Wednesday
Years ago political commentator David Frum said something that has stuck with me, coming as it did from a former George W. Bush speechwriter. “If conservatives become convinced that they cannot win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism,” he observed. “They will reject democracy.”
My once easy belief that, whatever their differences, Democrats and Republicans alike believe in the democratic project has been seriously challenged by Trumpism’s all-out assault on our republic. While writing recently about Rohinton Mistry’s A Fine Balance, set in India in the middle decades of the 20th century, I noted the lengths to which people will go when they encounter threats to their power. In that case we see India’s Brahmin class brutalizing the untouchables when they fail to show “proper” obeisance. This I compared to the way southern whites brutalized African Americans during the same period.
I’m at the point in the book where, thanks to Indian independence, the untouchables have earned the right to vote. Or so Indian law decrees. In actuality, they either vote the way those in power want or all hell breaks loose. When Narayam insists on marking his own ballot, he and two friends are seized and their thumbs are forced to the ink pad so that their registrations are completed. Then they are taken away, hung naked by their ankles from the branches of a banyan tree, and flogged mercilessly.
Thakur Dharamsi, who has ordered the punishment, keeps his children inside that day so that they don’t see what is happening. He also keeps the news quiet so that the election commission won’t intervene and countermand the results. What follows is even worse:
In the evening, after the ballot boxes were taken away, burning coals were held to the three men’s genitals, then stuffed into their mouths. Their screams were heard through the village until their lips and tongues melted away. The still silent bodies were taken down from the tree. When they began to stir, the ropes were transferred from their ankles to their necks, and the three were hanged. The bodies were displayed in the village square.
Because the three might represent a nascent longing for independence, the horror continues:
Thakur Dharamsi’s goondas, freed now from their election duties, were turned loose upon the lower castes. “I want those achoot jatix to learn a lesson,” he said, distributing liquor to his men before their next assignment. “I want it to be like the old days, when there was respect and discipline and order in our society…”
The goondas began working their way towards the untouchable quarter. They beat up individuals at random in the streets, stripped some women, raped others, burned a few huts. News of the rampage spread. People hid, waiting for the storm to blow over.
The final victims are Narayam’s family. Because his father, a tanner, broke with tradition and had his sons trained as tailors, he, his wife, and Narayam’s children must pay. After all, it was Narayam’s independence as a tailor that gave him the impression that he could vote as he chose. The family are bound and shown Narayam’s corpse, after which the house is burned down:
The sound of grief soon mingled with the family death agony; the house was set alight. The first flames licked at the bound flesh. The dry winds, furiously fanning the fire, showed the only spark of mercy during this night. The glaze swiftly enfolded all six of them.
Are Americans in the 21st century (or, for that matter, Indians) still capable of such horrific violence? It’s hard to imagine so. Then again, it was hard to imagine hundreds of people swarming the U.S. Capitol intending to kill or kidnap the vice president and members of Congress. Before 2025 it was hard to imagine thousands of people being dragged off American streets, deposited in cages, and shipped off to concentration camps abroad. It was hard to imagine ICE agents casually shooting unresisting people, some of them America citizens or immigrants with valid work permits. A failure of imagination meant that many, from Joe Biden on down, failed to take preventative measures.
The question before us, then, is the length to which Republicans will go to maintain power. A recent Strength In Numbers/Verasight poll found that most of them support having federal officials take custody of voting machines or ballots after Election Day; sending National Guard troops to polling places to monitor the election; having the military take custody of voting machines or ballots after Election Day; and sending ICE agents to polling places.
The good news is that most Americans, by significant margins, oppose these measures. Furthermore, Democrats and Independents are working overtime to imagine the worst that could happen and figure out ways to counter it. It helps that DJT’s approval numbers are at an all-time low, that even some of his supporters are turning against him, and that his incompetence sometimes offsets his malevolence. It’s not clear that he could successfully declare a national emergency if he tried or that Speaker Mike Johnson, in a blue wave election, could declare fraud and refuse to seat newly elected Democrats.
In my lifetime, however, teens have been lynched, civil rights activists shot, and Sunday School children blown up in states adjacent to mine. Until recently, my Tennessee county had an active KKK. Mistry helps us imagine what entitled people are capable of when they feel threatened.
