24 Feb 2021

The 2020 Election and Our Inquisitorial Establishment

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Michael Anton (famous for the 2016 “Flight 93 Election” essay) reflects on all the arm-twisting going on anent acceptance of the 2020 Election’s legitimacy and he has plenty of intelligent observations.

Recently, I appeared as a guest on Andrew Sullivan’s podcast. Sullivan is vociferously anti-Trump, so I expected us to disagree—which, naturally, we did. But I was surprised by the extent to which he insisted I assent to his assertion that the 2020 election was totally on the level. That is to say, I wasn’t surprised that Sullivan thinks it was; I was surprised by his evident yearning to hear me say so, too.

Which I could not do.

Sullivan badgered me on this at length before finally accusing me of being fixated on the topic, to which I responded, truthfully, that I was only talking about it because he asked. As far as I’m concerned, the 2020 election is well and truly over. I have, I said, “moved on.”

So I thought. Then I received two emails from a friendly acquaintance who is a recognized Republican expert on elections that suggested he, too, is troubled by my lack of belief. Then came two other data points, which I noticed only after the first draft this essay had been completed. Ramesh Ponnuru snarked (snark seems to be the go-to, indeed the only, device his in literary quiver) that one of the anomalies I cited in my most recent article in the Claremont Review of Books had been “debunked” by the partisan left-wing FactCheck.org. While I appreciate the insight into the sources from which National Review editors get their “facts” these days, the quote provided admits that the statistic I cited is, well, accurate. Ponurru naturally ignores all of the other points raised in my earlier article.

Jonathan Chait wrote yet another (his 12th?) article denouncing me, for this same sin of disbelief. Why did he bother? Is there even a remote chance that a single one of his New York magazine readers either read my article or encountered its argument? Or is he worried that the “narrative” of the election is so fragile that it needs to be shored up?

I wanted to move on, I really did. But when Left (Chait), center (Sullivan), faux-right anti-conservative ankle-biter (Ponnuru), and genuine, if establishment, Right (my correspondent) all agree that my lack of belief is a problem, I wondered why this should be so, and the following observations came to mind.

Let me begin by repeating something I said to Sullivan: I do not actively disbelieve in the outcome of the 2020 election. I do not assert that the election was stolen. I also do not believe the election was totally fair, “belief” being an affirmative mental state. I say only that I don’t know; I haven’t been convinced either way. One side tried to convince me and failed (at least so far). The other side has made no such attempt but instead mostly shouts in my face that I must believe. The latter effort, in addition to being aggravating and insulting, has been less effective.

The 2020 election came down to a narrower margin than the 2016 contest: fewer than 43,000 rather than 77,000 votes in just three states. In 2016, nothing fishy in Michigan, Pennsylvania, or Wisconsin—the states on which 2016 turned—was detected. Certainly nothing like:

    Counting shutdowns in five states, in which one candidate was ahead, only to lose after the counting resumed;

    “Found” tranches of ballots going overwhelmingly—sometimes exclusively—to one candidate, the eventual “winner”;

    Sworn affidavits alleging the backdating of ballots;

    Historically low rejection rates—as in, orders of magnitude lower—of mail-in ballots, suggesting that many obviously invalid ballots were accepted as genuine;

    Mail-in and absentee ballots appearing without creases, raising the question of how they got into the envelopes required for their being mailed in;

    Thousands upon thousands of ballots all marked for one presidential candidate without a single choice marked for any down-ballot candidate.

    The absolute refusal to conduct signature audits—indeed, the discarding of many envelopes which alone make such audits possible—i.e., of the kind of recounts which are performed not merely to get the math right but to evaluate the validity of ballots;

    Other statistical and historical anomalies too numerous to mention here.

All of which, and much more, did occur in 2020. Any one of these things would have caused Hillary Clinton to march into court in 2016 with an army of lawyers larger than the force Hannibal brought to Cannae. …

Yet if, as it seemed to me, it’s so important to Sullivan that I personally believe that everything that happened was on the up-and-up, he might try using his platform to call for, and get, serious local, state, and federal investigations of all of the above anomalies and others not mentioned. Those investigations would then have to be reported fairly and credibly by a media that actually wants to disseminate the truth and not cover for state and local corruption or for the Biden Administration.

Of course, none of that is going to happen. The present ruling power has no interest in investigating, much less challenging, what they insist must be the only narrative: Biden won, full stop; there were no irregularities and anyone who says otherwise is a threat to Our Democracy™.

