As we point and laugh at the utter absurdity of Mike Lindell’s election fraud theories, and the Arizona fraudit, and while we can’t believe that GOP lawmakers are going along with the joke, make no mistake about where this is really going. The point of the Arizona audit and other possible imitations to come in other states is not to prove widespread fraud in 2020. Yes, that is a clearly ridiculous proposition because there was none and Joe Biden won by a significant margin. The point of all this chicanery is to sow enough confusion and doubt so that when the day arrives, as it assuredly will, when there is a narrow enough margin of votes between the Democratic and Republican candidate, then the Big Lie will finally attain the goal it was designed for. There will be a stolen election at some point. That is the prospect which is terrifying. Washington Post:
This basic thought emerges from Jane Mayer’s New Yorker exposé of all the dark money funding the ongoing assault on democracy. Mayer shows how the money from “wealthy reactionaries” who bankroll conservative causes is now funding efforts by right-wing groups to sow doubts about the U.S. electoral system, pass new voting restrictions and launch sham “audits” of 2020 vote counts.
But while the money angle is noteworthy, what also deserves attention is the core insight motivating these efforts. It’s that the question of whether voter fraud can or cannot be proved is irrelevant.
Instead, those making such accusations need to create just enough confusion to enable well-placed Republicans to say the actual outcome of a given election is fundamentally unknowable. The coin of the realm is not concocted proof; it’s manufactured uncertainty. This is what will lay the groundwork for attempting to overturn a future election.
This idea is threaded throughout Mayer’s piece. For instance, the chairwoman of Arizona’s Republican Party has hailed the sham “audit” of votes there as a “domino” that, once fallen, will potentially inspire more audits in other states.
This audit is being run by a firm whose CEO has already pushed nonsense about the election being stolen from Donald Trump. It is pretty obvious that this audit will miraculously show that the vote count was dubious or fraudulent. This will be conclusively debunked, but that’s irrelevant: The manufacturing of fake reasons to keep alive baseless impressions of uncertainty, in the full knowledge that they are manufactured, is the thing that matters.
As one Republican defender of democracy tells Mayer: “If they come up with an analysis that discredits the 2020 election results in Arizona, it will be replicated in other states, furthering more chaos.” We know the “analysis” is preordained to do just that, because that’s the whole point of it.
In another example of this, one of the lawyers who pushed Trump’s lies about 2020 blithely tells Mayer that the Georgia outcome was dubious. “I don’t think we can say with certainty who won,” she says, adding: “The only remedy is a new election.”
And that is exactly what the point is, is to sow chaos and demand new elections, although the caveat there is what makes you think the second election is going to be any different than the first? But if we extrapolate a situation where a second election was granted, then voter suppression could be the order the day. If elections become complex situations and voting becomes an ordeal, then democracy is going to pay the price.
And there might be another Trump in a future election who will once again tell the DOJ, “just say the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me.”
Uncertainty and distrust are the goals of the Arizona audit and the Big Lie. And so far they’ve both been very successful in reaching those goals. This does not bode well for America’s future. Now more than ever the old saw is true, “vigilance is the price of liberty.”
Exactly like the cigarette smoking ‘controversy’ and the anthropogenic climate change ‘controversy’, and promulgated by the same people for the same reasons, money and power.
Make up ‘fake facts’, (i.e. lies) to say the actual, real, true facts are disputed, and then focus on the ‘disagreement’, ‘discussion’ and ‘ controversy’ to avoid discussing their lies and outright fabrications.
EXACTLY the same approach, and abetted by the ‘bothsiderism’ of the sadly credulous corporate media, who need to market a ‘narrative’ and not relay facts. This keeps ‘the story’ running for longer, to increase their profits.
Funny that we never had problems before the GOP decided that democracy is out of style.
Of course, it would also help this plan to work if they hadn’t doomed so many of their own voters to their death. “Pandemic of the unvaccinated” is more than just poetic license, after all.
the largest unvaccinated community in my county are African American. Someone needs to come up with a message that reaches this community that is also subject to conspiracy theories (somewhat with good reason)
Hard to undo what was done in Tuskegee.
Election fraud is a federal offense. Knowingly false allegations of fraud designed to interfere with elections must also be a federal offense, because it is itself a form of fraud. By this point there is vast evidence that these “audits” etc. are in bad faith, and knowledge of where they are coming from, who is financing them, etc.
Oh, we all know there will be a “stolen election” in the future.
And it will be the GOP that does the stealing because they know they won’t be able to win a close election fairly.
Been there, done that. Al Gore won the 2000 election, both the popular vote AND the state of Florida, and hence the EC. The GOP will, without a doubt, attempt this scam as long as national elections are this easy to game.