South Dakota Top Blogs

News, notes, and observations from the James River Valley in northern South Dakota with special attention to reviewing the performance of the media--old and new. E-Mail to MinneKota@gmail.com

Saturday, August 6, 2022

It's the politics, stupid.

American democracy is being dismantled.  The fundamental and essential act for a democracy, the vote, is being subverted. People who want to abolish basic American rights, for various reasons, are putting elections under siege by making false claims that they are fraudulent.  Donald Trump and his loony goons have adopted the mantra that the election in which he was defeated was stolen.  There is no evidence of serious voter fraud, but a unanimous documentation that it was conducted with efficient integrity.  However, true to the Trump tradition of lying dishonesty, he and his cronies hew to the Hitlerian principle that if you persistently repeat a lie, people will come to believe it.  Trump is on record for telling 30,573 lies during his presidency.  He is persistent, if not good, at lying.

The Trumpists scheme that their way to  power is to undermine elections.  To do so, election officials try to overturn elections won by Trump opponents by attacking the certifications.  Officials at various levels of governed sign certifications that votes have been properly cast and counted.  The insurrection of Jan. 6, 2021, was an attempt to interfere with the 2020 presidential election.  While there may be much talk about election fraud, the body of laws and rules governing the vote makes cheating very difficult to get away with.  The process of checks and balances is in place from when individuals cast their votes through the counting and announcement of the tally.  Incidents of incomplete or miscounting are rare.  After the 2020 election, more than 70 suits were entered into the courts charging election fraud.  All were dismissed because there was no evidence to support charges of fraud.

Honest elections are simple to determine.  You count the votes, and who gets the most wins the election.  But when you get a group of people who think democracy is just a contest to see who wins the power, you get false and absurd claims about fraud and sinister conspiracies and a government that doesn't function.  And you get demands for recounts of the vote and constant bickering over how to count. Politics has become just a form of incoherence.

When incoherence rules, democracy doesn't.  Then, chaos rules.  A good portion of the country is wallowing in chaos.  Our politics have devolved into such a demented state that they no longer sustain democracy.  They are the enemy of democracy.


1 comment:

Unknown said...

Anyone that trumpets "there wasn't enough fraud to influence the election of 2020" is willfully ignorant or so partisan they can't bare the truth. One does not have to dig too deep to find the evidence, particularly in the battleground states, but in all states, blue or red. If so many are concerned about the integrity and transparency of our election systems, why has there been such overwhelming resistance to providing public information that would prove or disprove "the big lie"? Even in South Dakota, data collection is showing an algorithm was at work during the primaries. Despite repeated FOIA requests for ballot images, cast vote records and other public information, the requests have been denied by all the state election officials. In fact, surety bond inquiries has resulted in officials retaining legal protection at taxpayer expense, according to The Dakota Leader. Well, so much for free and fair elections, transparency and integrity. Ask yourself: Why are our election officials so afraid to release public information? What are they afraid of?

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