There are many reasons why Democrats lose elections. Seven have already been offered. Here are two more. 

Reason #7: Republicans learned long ago that most voters aren’t moved by appeals to their rationality. Instead, what counts with them is emotions—such as fear.

From the end of World War II in 1945 to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Enemy of Choice for Republicans was the Communists.

Millions of Americans were so pathologically frightened by “The Red Menace” that any Democratic politician libeled as a “Communist,” “Comsymp,”  “fellow traveler” was considered as at least a potential traitor, if not an actual one.

Among the Republican politicians who rode to victory on a wave of Red hysteria: Richard Nixon and Joseph McCarthy 

Even as late as 1992, President George H.W. Bush and the Republican establishment charged that Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton might be a KGB plant. Their evidence: During his tenure at Oxford University in 1969-70, Clinton had briefly visited Moscow—and thus might have been turned into a “Manchurian Candidate.”

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Right-wingers had to settle for attacking their opponents as “liberals” and “soft on crime.” But these charges didn’t carry the same weight as “Communists” and “traitors.”

Then, on September 11, 2001, Republicans—and their Right-wing supporters—at last found a suitable replacement for the Red Menace: The Maniacal Muslim.

The World Trade Center on September 11, 2001

Led by President George W. Bush, Republicans used fear of Muslims to con and bully the nation into a needless, bloody, budget-busting war on Iraq. 

Democratic are generally unwilling to fight fire with fire. Thus, Michelle Obama in 2016: “When they go low, we go high.”

Reason #8: Republicans consistently bring brass knuckles to a prizefight.

Example 1: Republicans are now organizing a nationwide effort to suppress voter turnout among blacks and liberals.

Yet Democrats are not making any similar effort to suppress Right-wing turnout. Nor is the Biden Justice Department indicting those Republicans responsible for their anti-democratic efforts.

Example 2: On January 6, 2021, President Donald Trump—supported by at least 144 Republicans in the House and Senate—incited a treasonous coup to remain in office. This despite the overwhelming evidence that he had lost the 2020 election to Joseph Biden.

More than three years have passed, and not one Republican House or Senate member supporting such treason has been indicted for that infamy. Let alone tried, convicted and imprisoned. 

Had this occurred, the Biden administration’s agenda would by now be far more advanced than it is. Republicans who are raising funds for re-election campaigns would instead be raising them to pay huge legal bills.

They would have far less time to focus on plotting to overthrow democracy in November. Instead, their attention would be increasingly focused on their upcoming trials for treason.

Reason #9: Since 2021, the Biden administration has tolerated Donald Trump’s campaign of lies.

Trump continues to spread The Big Lie that he was robbed by a vast conspiracy—although not one of the more than 60 cases his lawyers brought before Federal judges proved this true.

Moreover, he has openly and repeatedly threatened to seek “vengeance” on Democrats who have opposed him—starting with President Biden and his family.

A major goal of “Project 2025,” designed by the Right-wing Heritage Foundation, is to make the director of the FBI personally accountable to a Right-wing President—just as the head of the KGB is personally accountable to Vladimir Putin.   

There can be no doubt that if Trump wins re-election in 2024, American democracy as it has existed for 248 years will vanish.

Trump should have been indicted for treason by no later than mid-2021. Even then, the evidence was overwhelming that he had instigated the coup attempt.

Yet it wasn’t until November 18, 2022, that Jack Smith was appointed Special Counsel to oversee the criminal investigations into Trump’s role in the January 6 Capitol attack and his illegal storage of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate. 

And Smith has allowed Trump-appointed Florida Judge Aileen Cannon to indefinitely postpone the stolen documents trial. 

Meanwhile, Trump has won repeated delays in his trial for inciting a violent attack on the Capitol, guaranteeing he will not be prosecuted for this crime before the 2024 election—if ever.

To bring down Mafia “boss of all bosses” John Gotti, the FBI waged a seven-year, $75 million campaign—which included the use of electronic bugs and recruitment of informants.

To date, there is no evidence that the Bureau has applied such an effort against Trump—although he, unlike Gotti, threatens the very foundations of American democracy.

For this, blame must fall squarely on Attorney General Merrick Garland, who has been notably derelict in pursuing Right-wing treason.

America now stands at the point where the German Weimar Republic stood in 1932: With an aged President (Paul von Hindenburg) unable—or unwilling—to cope with a surging Fascistic movement (led by Adolf Hitler). 

The results of that collective failure destroyed Germany and left 60 million dead around the world.

The United States cannot afford to make that same fatal mistake.