Sullivan’s most risible claim was that, if there is anything to any of this, it will all come out in the pending libel suits filed by that electronic voting company. But these private lawsuits were not filed, nor will they be litigated, to find evidence of electoral fraud. They were filed only to vindicate the public reputations of the plaintiffs and punish the defendants. The way this all will go down is that the plaintiffs will demand irrefutable proof from the defendants. When (inevitably) such is not produced, the plaintiffs will claim total vindication, which will then be trumpeted in the media.

It doesn’t matter if the plaintiffs lose the suit in the sense of not obtaining a favorable court judgment. All they need to “win” is a failure of the other side to produce proof that the media will accept as such. Since the media is nothing more nor less than the propaganda arm of the present regime, it’s foreordained to reject any such claims of proof and to deny that any and all evidence presented is credible. Hence the plaintiff’s victory in the court of “public opinion,” if not necessarily in an actual court, is guaranteed from the outset. Sullivan either knows this, is being willfully blind, or is a fool. I don’t think he’s a fool.

RTWT

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9 Feedbacks on "The 2020 Election and Our Inquisitorial Establishment"

OneGuy

I haven’t moved on. They stole the election from the 80-85 million voters who voted for Trump. In many ways this isn’t about Trump, it is about Americans not just Republican Americans but all real Americans. They stole the election, they lied about it to our face. They know we know that they are lying. Some of them are embarrassed about continuing to lie when it is so obvious but many of them are at the point where now they want to stick it too us and make us deny the big lie. No! It’s not going to happen. I am not past the election. They didn’t steal power to rule over us benevolently they intend to incrementally steal our rights, our wealth and eventually our lives. I am definitely not over the election AND it’s way to late for them to apologize. Tar and feathers is too good for them, the guillotine is appropriate though.

I realize that saying this means the fascist bastards will call me a white supremacist or something. So be it! I will wear their slander like a badge.



Fusil Darne

The entire fiasco could have been put right in short order had the stormers of the capital had a correct capital storming plan. You don’t storm the capital and post tic tic videos of same, rather, you gather the leadership from both sides and string them up by the neck, from a noose. If Nance, the turtle and chucky had met that fate, as they so richly deserve, we wouldn’t be here.
The capital has been reinforced, and the opportunity lost. A Pity.



Caroline

There isn’t much that can be done. I’m here in Georgia where they cried foul with no evidence. Some believed their vote counted, some did not. I’m a Trump voter and saw his campaign and lawyers lie. Straight up lie. It is astonishing.

I cannot speak to PA, AZ, NM, WI, and MI. Laws were changed in some of these states. I get the anger. But Georgia was a straight up loss. The courts smacked down any attempts to extend/change their laws. And they’ve been attacked the most. As a conservative Georgian, I won’t stand for it. Every day we bicker about lies is another day that Stacy Abrams wins.

This is so much bigger than Donald Trump. Wake up, people.



OneGuy

You are uninformed or a troll. Georgia had 305,701 illegal mail in ballots. 10,315 dead voters. 15,700 voters who do not exist. 66,247 voters under age. 20,312 illegal out of state voters. 136,185 votes cast by the machine and not people. In total over 600,000 illegal votes cast in Georgia.



Seattle Sam

Isn’t it eminently reasonable to demand an explanation as to how 25% more votes were counted than voters registered? This happened in many locales. Not a speculation. Fact.



gwbnyc

I vote “troll”.



JDZ

Where do you get these figures?



Caroline

I’m not a troll. Wouldn’t waste my time. Just adding my two cents about the GA election as someone who deeply cares about politics in our state. If there was evidence of the GA election claims made by Trump, I would be on the front line fighting. His claims were investigated and debunked, and then he withdrew his own election challenge voluntarily. Why would he do that?

And Rudy Giuliani made a ridiculous amount of money telling us “we wouldn’t believe what was about to come out!” So everyone subscribed to his YouTube channel, he made something like $20 million off of our emotions and disbelief, and then revealed nothing. Why should we accept that? Don’t you want to know why the big reveal never happened?

I’m pissed that Trump and Rudy ruined their own legacies and took down their own Trump supporters and many decent GA elected officials by doing it — “by any means necessary” is how Democrats operate. Not us. It’s all a damn shame.



Mike-SMO

There is nothing to “prove”. If the data can’t be audited (verified), the results are void. The machines were not secure, were connected to the internet and the paperwork does not support the reported talley, so the results of such a district/county/state are void, except the results are exactly what the “Uniparty” wished to show, so there will be no audit or verification.

In the interest of profit and efficiency, the unreliable voter has been eliminated from the process. They don’t know what is good for them, so why bother to ask?

The “Uniparty” has a good thing going. Why let “them” disrupt the system?



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