A very US coup

Last year, the day after Republican Governor Ah-nold was elected in California, I called up four different offices of the California Democratic Party.

I told each of them: "My checkbook is open. Tell me who is organising the effort to recall Governor Schwarzenegger and I will send the cheque immediately."

Not one office called me back and, of course, the Democratic Party never bothered to mount any such effort.

The Republicans had, in essence, hijacked ordinary democratic processes with no opposition from the people you'd expect to oppose them - namely, their opponents.

Why? I formulated a conspiracy theory - the Republican Party has infiltrated the Democratic Party. Key positions are controlled by right-wing Rasputins who, at every turn, advise Democrats to do the opposite of what they should do.

For instance, shortly after election day 2000, I went to the national headquarters of the Al Gore campaign to volunteer. I walked inside the glass doors and was told that the office was shutting down permanently.

Who made the decision to close the Gore campaign HQ when the election was still six weeks away from being decided and when the Republicans were swearing that they had not yet begun to fight?

Who told Al Gore that he should concede the election? Who told him that he should not utter a word of protest over the course of the next two years? Worse, who told him to say, in a speech to Democrats, that "George W Bush is my president!"

Who told the leading Democrats that, despite the singular circumstances surrounding the selection of George Bush as president and the fact that 50 per cent of the electorate had voted for Al Gore anyhow, they should act as if Bush had won 100 per cent of the vote?

Who told them to vote for all of his nominees - including the vicious John Ashcroft - and all of his legislation, including that which eviscerated the environment, including his tax bribes for the super-rich?

What Democrat allowed Theresa LePore - a Democrat in 2000 - to be in a position where she could design the infamous "butterfly ballots" in Florida without checking to see that LePore was once a Republican? And here's a surprise - following the election, she switched party affiliations once more.

Who advised the Democrats not to talk about Bush's disgraceful way of escaping the draft during the Vietnam war, except briefly in 2004?

Who told the Democrats not to touch the issue of Bush's alleged cocaine use, his girlfriend's alleged abortion - when abortion was illegal - or the disgraceful and documented conspiracy in 2000 to disenfranchise black voters in Florida and other states?

Who advised the Democrats - including Howard Dean himself - to steer clear of sounding too "angry," when it was clear that this anger was what had made Dean so popular in the first place?

Who told Dean's fellow Democrats to turn on him when Saddam Hussein was captured, in effect doing Bush's dirty work for him?

With the Senate so evenly divided, who told the Democratic governor of Georgia to appoint Zell Miller to the US Senate, a "Democrat" who recently endorsed George Bush for president?

What Rasputin told Kerry not to respond to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, who called Kerry a liar and a coward and who dominated the news - crippling Kerry - for weeks? And still, Kerry's campaign advisers tell him not to attack Bush personally!?

Why did the Democrats allow the Republicans to have their convention after theirs and in New York City, so that Republicans, not Democrats, could focus on September 11 2001?

Speaking of 9/11, who advised Kerry to distance himself from Michael Moore? Why did the Democrats not run full-page newspaper ads condemning the Republicans for such a shameless act?

The Republican Party convention ended on September 2, causing Bush to miss a September 1 deadline to file as a candidate in Florida.

This gave the Democrats a legal way to keep Bush off the ballot there. Yet the chairman of the Florida Democratic Party declined to pursue this option, saying: "To keep an incumbent president off the ballot in a swing state the size of Florida because of a technicality, I just don't think would be right."

The US is becoming a one-party state. Democrats refuse to fight. They are like the boxer who aims to throw the match. He has to put up a good show before hurling himself on the ground, but the fix is in.

Be afraid. You are witnessing a slow-motion coup d'etat, in broad daylight.

• Professor Jonathan David Farley is the 2004 recipient of Harvard University's Harvard Foundation Distinguished Scientist of the Year Award. He can be contacted at farley@maths.ox.ac.uk