‘Trump 2020” flags fly from poles and trees in front yards near our home. Their owners didn’t take them down after the election. They didn’t remove them after the of Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, even the ones waving Trump as Rambo with a pumped arm brandishing an assault rifle. The hand-lettered signs “Stop the Steal” are still nailed to roadside trees, echoing the convictions of those who turned from Trump’s stage to storm the Capitol.
The flag bearers were certainly aware of the national tensions before the Capitol was breached, and they must be tuned into them now. I assume they are okay with the attack and the cascade of revelations about it since it happened. Videos show insurgents in tactical equipment, coordinating their movement with hand signals and walkie-talkie apps on their mobile phones. Audio captured the mob chanting, “Find Pence,” then “Hang Pence.” Capitol and D.C. police officers report being assaulted with stun guns, poles carrying the Stars and Stripes, metal pipes, and their own batons. They report hearing the crowd shout, “Kill him with his own gun.” One officer killed, four invaders dead, more than 50 officers injured, two bombs defused, one gallows scaffold and a noose.
The Trump flags are still flying in the face of these and hundreds of similar details. Over 60 lawsuits were filed with state courts, federal district courts, and our Supreme Court in the two months following the election. Judges appointed by Republican and Democratic administrations heard these cases. All but one, in Pennsylvania, failed, and it was not related to fraud, but to the length of time a small number of voters were allowed to fix errors on their mail-in ballots. None of the lawsuits even alleged the fraud that was touted so often on social media. Most commonly the suits lacked the basic elements of proof to support their assertions.
On Jan. 19, Sen. Mitch McConnell, the most powerful Republican in Congress since 2008, bluntly summarized the reality: “The mob was fed lies. They were provoked by the president and other powerful people.”
The flags are still there. At the very least, I take them to mean this: “I vote Republican and I support the Capitol attack.” It is likely they say the same wherever they fly in New Hampshire. They would apparently be out of step in districts that elected Democrats to the N.H. House and Senate, but what do they mean in districts that elected Republicans? If you are one of those elected Republicans, what do they mean to you?
You can’t stay neutral. The lies and the provocations underscored by Sen. McConnell will flourish without constant rebuttal. A significant number of your voters don’t fly flags and they don’t believe Sen. McConnell or the outcomes in the court. They don’t believe Georgia’s Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a lifelong Republican, either. On Jan. 4, he directly contradicted the sitting president’s contention that Georgia’s election had been manipulated: “Respectfully, President Trump. What you’re saying is not true. The truth will come out.” It did, along with immediate death threats toward Raffensperger and intimidation of his family.
Despite all of it, many of your voters continue to believe the lies that the 2020 election was stolen by Democrats through widespread voting fraud. The election brought you and thousands of other local and national Republicans into office. The lies contend that a coordinated, covert operation was implemented, at an untold number of sites nationwide. This masterful plan was to defraud the vote so only Biden’s results were false? The rival Democrats you roundly dismiss as clueless. Seriously?
You can lay low about these lies and play the deception to your advantage. You’ll have a calmer time of it by keeping quiet around your voters, whatever you truly think. It’s the easiest way to stay in power right now in our state and past actions are a pretty stark signal that your party leadership has valued that above all else.
In the last biennium, most of you upheld the governor’s record-setting 57 vetoes in 2019, even when it meant voting against bills you had supported or sponsored. In 2020, many of you joined efforts to block the Legislature from even voting.
Those choices hobbled our state government. The 2020 election lies can hobble so much more and so insidiously, locally and nationally. You can join the Democrats to consistently counter those lies or watch them grow. Nothing is likely to stop you from playing the politics of power, except your conscience. The cost of that power won’t be immediately clear, and the full extent will be hard to imagine until it is too late. Just like the attack on the Capitol. That is not the Republican Party our nation needs.
(David Coursin lives in Northwood.)