After the Georgia indictment, it’s way past time to acknowledge the silent majority of voters in the United States, all 81,282,916 of them, who waited lawfully and peacefully for any sign of justice after the Trump alleged crime syndicate tried to steal their votes and destroy their country because they didn’t like the outcome of the election.
These are the Biden voters. They don’t get write ups from diners or long think pieces about how they are behaving horribly because of their anxiety. They deserve recognition for their patience, for their lawfulness, for their steadfastness in the face of grave injustice and wrongdoing against their sacred right to vote.
Biden voters in primarily Black cities were harassed, lied about, intimidated, and maligned publicly and consistently for years by the Trump alleged crime enterprise in an effort to steal an election. They did not respond in kind.
Biden voters watched as their own Representatives in some swing states actively worked to disenfranchise their votes. They did not respond with violence.
Biden voters watched as a mob descended upon the U.S. Capitol trying to seize an election from them. They did not respond in kind.
Biden voters watched as multiple Republican witnesses came forward to prove that Trump and his allegedly criminal enterprise tried to steal an election they knew they had lost and incited the armed mob at the Capitol. Still, they waited patiently for the law to do its job.
The 2020 election went 51.3% for Joe Biden and 46.9% for Donald Trump. There was never a path for Donald Trump to win that election. Nor were he and his allegedly criminal enterprise ever able to prove any of their claims about widespread election fraud. Trump’s own handpicked Attorney General William Barr called his claims baseless at the time, saying the DOJ hadn’t uncovered evidence of widespread voter fraud.
Still, the Biden voters watched as the Trump team continued trying to overturn the election, to seize an election it had lost, weaponizing the power of the presidency at every turn to undermine democracy and to steal the most sacred right to vote from citizens who often overcame great obstacles during a pandemic to cast their ballot.
Without any sign of justice, they mobilized and organized in the 2022 midterms to show up once again, showing a profound faith in a system that has historically not been their friend.
Until 1870, only white men were allowed to vote in the United States. Minorities and women fought very hard for the right to vote, including dying for it. Still, they remained peaceful as these criminal thugs tried to steal their votes.
First, the Fifteenth Amendment in 1870 gave voting rights to all men on paper, but in reality, many Black Americans were still denied the right to vote in a variety of ways including poll taxes, literacy tests and intimidation, which I can attest was still happening in Georgia in the 2008 election. Americans died for the right for Black people to vote in the 1960s. The poll tax was finally prohibited in federal elections, and then, after the prolonged courageous effort of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., John Lewis, Diane Nash, Ella Baker, and others, we finally got the federal protections of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. That wasn’t even 60 years ago.
There is a racial sickness in this country that is as clear and ugly today as it was in the 1960s and as far back as when we kidnapped the first African American and enslaved them. How can it be missed that the Trump criminal enterprise targeted *these voters* and lied about them so much as to foment their mobs to descend on a Detroit vote counting facility chanting “Stop the count!”
One of the racists was wearing a horror mask as they intimidated election workers. “An election supervisor reported the man referred to slavery using using racist language as well. He was wearing a horror mask ‘similar to the masks worn by the villains in the movies ‘Halloween’ and ‘Friday the 13th’,’ which did not properly cover his mouth.”
In case it’s not clear yet, Republicans proceeded that attack by asking a judge to toss out tens of thousands of Detroit voters’ ballots, without a shred of evidence of cause.
I’ve been writing about the racism in these attacks since they began. But many in the media seem to have just become aware of this fact, which is discouraging and again, shows a bias against the non-Trump voters’ stories mattering. I don’t write that to condemn, but rather in hopes, as always, of drawing attention to the quiet patriots whose rights have been assaulted repeatedly and consistently.
For decades, women protested to be given the right to vote. Finally, on August 18, 1920, the 19th amendment was ratified and granted women the right to vote. The suffragettes were jailed and sometimes abused in their fight for this most precious right. And still, not all women had the right to vote. Decades of further work went into getting Black women and other minority women the right to vote.
And again, who are the people who were targeted the most by the Trump crime enterprise? Black voters. Black voters and Black women election workers in Georgia like Shaye Moss and Lady Ruby Freeman, whose testimony for the 1/6 Committee was a must watch, as she asked, “Do you know how it feels to have the President Of The United States target you?”
Donald Trump and his criminal enterprise targeted these voters and election workers knowingly with lies. Now criminally indicted in the Trump plot, Rudy Giulani finally admitted this in court in July.
