Wednesday, January 12, 2022

I've Said It Before And I'll Say It Again

 All of this has the effect of not only validating the mistrust in the electoral system with Republican voters, it's shaking faith in the system among Democratic voters as well. After all, if elections are being overseen by partisan Republicans chosen specifically for their willingness to back Trump's delusional insistence that he won an election he lost by 7 million votes, people will be hard pressed to put much faith in the integrity of their decisions. This is not a problem for the GOP which will be happy to see Democrats flailing about trying to contest elections that really were "rigged." They are not afraid of that.

So why are these Republicans testing the waters by speaking out about the Big Lie now? After all, it stands to benefit them if they can wire elections in their favor. But Rounds' other comments make clear what they are concerned about. They are afraid that all this demeaning of the election system will keep their own voters from the polls

Rigging elections to get the outcome you like is not the simple process of electing Republicans that pundits and professional Cassandras think it is.  Georgia SOS Doug Raffensperger, for example, is a "hero" of democracy because he refused to engage in the blatantly illegal acts Donald Trump was asking him to engage in, right?  He's a stand-up guy, despite the fact he's a Republican, right?  Not so fast:

To the layman, Raffensperger may seem like a defender of democracy when juxtaposed against Trump’s abject awfulness. But that couldn’t be further from the truth. In reality, Raffensperger peddles right-wing conspiracy theories about voter fraud that have become common among the GOP — the same conspiracy theories Trump used to wage an assault on democracy. 

I'll leave the details to the commentary, and leave to you the decision whether or not Sec. Raffensperger is a "good guy" or a "danger to democracy."  The simple fact is, the SOS of any state is not the fascist/autocratic power all the theorists of "doomed election systems" think they are.  Those Cassandras really know no more about the election system than Donald Trump does.  Raffesnperger supports all manner of voter suppression laws and actions, and Georgia implemented many of them.  Yet, Georgia now has 2 Democratic U.S. Senators, and Biden carried the state.  Raffensperger supports all the crazy ideas Trump spouts, but Raffensperger knows his limits. He knows he can't take a sharpie to a weather map and change the path of a storm, or even change the official analysis of weather patterns.  And he can't pick up the phone and call an underling and say "Get me 12,000 more votes for the President!  Stat!"  He knows that.  Trump doesn't; and neither do the pundits who think AP predictions are official vote counts.


As Trump told Steve Inskeep, he (Trump) was the President!  And yet, nobody listened.  Or rather, some people did, and they got busted:

Isn't that the very thing we're being warned against? Conway goes on to point out this information came from the January 6 select committee investigation, and it does seem like easy pickings for prosecutors.  It also points out we have laws against messing with elections.  It may be lots of "mini-Trumps" think if they can just gain public office, they will have total cosmic power.  Boy, are they gonna be disappointed.

Trump is doing a fine job convincing GOP voters the elections are rigged so why participate?  The question is:  why do Democrats want to play that game, too?

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