The idea of a presidential election being stolen is a quite serious topic.
There are different ways it can be, and some seem to get different reactions than others.
So, if it was stolen by throwing out Democratic votes or hacking voting machines, that is viewed as more ‘serious’ if proven.
But if it is done with voter suppression — whatever the techniques, from unjustified VoterID laws designed to suppress Democratic voters to limiting access to polls — it’s more ‘ok’.
The first question is, was it stolen? I will leave that up to the reader — there is a strong case that it was on gregpalast.com. Palast has specialized in the topic as a reporter since the 2000 election.
The case involves Kris Kobach’s “CrossCheck” voter purge program that removed many voters, disproportionately minorities, from voter rolls across the country.
Here are a few states Palast had the results changed by the program:
Trump victory margin in Michigan: 13,107 Michigan Crosscheck purge list: 449,922
Trump victory margin in Arizona: 85,257 Arizona Crosscheck purge list: 270,824
Trump victory margin in North Carolina: 177,008 North Carolina Crosscheck purge list: 589,393
This is the same issue as a leading problem with Florida in 2000, when tens of thousands of disproportionately black voters were removed, thousands of them valid voters.
For the sake of argument, let’s say you conclude it was stolen.
The first problem is, having many Americans understand what happened. Palast is sort of a one-man investigative reporting crusader on the issue, and some progressive commentators refer to his claims, and he has a movie coming out, but few know his case.
There’s a sort of critical mass issue — which can be helped by Word of Mouth, but that’s limited, and by the media.
And there seems to be a sort of taboo on the media investigating the issue or reporting that it has legitimacy.
In 2000, a media consortium counted the votes and by the end of 2001, had determined that Al Gore had won the election — but as 9/11 had just happened, the media admitted they buried the story.
There’s a big cultural obstacle in the media to making and claim of a problem with less than a confession by the victor. They seem terrified it will make them look not credible.
So, how would the American people come to understand the emperor has no clothing of legitimacy?
And then, even if the public more broadly aware the election had been stolen, what could be done? The Republican Party’s culture seems to be that they have no shame whatsoever about anything that gives them victory. So, the issue would at least be made a partisan one.
And then, what would the options be? We’re not going to have a do-over. It doesn’t fit a crime by trump for impeachment.
So, the best that could happen would be reform — which seems unlikely by the record number of Republican controlled states or the Republican controlled Congress.
For them, it’s a feature, not a bug.
So, we seem to be at a point, that the presidency can be clearly shown to be stolen, repeatedly, and there’s little to be done about it.
Instead, people just try to not look like ‘conspiracy theorists’ by pretending it didn’t happen, not wanting to know, and the Republicans welcome that.
Meanwhile, Kris Kobach is being considered for a senior trump appointment — even Attorney General has been discussed.
Can we do better?