You Really Think Someone Would Do That?
Go on the internet and tell lies?
As the election is coming to a close and all signs point to the sun setting on the trump administration chaos inevitably ensues. For the last….4 years Trump has been claiming voter fraud is the only reason he didn’t win in 2016 by a larger margin. Trump continued these claims even when his own voting integrity commission found no evidence of this. For the last few months leading up until the election Trump was claiming the fix was in again.
Whether or not Trump actually believes there was widespread fraud only in the swing states that are coming down to a few thousand votes is besides the point. Him believing there is fraud is inconsequential to the fallout of him claiming there is. The harm caused to our democracy has been immediate and irreparable.
On the night of the election votes were being tallied and things looked pretty good for Trump if you forgot about mail in votes. Mail in votes were always going to be democratic ticket votes. Both because Trump had spent months erroneously claiming mail in votes would be fraudulent no matter what(other than with funding he refused to give) and because of the pandemic that he convinced his voters was no big deal that democrats have largely taken more seriously. Both lend to the fact that yes, mail in votes were going to be more democratic this election.
As the night of the election came to a close and a second day of counting came in, prominent republican lawmakers and internet personalities took on different tones. The republican lawmakers stayed mostly silent. Some made comments that were vague about the integrity of elections and hinted at something being amiss, but no direct calls to action. The online republicans are a different story. Leading the charged was bouncing baby boy Donald Trump Jr. wondering where all the republicans were and why they were not helping with the coup
Calls from Trump Jr. and others created an impossible position for lawmakers that are usually outspoken or in prominent positions to either speak up about the “steal” or face the wrath of the MAGA hats come mid terms. Holding lawmakers hostage to either go along with your attempt at mudding the waters of the election results ( Coup) or to respect the results is, um, not great. Some would even call this fascistic behavior. Working your devout followers into a frenzy to call election results into question and spread conspiracy far and wide on the internet of anything they consider to be evidence of voter fraud.
Of course spineless morons from the Republican party have come forth out of their hovels to scream into the void of Fox News. Texas law maker and probable serial killer, Ted Cruz, was one of the first to go on Fox news to tell Hannity because they were not allowing random people who call themselves “observers”, commonly known as poll watchers, into the counting rooms that the election is being stolen. This is a separate claim than the law suit filed by the Trump campaign that the poll watchers were just not close enough to the tables were the votes were being counted. Although facts dont matter to these people its important to point out that both; There were observers there, The people protesting outside trying to get access are not observers but random people.
The New Republican Parties
In the wake of the election when the dust settles, the republican party will not look the same. There are two branches on the tree forming and they look a little different from another. One branch being the more “ moderate wing” , those who dont want to go along with the President calling the electoral process into question, and those that are. One more and one less racial wing of the party. (radical being those rationalizing a coup)
One advantage the republican party has had over the democrats in recent years is consistent messaging across the board. The majority of the party stayed on message and on brand so consistently that when Mitt Romney went to march with BLM it was a large story and he was seen as an “outsider” (That's far from the only event that makes Mitt look like an outsider but whatever) Fractured messaging will make their voter block split and cause a problem with electability between those who go along with every word of dear leader, and those who do not.
White nationalist extremists online like Nick Fuentes and Alex Jones have been floating idea that they are never going to vote for the republican's again because they have not stood up for THEIR president in demanding the electoral process be stopped. Ultimately I think this is a positive. I dont think the numbers needed for white nationalists to get elected to any sort of national office exists and because of the rift in the party republicans that want to subvert the rule of law and the right of every American to have their say in the electoral process are enough.
I also didnt think that Trump would get half of the popular vote after 4 years of dog whistling and over 200,000 people dead. But, a man can dream of a crippled republican party.
