From the “you can’t make this shit up” files:
Another pro-President Trump rally was held at the Michigan Capitol on Saturday as the “Million MAGA March” attracted thousands, including several far-right groups like the Proud Boys, in Washington, D.C.
It was part of a national “Stop the Steal” effort, a massive disinformation campaign about voter fraud in the 2020 election linked to longtime Trump adviser Roger Stone, CNN reports. Stone, who was convicted of several felonies for trying to stop a U.S. House investigation into ties between the Trump campaign and Russia, had his sentence commuted this year by Trump.
[…]
The Lansing rally of a few hundred people Saturday came after a similar gathering last Saturday and small protests during the week.
One of the speakers is blogger and GOP activist Brandon Hall, who says he’s running for Michigan Republican Party chair. That position is currently held by former state Rep. Laura Cox (R-Livonia), who Trump announced at a pre-election rally in Grand Rapids would “be fired” if he lost the state, which he did. Cox has continued to defend the president and make unfounded claims of voter fraud after the election.
“We’re not going to give over our electoral votes to Joe Biden without a fight,” Hall said, as reported by the Lansing State Journal.
What Hall didn’t mention, and neither did the story, is that he has firsthand experience with election fraud. In 2013, Hall was charged with 10 counts of election law forgery, which is a felony. In December 2016, Hall was sentenced to 30 days in jail and 18 months probation for election fraud, the Grand Haven Tribune, FOX-17 and MLive reported.
Hall has been involved with various efforts this year blasting Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s orders to stop the spread of COVID-19. The GOP-majority Michigan Supreme Court in October overturned the 1945 law many orders were based upon.
The state’s COVID-19 cases have soared since October, topping 251,000 cases on Saturday and reaching almost 8,000 deaths.
Whitmer lives in the governor’s mansion in Lansing, which has been a frequent site of heavily armed protests, prompting her to ask for her security to be upped even before an extremist right-wing plot was uncovered last month to kidnap and kill her in a show trial over her COVID-19 orders.
Hall helped organize an April rally in front of Whitmer’s home slamming her coronavirus orders. And he’s tried to organize an impeachment effort against Whitmer that has failed to gain traction, although some Republican lawmakers have signed on.
On Saturday, Hall led the crowd in a “Lock her up” chant about Whitmer, something that broke out repeatedly at Trump rallies in Michigan after the terrorist plot was foiled.
People like to say that Trump is all projection — whatever he accuses the other side of doing is what he does himself. But it’s really a reflexive right wing tactic across the board. Since they have elevated lying, dirty tricks, propaganda and cheating into unapologetically acceptable political tactics they are forced to suggest that this is normal behavior that the other side does as well.
I don’t know if this is a psychological need that stems from their own awareness that they have become grotesquely dishonest people in pursuit of power or whether or not they are just cynically trying to tar their enemies with their own tactics to muddy the waters and possibly make their voters give up on politics altogether.
Either way, American democracy is on a perilous path.