“What was once a fairly obscure administrative job is now one where lunatics are threatening to murder your children,” Philadelphia Commissioner Al Schmidt, a Republican, declared in written testimony in October. He has Donald Trump to thank for it. Schmidt is vice chairman of the city’s election board.
The Wall Street Journal has a lengthy look at Donald Trump’s obsession with not being branded a loser. Seven million more votes for Joe Biden in 2020 says otherwise. But the study in personality disorders now residing at his Mar-a-Lago golf club in Florida will not let it go. Cannot let it go, if one asks his niece Mary Trump, a clinical psychologist. The Journal did not ask.
It is not enough that Trump’s COVID-19 denialism, promotion of quack cures, and general mishandling of the pandemic resulted in the deaths of countless Americans, and continues to. His damaged, fragile ego is slowly killing off democracy as well. His failure to concede the election and unending allegations that the election was stolen from him oblige his elected sycophants to repeat the Big Lie. Among Trump’s base, the lies have led to threats against elections officials and resignations:
The message appears to be contributing to eroding confidence in the nation’s election systems—similar to the long-running decline of faith in civic institutions such as the government, the criminal justice system and the media. In October, a Grinnell College poll found that 58% of Americans were very or somewhat confident that the 2022 vote will be counted fairly. Confidence among Republicans was at just 38%, down from 85% in March 2020.
In the wake of last year’s election, Mr. Trump’s campaign and his allies lost dozens of lawsuits around the country that challenged the 2020 results. The Justice Department said there were no signs of widespread fraud. A bipartisan consortium of local, state and federal election officials declared the 2020 race the most secure U.S. election in history.
The facts don’t matter to MAGA-nation. Facts that do not support Dear Leader are dismissed. Thanks to Trump’s merry band of lunatic lawyers, people across the country believe “Trump’s claims of fraud or anecdotal reports of irregularities published in conservative media.”
Emphasis on anecdote. Trump’s claims are not evidence. Widely circulated anecdotes are not evidence, even Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani’s binder full of sworn affidavits alleging fraud. “Affidavits that contain vague or second-hand accounts may be hard to prove as false,” writes Ken Haddad of WDIV Detroit. “There are also many scenarios where a witness just misunderstands the situation or is mistaken in what they believe they heard or saw.”
Detroit attorney David Ayyash explained affidavits this way:
“In a lawsuit, if a witness offers sworn testimony, that is considered evidence. But the finder of fact, usually a jury — but sometimes a judge — determines the credibility of that evidence,” Ayyash said. “So technically – yes – an affidavit is a form of evidence, but that doesn’t mean it’s credible.”
Not one. Not a thousand. As stated above, Trump’s allegations were not found substantive in court after court.
As I wrote recently:
When Erich von Daniken’s “Chariots of the Gods?” was a best-seller (speaking of pyramids), Johnny Carson asked a NASA astronaut what he thought of von Daniken’s theories about aliens influencing human history. After a pause, the astronaut replied that when von Daniken looks around the world and sees something he doesn’t understand, he attributes it to aliens. And since there’s a lot in this world von Daniken doesn’t understand, he finds them everywhere.
Watching Brother Giuliani’s traveling Republican salvation show last year, it was clear most of his Trump-fawning witnesses to “massive fraud” applied von Däniken’s approach to the 2020 election. Whenever they saw an election process they did not understand, they attributed it to voter fraud. And since there was a lot about election processes they didn’t understand, they saw fraud everywhere.
The Journal is careful to “both sides” fraud allegations where it can, but the preponderance of efforts to erode confidence in U.S. elections is on Republicans’ hands. Even when they don’t really believe their own claims.
In Washington, some top Republicans privately say they don’t believe voter fraud tilted the 2020 election away from Mr. Trump—but rarely acknowledge Mr. Biden’s victory in public. Still, there is broad consensus that the former president has tapped into voter frustration by using election security issues to motivate their votes.
Three out of four Republicans said Mr. Trump was right to question whether the election was rigged because there were “real cases of fraud that changed the results,” in an NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll conducted last month.
As with the Giuliani affidavits, belief that there exist “real cases of fraud that changed the results” is
Just like the chain emails filled with lies, distortions, and smears you once received from your propagandist conservative uncle, unsubstantiated allegations, or ones that cannot be disproven, work better than facts for indoctrinating the conservative faithful.
Get too specific and facts can turn on you:
In Texas, Republican Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick offered up $1 million in bounties for information that led to voter fraud convictions anywhere in the country. After a year, Mr. Patrick has paid one tipster: a progressive Pennsylvania poll worker who helped uncover illegal voting by a registered Republican.
In Nevada, Republican officials last year pointed to a ballot cast by Rosemarie Hartle—who had died in 2017—as evidence of fraud after the 2020 election. A state investigation concluded in October that her husband, Donald “Kirk” Hartle, cast both his ballot and that of his deceased wife.
Mr. Hartle is a registered Republican, public records show. He’s also an executive at Ahern Rentals, Inc., whose owners were fined for Covid violations after hosting an indoor Trump rally at another business in September 2020.
Last week, Mr. Hartle pleaded guilty to voting more than once in the same election. He will pay a $2,000 fine.
Trump and his allies have yet to pay for systematically (in Trump’s case, pathologically) undermining American democracy. Or for inciting the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, or for his, his family’s, and his associates’ roles in planning a coup. Using burner phones.
If Rolling Stone‘s reporting is accurate, rally planners purchased burner phones “for their most ‘high level’ communications with former President Trump’s team:
One of the sources, a member of the “March for Trump” team, says Kremer insisted the phones be purchased using cash and described this as being “of the utmost importance.”
To be continued, I hope.