On this All Hallow’s Eve, there can be no scarier story than the state of the body politic in America — which is teetering on the brink of disaster.
The worst horror villains in fiction are tame compared with the real prospect of Congress being taken over by MAGA Republicans, anti-democratic forces who either helped instigate the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, or worked to write off the attempted coup as no big deal.
On that day of infamy, they tried to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election based on the former president’s “Big Lie” of election fraud. They failed in their mission, but continued to keep the Big Lie alive in the years since, without offering a modicum of regret for what transpired.
They continued to do the former president’s bidding by failing to hold him accountable for his actions in the second impeachment trial, and opposing (and, in some cases, even directly obstructing) efforts to investigate the Jan. 6 attack.
They’ve held no one accountable for the death threats they made against former Vice President Mike Pence on Jan. 6, 2021. They dismissed and diminished the attempted murder of the husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi just last week, rationalizing the violence with their refusal to outright condemn it.
And here these MAGA Republicans stand on the verge of taking over the government because of gas prices or overhyped crime waves, or whatever other reason they use to scare voters.
But here’s the real terror that should frighten you.
Without a functioning democratic republic, this country won’t have a functioning economy.
Without a Congress willing to hold the insurrectionists accountable, this country won’t have law and order.
MAGA Republicans are not interested in governing; they are not interested in working with a president that many of them still refuse to acknowledge was duly elected by the voters in 2020.
They will obstruct any and all efforts to spur economic growth in this country.
They will gut Social Security and Medicare — the social programs you pay for every worked hour of your life — to fund tax cuts for the rich.
They will advance the culture wars, working to strip women of their reproductive rights; LGBTQ+ Americans of their right to pursue life, liberty and happiness; and people of color of the right to vote, and have it counted.
They will do nothing to stop gun violence in America.
And they will continue to look the other way as political violence escalates in this country, as radicalized, deranged individuals continue to lash out against their political opponents unafraid of facing any consequences for their actions.
How you and your fellow citizens vote on Nov. 8 will help determine whether our republic will survive this American horror story.
