By David Mark Greaves

After the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade, we naively rhapsodized how the Democrats would benefit, hold both houses of congress, codify Roe and pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act.  That sunny outlook has changed. New polls show inflation and crime as issues beating a traditional view of democracy.  And as the election gets closer, Republicans threaten to win Senate and House races.  This is putting a much darker possibility on the horizon.

If you’re following the events in Iran, you see citizen revulsion at the actions of an autocratic regime, taking to the streets because there is no hope for a change of rule. This is where we could be headed if the Republican election deniers win the midterm elections to the offices of the Governor, State Attorney General, Senator, or Representative in congress or state legislatures. 

If they win, in their democracy, they will be in the office to ensure the election of Donald Trump in 2024.  From there, we will quickly spiral into a full autocratic regime.  Elections will become meaningless, and videos of millions marching against tyranny by those of us trapped in “Blue” states will be entertainment breaks between commercials on Fox News.  The only effect on those in power will be a license to tighten their rule and thus be better loved by their base. 

This election will determine not only the fate of democratic rule in the United States, no small thing in and of itself, but it can also deal a death blow caused by climate change to millions of people and species, incite anger at the resulting worldwide mass migrations and harden autocratic rule worldwide. 

And all because a pathological person has tapped into the consciousness that considered slavery reasonable and worth fighting for.  An understanding of where they stood in the world, that allowed them to come by the thousands to public lynchings and enjoy personal moments of torture and rape.  This is where this “base” comes from.

We should have learned by now, given the Genocide of the Indigenous Peoples and 400 years of slavery, what White Christian Nationalists have done and are capable of.  If you want to know where this could be heading, look back and see where it’s been.  And look again at the resulting chaos of fundamentalist religious rule in Iran.  Why can’t it happen here?  

We have to vote like our lives depend on it. Republicans have said out loud that they will cut Social Security and Medicare.  That sounds impossible because who would think it okay for people to be old, poor, and sick?  See above and the lessons we should have learned about the Republican base, blind to their self-interests.

Vote like it’s the last chance it will mean something.  Send the call to vote out across all social media and send battleground candidates money as well as good wishes.  We don’t mean to sound frantic, but these races must be won. 

And winning is not impossible because I think the abortion issue is being vastly under-weighted in recent polls.  I believe that it will be the women who place the right to an abortion and medical services on one side of their thinking, and the current price of gas and inflation on the other, who will determine the way these midterms go.