“A Reuters/Ipsos poll found that 52% of Republicans thought that Trump had ‘rightfully won’ the election. A Politico/Morning Consult poll served up an even more alarming result: 70% of Republicans don’t believe the election was ‘free and fair.’ A Monmouth University poll found that 77% of Trump supporters attribute Biden’s victory to fraud. An Economist/YouGov poll found that 4 in 5 of Trump‘s supporters believe fraud changed the outcome nationally.”
This is why Americans cannot simply “come together” (thus dissensus in both civil society and legislative bodies becomes intractable, a fact Liberal democratic theory has never fully come to grips with outside the resort to violence) and this is why the glib rhetoric about “bipartisanship” is misleading if not illusory and dangerous. As long as the pathological cult of Trump defines the Republican Party, there is virtually no prospect of working with Republicans. This explains why it is essential that the Democrats have a majority in the Senate. Biden cannot democratically govern solely by Executive Orders, Proclamations, and Memorandums. Negotiating, bargaining, and even logrolling is well-nigh impossible under these conditions, let alone debates, conversations, discourse and deliberations, at least insofar as these are governed by fundamental norms of communication, minimal logical standards, and democratic rules and procedures. One of the worlds that rules the hearts and minds of a considerable portion of the population (both citizens and those that represent and lead them) is configured and distorted by self-deception, wishful thinking, states of denial, illusions, delusions, and phantasies. There is no possibility for drawing a viable or meaningful Venn diagram, as at least one of our sets is adrift in space, no longer susceptible to minimally rational motivations and ends, wallowing in both formal and informal fallacies, lacking the capacities and constraints of all rhyme and reason. Our Liberal democratic ship of state is lost at sea and taking on water.
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