Trump may just ignite a revolution
Viva la revolucion! The GOP is playing with fire in their mad dash to one-party rule, as an obscenely wealthy donor class happily gums up the works with wads of greasy cash.
Trump can’t brag about “winning” the Electoral College when Republican officials in nearly 30 red states disenfranchised up to 7 million (mainly) Democratic voters. It was a stolen election by every measure, and the court jester is an illegitimate pretender to the throne lording over a kakistocracy/plutocracy.
It doesn’t matter how much the spoiled brat cries and pouts because he lost the popular vote, either. Extraordinary accusations require extraordinary proof. If the Great White Chief wants to investigate all those little brown, black, olive, yellow, red, and purple-skinned aliens sneaking in and voting for Hillary, then let’s conduct a thorough, nonpartisan investigation of BOTH parties, and expose our corrupt electoral process to the world.
The Brennan Center for Justice lays out the myth of “voter fraud” quite extensively with links to many studies. It’s statistically nonexistent, and it’s ludicrous to believe otherwise. Besides, if Republican spin masters could ever find any boneheads dumb enough to risk up to 10 years in prison for organized voter fraud, would there not be wall-to-wall coverage all over Faux Fox News, lie/hate radio, the right-wing internet swamp, and Trump’s Twitter feed every hour of every day? The splashy chyron on corporate, fake-news TV would be screaming, “Aha! Evidence! Finally!” Didn’t happen; won’t happen.
“Election fraud,” on the other hand, is rampant and shocking to even the most cynical. Avid consumers of mainstream media were sidetracked by Jill Stein’s supposedly simplistic “machine” recount. That wasn’t the larger story, even though it sucked up all the oxygen in the daily news cycle. The primary purpose of the recounts was to expose widespread election fraud and to reform the system for future elections.
The single biggest scandal threatening the beating heart of democracy is an under-the-radar, decades long, partisan crusade waged by Republican state legislatures and their secretaries of state (with a wink and a nod from Republicans in the U.S. Congress), which has been methodically disenfranchising millions of Democratic voters every election period.
Their devious tactics range from the unjust purging of voter rolls (“Interstate Crosscheck”), to uncounted “spoiled” ballots and placebo “provisional” ballots, to unwarranted voter-suppression ID laws, to cutting the number of early voting days, polling places, hours of operation, and poll workers in Democratic strongholds. (Never mind the endless smear campaign against liberals, Hillary’s email non-scandal, or interference by the FBI director and Russia.)
Throw into the mix old, faulty, easily hacked voting machines and error-prone optical scanners that notoriously spit out damaged or otherwise “unreadable” ballots. Place them far and few between in heavily populated Democratic districts to create long, discouraging lines. Voila! (Revealingly, Republican districts in key states enjoy newer and better machines, sprinkled generously around the whiter and wealthier neighborhoods, rewarding these privileged voters with shorter lines and better results.)
Another piece of damning evidence is that several critical, key-district exit polls are noticeably off. Historically, an exit poll (the international gold standard) was extremely consistent with the tabulated result of paper ballots, with an error rate usually within only 1 percent or so. When electronic voting machines (with virtually no paper trails) became omnipresent in the early 2000s, exit polling began to veer widely off the mark. Occam’s razor would seem to indicate that Democrats assumed their votes counted when they didn’t.
Our state-by-state, Third World country voting nightmare should be replaced by national standards and good old old-fashioned, much more reliable paper ballots, which can be properly recounted, monitored by the U.N., and not arbitrarily shut down by Republican-appointed judges with conflicts of interest.
Alas, Kellyanne Conway’s “alternate facts” evidently rule the day. Establishment players avoid real facts like the plague: The compliant corpse media discounts anything that might upset the apple cart; Republican politicians won’t look a gift horse in the mouth; Democratic politicians are paranoid of the career ending “sore loser” label and of incensing even more of their already skittish voters.
Fortunately, we still have some morally conscious writers, investigators, lawyers, and journalists willing to shout into the wind. The more prominent ones are Greg Palast, Brad Friedman, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Mike Papantonio, Sam Seder, Amy Goodman and Thom Hartmann. Many more civic-minded patriots also are trying to break the media sound barrier, if anyone cares to listen.
If the past is any indication, Americans will not tolerate this abuse for much longer. It is the duty of every citizen — for whom our Founders bled and died and to whom they handed a people’s government — to shout from the rooftops and to protest in the streets! All-out rebellion against depraved ruling elites is the last resort of an outraged citizenry.
To be clear, I do not advocate violence; yet, with a population awash in anger and weaponry, it wouldn’t take much of a spark to ignite the powder keg. Trump — unpopular, egomaniacal, self-dealing, bigoted, sexist, predatory, and a small-minded pathological liar — might be just the fool who unwittingly strikes the match. After breaking wild campaign promises to his lowly pawns and consolidating power with the worst establishment players and fellow rapacious con artists, does he really expect disaffected voters and low-paid workers with no realistic hope for adequate health care and retirement to shrug it off, go home, and watch fantasy life on TV?
The bankrupted billionaire had better hope so. Wispy yellow police tape fluttering in the wind might be the only “wall” separating civilization from chaos.
Lawlor is a resident of Kalispell.