Trump, Ginsburg and the democracy emergency: It’s here and minority rule is the culprit – USA TODAY

Jason Sattler, Opinion columnist Published 5:30 a.m. ET July 21, 2020 | Updated 9:39 a.m. ET July 21, 2020

Civil rights experts point to long wait times to vote as a sign of growing voter suppression in the U.S. Here's what to expect in the 2020 election. USA TODAY

Trump and Republicans have hacked our democracy beyond accountability and now they're one cancerous liver away from getting everything they want.

How did we end up with the rights of millions of Americans and the fate of American democracy dangling on one cancer prone, 87-year-old Supreme Court justice?

The same way we ended up with a president too busywith corruption, Confederate flags and cans of beansto fight a pandemic. A thoroughly compromised attorney general echoing the presidents lies about mail-in voting in order to preemptively attack the legitimacy of an election.And a cowardly Senate majority that refused its responsibility to remove this president days before the pandemic took a turn for the worse the first time.

The reason were drowning in multiple messes is embarrassingly simple: Minority rule.

Republicans have hacked our democracy beyond accountability. And now that theyre one cancerous liver away from getting everything they want, they have a leader who refuses to be checked and a party that refuses to check him.

Think about the extent of our government's disconnection from America.

The president lost the popular vote by the biggest percentage in 140 years. We have a Supreme Court majority of five justices appointed by Republican presidents elected from 1988 to 2016, though Republicans have only won the presidential popular vote twiceover that period as Democrats won it six times. And the Senate Republican majority represents 15 million fewer Americans than our "minority" Democrats.

A withering minority propped up by polluters, profiteers, and theocratscan maintain power despite repellent policies and a record of undeniable failures that swells daily, like new cases of COVID-19. This minority has figured out that as long as they hold the presidency, the Senateand Supreme Court, they can create a septic system of corruption that allows them to minimize the power of voters, especially the voters they dont want to even try to win over.

Minority rule has become such a given that we rarely even talk about how it warps our politics.

Almost no one doubts that Joe Biden will win the popular vote this November, possibly by millions of votes, yet everyone knows there is an undeniable possibility that Donald Trump could slip through the Electoral College to another term. And if he does, it could easily be due to restrictions on voting passed by legislative majorities in states like Wisconsin and North Carolina where Republicans hold more seats despite winning fewer votes.

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Feb. 10, 2020, at Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, D.C.(Photo: Patrick Semansky/ AP)

Any president with a party that has rigged reality for its pleasure would be dangerous at this point. But a failingTrump, who spent months contesting an election he won, presents an existential risk to democracy, especially when hes surrounded by a force field of minority rule.

You have to ask yourself why Trump, from "law and order" to defending Confederate monuments, is working so hard to pleasepeople who already support him and alienatethe rest and why heis actively opposing effortsto contain this pandemic. Some of it is strategy, sure. Hes always aimed to just be the president of the United White People,and COVID-19 disproportionately kills Latino and black Americans.

Voting Rights: Honor John Lewis with a Senate vote on the voting rights he fought for his whole life

But maybe theres something far more perilous at play.

Are the federal stormtroopers,who appear to be rounding up protesters in Oregon, a preview of voter intimidation tactics in November?And why does Trump keep rewarding Vladimir Putin, despite the possibility that Russia put bounties on the heads of our soldiers?Does it involve some promise for the upcoming election? Maybe this president isnt planning on leaving office, regardless of how this election turns out.

Who's going to stop him?

The Republican senators who acquitted him of an obvious crime and have surrendered their constitutional confirmation power to Trump and his troops of acting officials? The Republican legislatures that pioneered the recent hijacking of our democracy? Attorney General William Barr, whose belief in the limitlessness of Republican executive power may even exceed Trumps?

How about the Supreme Court? Will you bet your democracy on the court that let Trump get away with hiding his taxes until after the election?

Chief Justice John Roberts was the key vote in gutting the Voting Rights Act in 2013,and has been the fifth vote in a series of recent rulings, all wins for Republicans, that restrict voting and force people to risk COVID-19 infection to vote.

Trump reelection: The odds stood against Lincoln for reelection as the Civil War raged on. Will history repeat itself in 2020?

The emergency is here. And minority rule is the culprit.

All we can do now is get every American alive to turn in a ballot as soon as humanly possible. And then, should we be courageous and focused enough to get through this emergency, the real work begins.

The real work looks like restoring the Voting Rights Act in honor of John Lewis. It looks like statehood for Washington and the option of statehood for Puerto Rico. It could even look like a remaking of the Supreme Court so it resembles the will of the people.

And, should we be so lucky, it looks like Ruth Bader Ginsburg having the option to retire in peace.

Jason Sattler, a writer based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, is a member of USA TODAYs Board of Contributors and host of "The GOTMFV Show" podcast. Follow him on Twitter:@LOLGOP

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Trump, Ginsburg and the democracy emergency: It's here and minority rule is the culprit - USA TODAY