“In short, this was no slip-and-fall at the local grocery store… Albeit disorganized and fantastical, the complaint’s allegations are extraordinarily serious and, if accepted as true by large numbers of people, are the stuff of which violent insurrections are made… It appears that plaintiffs’ counsel’s process for formulating the factual allegations in this lawsuit was to compile all the allegations from all the lawsuits and media reports relating to alleged election fraud (and only the ones asserting fraud, not the ones refuting fraud), put it in one massive complaint, then file it and ‘see what happens’…The lawsuit put into or repeated into the public record highly inflammatory and damaging allegations that could have put individuals’ safety in danger. Doing so without a valid legal basis or serious independent personal investigation into the facts was the height of recklessness…” Opinion of U.S. Magistrate Judge N. Reid Neureiter of the District of Colorado, as he severely sanctioned two lawyers for filing a class action on behalf of all U.S. registered voters alleging a coordinated effort to change voting laws and use unreliable voting machines to interfere with the presidential election based on a “woeful lack of investigation.”
“[A] survey of 1,552 U.S. adults, which was conducted from July 30 to Aug. 2, found that 66 percent of Republicans continue to insist that ‘the election was rigged and stolen from Trump,’ while just 18 percent believe ‘Joe Biden won fair and square.’ Twenty-eight percent of independent voters also said they think Trump was the rightful winner of the 2020 election, as did a small 3 percent of Democrats.” Yahoo News, August 4th.
On a simple and most pragmatic basis, after over 60 separate judicial determinations, including by many judges (including the United States Supreme Court), finding no proof of any significant voter fraud or rigging in the November Presidential election, one that also elected many Republicans on precisely the same ballots that elected Joe Biden to the presidency, a massive segment of United States citizens honestly believe that Donald Trump was duly reelected; to them, he is the legitimate President of our nation.
Notwithstanding the documented telephone calls from Donald Trump to election officials and even his own Attorney General demanding either to nullify the election as rigged or fraudulent (without any supporting evidence, just unsupported words) or to “find” thousands of non-existent voters, actions that violate federal and state statutes, millions of Americans consider Biden an illegitimate usurper. Absurd conspiracy theories are now treated as gospel truth.
In lockstep support of Trump’s effort to disregard millions of votes for Biden given the same margin of victory enjoyed by Trump in 2016 (which Trump declared a “landslide”), most red states have adopted or are in the process of adopting a litany or new voting restrictions unabashedly designed to limit and restrict readily identifiable groups of voters most likely to vote in support of Democratic candidates and issues. Some of these efforts even give local state election officials the power to nullify votes after they have been cast. Even if the courts obviously will not support efforts to unseat Biden, these states are determined that there will never again be a successful Democratic candidate in their states and districts.
A filibuster rule in the U.S. Senate prevents needed federal voting legislation, aimed at keeping the election process fair and neutral, from ever reaching a floor vote where passage would otherwise be likely. Parallel to this federal effort is the harsh reality that the currently configured U.S. Supreme Court appears reluctant to interfere in states’ constitutional right to manage the election process in the absence of specific language in new voting restrictions stating precisely a clear discrimination against individuals on a constitutionally proscribed basis. Like race, ethnicity, gender or religion. Even if the result of a voting restriction produces that obvious and very predictable result. Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee, a conservative 6-3 majority ruling just over a month ago.
As the judicial branch of our federal government, that equal third leg of our governmental structure (along with the legislative and executive branches), combined with state court decisions, otherwise continue to sanction, chastise, even disbar (as did the NY State high court to Rudy Giuliani) and consistently rule against lawyers promulgating the “big lie” (that Trump was duly elected and lost only to voter fraud), conspiracy theories, vehement Trump rallies (including the very violent January 6th Trump driven populist attack on the nation’s Capitol) continue. That GOP and even Trump appointees to the bench have joined in the “there was no measurable fraud” chorus does not matter. But Republicans elected to state and federal office have created a near unanimous bloc in support of that “big lie.”
Remembering how many autocrats were duly elected (think Turkey’s Erdogan, Venezuela’s Maduro and even Hitler) before transitioning their nation into a radical doctrinaire police state, the notion of preserving our voting rights becomes particularly precious. Democracy is much more fragile than we can imagine, and if you think divisive violence cannot happen here, even if you ignore the litany of civil rights and anti-war protests over the years, you cannot forget our own Civil War. Our survival as a democracy is facing an existential threat.
What makes the “big lie” even more dangerous today is that for too many, particularly those that believe that Donald Trump was duly elected in November, wearing a mask and getting vaccinated are anti-Trump political symbols. Polls tell us that almost half of the pool of vaccine eligible Americans who have not been vaccinated have solidly pledged never to get vaccinated for any number of inane and often political reasons. Viruses are clearly not impacted by political sentiment, but as the Delta, Delta plus and Lambda variants of the COVID virus are clearly establishing themselves, the unvaccinated, including children (a huge change), are dropping like flies, particularly in under-vaccinated red states. The average infected individual transmits that virus to eight others.
With schools opening, and young children not yet even eligible for vaccinations, the rising surge is simply accelerating, particularly in red states. Vaccinated individuals may be protected from hospitalization or death, but they can also carry and transmit these new variants. A disease has become a political expression. Huh? Just listen to the words of the poster boy for callous disregard of human life, simply in garnering political support from that Trumpian base, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, as he mandates that even public schools cannot require children or teachers from wearing masks, very contrary to CDC guidelines.
I’m Peter Dekom, and I suspect the reason the COVID virus isn’t itself running for high political office is that it has already won.
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