Vilifying Democracy

I was listening to Sean Hannity tonight, and I suddenly understood where the entrenched right wingers intend to take the narrative of this election.

1. Obama is dangerous (associations)
2. ACORN is a machine for voter fraud
3. Obama and ACORN are one
4. The smear narrative might bend the polls enough to get it close enough to either game the voting machines or launch a fleet of a thousand lawsuits against states’ voting results
5. If Obama wins anyway, then The Election Was Stolen By The Dangerous Guy

ACORN, of course, isn’t bad. They registered about 1.3 million voters this cycle, and while a fraction of those are wack registrations, it’s not like the organization is going around trying to “steal” elections. They’re registering poor and minority voters. Obama’s own registration drive has been amazingly successful. Here in North Carolina new registrations have favored Democrats 4-1. States are overwhelmed trying to verify them all.

Republican efforts to suppress or depress the vote (as if the voters weren’t depressed enough) constitute a large part of their election strategy. Through media smears, bogus lawsuits, restrictive new voting laws and policies, and flimsy prosecutions, Republicans seek to get fewer people voting. Registering and getting people to the polls is a central part of Obama’s strategy. Republicans are working hard to vilify those registering the voters who may deliver a landslide for Democrats on November 4th. When they lose anyway, they’ll use it to attack the legitimacy of the vote itself. Not because of paperless voting machines or efforts to keep people away from the polls, but because too many people came out to vote.

When Obama wins this thing, you can expect the followers of Hannity and his ilk to unite the base with a rallying cry of Stolen Election. And having a bunch of nutballs thinking there was a stolen election is a lot different from having a bunch of liberals thinking there was a stolen election. Us? We want to legislate our way out of the problem. Them? The black-and-white worldview means they MUST SMASH!!

I find the whole scenario very scary.

Tell me I’m crazy.