BY EVAN WOLF

Before the Civil War, Southern conservatives used violence against minorities, abolitionists and even members of Congress. When it looked like democratic elections about slavery were not going to go their way in Kansas, they attacked the press, stuffed ballot boxes, claimed the whole thing was illegitimate, and threw in some racism and violence, just because.

Then of course, when the presidential election of 1860 wasn’t to their liking, they decided they were just done with democracy entirely.

Six-hundred-thousand dead Americans later, they were beaten into submission, but they never really disappeared. They were there through Jim Crow, using terror and violence against Black Americans to protect their local political authority.

They spread and metastasized around the country. Anti-immigrant, anti-union, antisemitic, and completely OK with using violence, these white men formed the backbone of the American far right. They have always cloaked themselves in fake Protestantism, populism and hostile patriotism, but they have been ever ready to abandon democracy.

However much the far right may have believed in their right to rule, they were kept in check for a century by strong civic institutions, a free press and judiciary, and responsible decent adults in the Republican Party.

Then in the 1990s, things fell apart. The line from Nixon’s racist “Southern Strategy” and Reagan’s “Government is the Enemy” rhetoric passes through the rise of talk radio and Newt Gingrich teaching Republicans to demonize their opponents, never compromise, and do whatever it takes to seize power, and it lands right on Timothy McVeigh blowing up the federal building in Oklahoma City.

Since then, Republicans have become far more likely to shut the government down than to pass a budget. They have become openly hostile to voting rights, civil rights and democracy. The playbook is to keep everyone armed, scared and angry. We have daily mass shootings, a 24-hour propaganda channel advising people to be fearful of immigrants and cities, and an “ongoing” criminal conspiracy to install a dictator in the White House.

Trump lost. He and all his lackeys knew that he lost. They lied about it and said there was fraud. His lawyers signed people up to be fake electors. They signed fraudulent documents. Trump called officials around the country and demanded that they commit fraud and treason. He offered to pay legal fees.

Trump called his violent supporters to D.C. and told them to fight like hell. His allies in Congress, like Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley, tried to help things along by objecting to the certification of electoral votes that they knew were legitimate. And then these traitorous dirtbags stormed the Capitol, our Capitol, and tried to take over our country.

Now they want to finish the job, and we’re sitting here debating whether Trump is suffering political persecution. Are his rights being sufficiently protected from the big, mean DOJ? We’re letting the husband of one of the coup-plotters decide whether there even was a coup for 14th Amendment purposes.

We have given the Republican Party every conceivable chance to fix this. They could have removed him during the insurrection. They could have voted to convict during impeachment. They could have soundly condemned the lies, violence and treason and chosen a new leader. They did not.

When the courts rule against Trump, they say it’s political and we should let the people decide. When the people decide, they claim fraud and try to throw it to MAGA allies in Congress. When Congress fails to install a dictator, they claim it’s a “states’ rights” issue. If all else fails, call out the monsters with guns.

We’re back in 1860, except this time we know what’s coming and we can stop it. It will be far less painful and expensive now than in two years.

— Wolf is a retired Army officer who divides his time between DeLand and New Orleans. For more, visit https://evancwolf.medium.com