Commentary
The days of smoked-filled rooms, where aged, overweight white guys met to decide the political direction of our country are gone; replaced by clandestine meetings of activists of various stripes via Zoom conducted by a strategist working from a laptop at his kitchen table.
I’M NOT A READER OF TIME Magazine, but I was drawn to a provocative title, “The Secret History of the Shadow Campaign That Saved the 2020 Election.” Saved the 2020 election? What?
It’s the story of how several organizations, desperate to stop Trump, aligned in a shadow campaign, separate from the Biden campaign, to turn the election.
TIME, in its February 15, 2021 edition, refers to it as “the inside story of the conspiracy to save the 2020 election … an unprecedented, creative and determined campaign, whose success reveals how close the nation came to disaster (a Trump victory).”
Not the kind of scenario to interest a Trump supporter like me, but as a political wonk I just had to read it. The behind-the-scenes strategy involving activities by some known organizations and people and others I was unaware of, was mind-boggling.
You Need to Know
I decided to give you my brief review of the article and recommend it to those of you into politics. It goes beyond the stories of voting machine irregularities, dead people voting, and people voting multiple times that you’ve been mulling over.
There was a working agreement between the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the AFL-CIO with little-known organizations like Protect Democracy, the Analyst Institute, Catalist the Fight Back Table, the Working Families Party, the Democracy Defense Coalition, Issue One, and a host of resistance groups made up of state-level grassroots organizers and racial justice activists. In addition were known organizations like Planned Parenthood, MoveOn and Greenpeace. They talked regularly on Zoom.
You may recall from earlier blogs how President Trump had rebuffed Tom Donahue and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce; this was their way to get even.
Civil rights leaders met with social media moguls Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey, leading to more rigorous rules and enforcement of “misinformation,” and soon Trump supporters, and Trump himself, were suspended.
They were successful in securing some $400 million in grants from the CARES Act when activists appealed to Congress to aid election relief during the Covid crisis.
The piece discusses the inner workings of a well-funded cabal of powerful people, ranging across industries and ideologies, working to influence perceptions, change rules and laws, steer media coverage and controlling the flow of information.
They recruited the nonpartisan National Vote at Home Institute to … get this … “(give) secretaries of state from both parties technical advice on everything from which vendors to use to how locate drop boxes.” They helped 37 states and D.C. bolster mail voting. A mysterious shortage of poll workers in Milwaukee, where a heavily Democrat black population is concentrated, resulted in just five polling locations, down from the usual 182. Strangely, there were no cries of disenfranchisement by blacks there. In their mailings and digital ads, the group urged people not to wait for Election Day.
Twenty-Two Republicans were persuaded to join 22 Democrats on a National Council on Election Integrity and met weekly on Zoom. They ran ads in six states, made statements and wrote articles alerting people to voting problems that could delay counts beyond November 3.
“In the end,” TIME says, “nearly half the electorate cast ballots by mail in 2020, practically a revolution in how people vote. About a quarter voted early in person. Only a quarter of voters cast their votes the traditional way – in person on Election Day.
The article recounts a flurry of activity by activists that continued through the January 6, 2020 electoral count, with TIME claiming that the thousands of supporters, who attended Trump’s speech, “were met by virtually no counterdemonstrators. To preserve safety and ensure they couldn’t be blamed for any mayhem.”
I have to believe there were bad actors from the Left that took part in the breach of the Capitol, but we may never know even though an investigation is underway.
OUR FUTURE ELECTION PRIORITY – While lawsuits over auditing 2020 presidential race results continue, and the Supreme Court has agreed to consider a review of the high-profile lawsuits at its February conference, correcting voting procedures in the 23 states where Republicans hold legislative majorities is a must going forward.
I understand that there are currently more than 100 GOP-sponsored bills seeking to tighten voting laws in 28 states. Curbing mail-in ballots and the introduction of voter-ID laws are of concern. And, of course, voting deadlines must be strictly adhered to.
In addition, Americans need to be assured of the integrity of voting machines used in various states. This will require special attention by cyber experts.
A well-documented docu-movie, “Absolute Proof: Exposing Election Fraud and the Theft of America by Enemies Foreign and Domestic,” hosted by Mike Lindell, CEO of MyPillow, is currently being circulated online by concerned citizens to enlighten voters on voting machines, and the foreign influence of cyber technology on the last election.
Lindell, an avid supporter of President Trump, has high hopes that the video will bring Americans together on this issue but it’s not likely to change anything. He claims that members of the Supreme Court will view his documentary, perhaps at their February conference. I’d like to believe that’s true.
There’s Much to be Done
If we want to be honest with each other, we have to admit that most of us simply saw no way Trump could lose, witnessing Joe Biden’s feeble basement campaign with rare car rallies in or near Delaware
While Biden and his pen will make our job of winning back the House and Senate easier in 2022, we need to support our incumbents and encourage new talent to get involved in the party. We have three GOP senators who are retiring.
President Trump, whose acquittal is all but a sure thing, has indicated that he will be active in supporting candidates in 2022. Will they accept his help? Will his base hang in there?
Ideally, persuading states to return to the traditional in-person voting on Election Day with a voter-ID, and an Election Day deadline for absentee ballots, would be a challenge. Several states have had mail-in balloting for years, and other states may choose to switch to mail-in after the 2020 experience. If so, a mail-in ballot should be requested, and strict rules governing signature verification and deadlines must be developed if Americans are going to be believe in the integrity of the vote.
May God continue to bless the United States of America.
