Stop. For the love of God make it end. President Trump lost the election, he lost through the same process that put him in office in the first place. I want to ignore the President’s accusations, as it feels many do, it feels like many have already moved on, Joe Biden was elected and it’s time to get back to some semblance of political normalcy. I do not blame anyone for taking that position, however there are, admittedly, only so many people in my life that are Trump voters. The problem is that millions of people will believe the President’s claims, he has an entire media platform that will reinforce his claims, and an entire political party that will, at best, ignore the claims or at worst, actively support them.
I’m going to start with the most important part in all of this. The election is over, no it’s not official yet as only a handful of states have certified the results, however states have all but finalized their vote counts and put Joe Biden at 306 projected electoral college votes, the exact same number Trump took in 2016. Not a single state official in charge of their elections have come forward with accusations or evidence of widespread voter fraud. No US intelligence agency has noted impropriety or major issues in the election process. And most importantly, at this point, no court has overturned results in a single state.
It makes little difference what I believe, it makes little difference what Trump’s supporters believe, the very fact is that if Trump has any hope to change the inevitable outcome of this election, he must prove his case in court. Not on Fox News, not on twitter, not to Hannity, Carlson, Dobbs, Ingraham, D’souza, Kirk, Pirro, Beck or Levin, rather though the prescribed legal process. So far, his lawyers have not even gone as far as filing a case in court alleging outright fraud. Let me say this plainly, Trump, nor his lawyers, have presented a shred of evidence to the court that proves fraud that would change the outcome of this election.
Today Trump’s lacke… lawyer, Rudy Giuliani held a 90 Minute press conference where he a laid out their evidence, sighting affidavits from mostly unnamed sources alleging all manner of overt election fraud. He yelled at the media for suppressing it, it was difficult to follow, aggrieved, and ultimately pointless. Why? Because he was just in court two days before explaining to the judge that they were not filing a fraud case. More importantly, all but one of the over twenty-five cases they have filed have been thrown out.
Never forget the fact that Trump claimed the last election was rigged. The election he won, the election he won fairly, he claimed that it was rigged because his ego couldn’t even handle losing the popular vote. In May 2017, he formed the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, charged with investigating his claim that 3-5 million votes had been cast illegally. They disbanded in January 2018 with virtually no findings. Again, in 2016, Trump said “I will totally accept the results of this...election, if I win”. That’s the root of all of this, Trump tells us time and time again who he is, he told us that if he doesn’t win the game of Monopoly he’ll kick over the board and cry “fake news”.
The whole premise is beyond the realms of absurd. The idea that the Democrats have this ability to generate thousands of ballots in key states at the last minute, only as needed in states where they are behind. They were able to do this without the detection of the US law enforcement, US intelligence agencies, local law enforcement, and state officials running elections, however they forgot to do it in 2016? Despite having the powers of the executive branch at the time?
Let look at this from a logistical standpoint, “since 1900, only one president has won re-election with a recession occurring sometime in the last two years of their first term”. This coupled with the fact that we’re facing a pandemic that has killed 250,000 Americans. I’m not looking to get into the blame game, it is simply pointing out that Trump was seeking reelection during a difficult period in America. This supports the notion that it wouldn’t take some massive conspiracy for him to lose an election as the sitting President.
It is important to note that elections are never perfect. With 50 states processing 155 million votes mistakes WILL happen, even rare voter fraud, the cases do happen, but this is where Trump’s lies end. He may have successfully convinced many of his supporters that this election had so much voter fraud that it actually changed the results to favor Joe Biden, but as I write this, I stand confident that this is a case he will never prove where it matters, in court, because he can’t.
At the end of the day elections are about trust, because there will never be a time where all 150+ million people that vote in Presidential elections get to individually audit every vote they did not personally cast. The integrity of elections is the bedrock on which any functioning representative republic or democracy is founded. If this election was truly rigged it would mean not only can we not trust the Democratic party, but we can no longer trust a single institution that has been created to back the legitimacy of our elections (intelligence agencies, state government, courts, etc).
I want nothing more than Americans to come together again. It seems unlikely considering the political bubbles in which we all live. If the citizens of American are united we can hold our whole government accountable regardless of political party, whether we voted for our representatives or not. However, a united America was clearly never Trump’s goal, and if he succeeds in convincing enough people our democracy is no longer legitimate, Biden’s goal of a unified America will fail before he places his hand on the bible on January 20, 2021.
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