in drop boxes—may reduce election turnout. Social media and phone harassment and threats of violence against local election workers have also spiraled this year.

Our increasingly dysfunctional elections have diminished the respect foreign nations once had for American democracy. Instead of condemning violence by their supporters, most Republican politicians either remain silent or promote debunked conspiracy theories. Some, like Lake and Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, even joked about the attack with a hammer that fractured Paul Pelosi’s skull and injured his arms and hands.

Shockingly, a New York Times-Siena College poll released two weeks ago reported that only 7% of voters said the state of our democracy was the most important problem facing the country.

Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Jon Meacham believes Americans “face the greatest test of citizenship since the 1850s.”

When will our fellow Republican citizens have the character and courage to meet this existential challenge? And do our fellow Democrats have the dedication and determination to vote in large numbers for the rule of law and truth that democracy requires?

Paul Fein is a resident of Agawam, Mass.