CARLTON FLETCHER: I’ll trade you socialism for a dictatorship

“Let me ask you one question: Is your money that good? Will it buy you forgiveness?”

— Bob Dylan

I’m not just amazed by the hypocrisy. I’m amazed that the people making these statements don’t see the hypocrisy.

The presidential election, which took place on Nov. 3 and wasn’t decided for an additional four days because of close scrutiny of votes by elections offices, has been decided. Extreme measures have been taken, including, in Georgia, a hand recount of more than 5 million ballets.

Joe Biden won the election, and he carried Georgia, the first Democrat to do so since Bill Clinton in 1992.

But President Trump, as many predicted he would, has challenged the outcome of the election, declaring himself the victor and endorsing any number of conspiracy theories to rile up his base and do anything he can to hold on to his seat in the White House.

Of course, anyone who expected Trump to take his loss like a man and provide for a smooth transition of power was fooling him- or herself. Trump has instead made outlandish claims, forcing states like Georgia to spend ever more money on recounts that keep coming out the same. He’s had some of his more fervent supporters — the ones generally known as the nut-jobs — to endorse conspiracy theories ranging from vote-flipping machines to ballot dumping to inside corruption. All carried out, mind you, under perhaps the most scrutinized election in American history.

Those things were to be expected. What was surprising, even for Trump, was the president encouraging officials like Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp to nullify the election results in the state and name a group of electors who would ignore the will of the 5 million people who voted in Georgia and support Trump in the Electoral College.

Trump’s ultra-loyal supporters, following his lead, have cried foul as well, repeating his mostly absurd theories as fact and demanding that he either be given the presidency outright or the nation conduct a do-over … or at least in the states in which the president was defeated.

Here are some of the actual comments made by Trump supporters, most in this region: “The presidency was stolen. (Trump) should stay in the White House and refuse to give up what is rightfully his.” … “The Democrats stole this election. They don’t understand what it’s like to be true Americans.” … “If Joe Biden is allowed to become president, he will take us down the pathway to socialism.” … “The administration of Joe Biden will tear away what makes America great and turn it into a third-world country.”

That last one, which I’ve heard repeated frequently with only slight changes, is the one that amazes me in its hypocrisy.

Here are the facts: Joe Biden won the election. It wasn’t just the 6 million-plus more votes he received than the incumbent president, he also won a landslide electoral victory. Biden has done nothing to impact the outcome of the election other than run a better campaign. But because he is not a Republican and not Donald Trump, Trump’s supporters are convinced that the country is headed down the highway to hell.

They say Biden plans to defund the police. He’s said no such thing. They say Biden will tax the rich into poverty to pay for giveaway programs for the poor. (As a complementary thought, isn’t that what those $1,200 stimulus checks from the Trump administration were? If we hadn’t been in the midst of a pandemic that was crippling our economy — oh, and in the months leading up to what was projected to be a close election — do you think you would have gotten one of those? If you answered yes, you again prove my point.)

They say Biden will flood our nation with immigrants who are just waiting to take all those jobs we’re rushing out to fill.

They say Biden will make America a socialist country.

What they don’t say is that, by subverting the will of the majority of the American people, by trying to overturn an election that he lost, without question, and by asking state officials to ignore the Constitution and act on his behalf, Trump is trying to turn this nation into a dictatorship. I understand the president’s supporters’ disappointment, and I understand their frustration. But is Trump’s asking state officials to ignore the results of the election and act on his behalf not worse than anything Biden has even been accused of doing?

Are not our local, state and national leaders — Republicans, Democrats, Independents and whatever other designation they claim — complicit in Trump’s attempt to, essentially, ignore the basis of our government and overthrow the rule of law we’ve lived by for more than 225 years much greater crimes and threats to the future of our nation?

Experts say Trump would be a frontrunner for the Republican nomination, and a second shot at a second term, in 2024 if he behaved like a leader rather than a spoiled rich kid bent on getting his way. And because Trump is expected to be a GOP force in four years, many Republican lawmakers are still afraid to make him angry by not continuing to support his attempts to subvert our democracy. To those so-called leaders, I say shame.

A country ruled by a dictator who would ignore our constitution is not a country I’d want my children and grandchildren to live in.