[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]Did the Democratic voters storm the Capitol when Donald Trump barely squeaked out a win with the help of a hostile foreign power? No. They lawfully protested, they organized, they used their sacred right to vote to have their voices heard.[/perfectpullquote]
And still, they are ignored. Their stories are dismissed. Their rights being trampled on is almost expected and they are expected to just go along with this. They have been condemned by some media commentators for being angry, in fact, even as further rights were stolen from them.
Did they, in any organized, national campaign, try to keep others from voting? No. Did they go to election locations and try to intimidate people? No. Did they try to stop vote counting? No. Did they try to get white Republican men tossed off of voting rolls? No.
The media is obsessed with the Trump voter, partly it seems to me because the media is usually located in a liberal city and they are fascinated by what they don’t understand and after decades of Republicans gaming the ref by accusing the media of ignoring “everyday Americans” – which no one ever questions as referencing Republicans only – they feel guilt about being “elites” and see the white working class men as Real Americans they should worship.
But there are many other “Real Americans” who also built this country, who spilled blood for this country, who serve this country, who heroically volunteer in our elections and teach our children, but these Americans are ignored. It’s ironic that I’ve been telling that story for years, from a majority Trump district, although I grew up in suburban and real Detroit, and worked to register voters in Georgia during Obama’s first campaign for the presidency.
For years, we’ve heard that Trump shouldn’t be prosecuted because it will help Trump get elected and or his supporters will become violent. This framing is so clueless it’s risible. When you hear a media commenter giving this weight, it means they don’t understand the real world.
In the real world, non-Trump voters have been dealing with the threat of violence in their communities since his first campaign. Many of them are afraid to put up a sign that says “Kindness matters,” lest it give away their anti-Trump position, and tragically, some have been intimidated by Trump thugs into not casting their votes.
[perfectpullquote align=”right” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]In the real world, non-Trump voters have been dealing with the threat of violence in their communities since his first campaign. Many of them are afraid to put up a sign that says “Kindness matters,” lest it give away their anti-Trump position, and tragically, some have been intimidated by Trump thugs into not casting their votes.[/perfectpullquote]
But also, is this really the argument our media is willing to accept as a viable political position by one of two major political parties — that we should be terrorized into allowing Trump to get away with his attacks on the voting rights of a majority of Americans? — that the rights of a majority of Americans should be ignored because Donald Trump doesn’t like to lose?
The Biden voters have been predominantly lawful, they have peacefully endured this specific attack by Trump’s alleged criminal enterprise for years. They have not had their stories amplified. Instead, the focus is usually on the entitled supporters of the wealthy, white man who lost an election and tried to destroy the United States because of it. Somehow there is almost an assumption that these folks had a right to try to steal the votes of the majority of Americans. Their right to be heard, their precious free speech, is a common subject of media debate.
We should instead be focusing on the precious right to vote and those who have followed the rules and doubled down to try harder when that wasn’t good enough, and keep coming back as patriotic participants in this democracy that they clearly love and want to participate in. They are the fighters for justice and freedom. They deserve our praise, our thanks, and our recognition.
Biden voters waited two and a half years for any show of justice. Justice is simply asking the legal system to acknowledge that the attempt to steal their votes was illegal. Donald John Trump and his alleged criminal enterprise are innocent until proven guilty, but are now being held accountable in some measure for their attempts to disenfranchise 80 million plus voters.
Finally, this is what justice looks like.
Let’s raise up the stories of the real heroes of the several years — the voters who have somehow managed, even when all faith in their country was gone and when it seemed like no one was going to even stand up for their basic rights, to hang in there waiting for the legal system to find a hero to do its job.
It is not a surprise that the hero is a Black woman from Georgia.
To the real Silent Majority, we see you. Your patriotism matters. Your faith and loyalty to a country that has not always given back what you deserve are commended. On behalf of our democracy, we thank you and we salute you.
Sarah has been credentialed to cover President Barack Obama, then VP Joe Biden, 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, and exclusively interviewed Speaker Nancy Pelosi multiple times and exclusively covered her first home appearance after the first impeachment of then President Donald Trump.
Sarah is two-time Telly award winning video producer and a member of the Society of Professional Journalists.
Connect with Sarah on Post, Mastodon @PoliticusSarah@Journa.Host, & Twitter.
- Philly DA Warns Anyone Planning to Play Militia ‘F Around and Find Out’ - Mon, Nov 4th, 2024
- Opinion: Republicans Kill Another Woman with Abortion Ban as Pregnant Teenager Dies - Fri, Nov 1st, 2024
- Musk Flouts the Law with No Repercussions in Pennsylvania - Thu, Oct 31st, 2024
