Election Deniers? Not This Time So Much

So many of the election deniers got beat Tuesday. That's a win for democracy that shouldn't be ignored.

But here's the other shoe dropping: Most of them didn't deny their own defeats. They conceded. They accepted.

Wouldn't they continue to object, especially if they lost? Wouldn't they see conspiracies anew? Shouldn't they?

Would seem to make no sense. Ah, but it does, if one understands that in politics, half is what's being said and half isn't. That oftentimes, one hides one's real motivation. Or, what may more be the truth, motivation is subject to speculation, anyhow.

Let's consider why those who so strenuously insisted that elections should be questioned, didn't question the count that defeated them:

• Political campaign posturing--It was the popular thing to say. Lining up with the rhetoric of election deniers, or at least election questioners, didn't take a lot of research. There were about three or four pet phrases that needed to be utilized. You spend just a minute on a campaign speech spewing them, and you're good to go.
• The lie repeated becomes the truth--There's nothing new about this. If circumstances dictate repetition, it becomes one's mindset. You look for corruption where there is none, and to say you're looking at it is all you need to convince some voters.
• They'll now say that it was true in 2020, but not in 2022, claiming credit for changes--I'm waiting for this one. They'll give their own party credit for 'cleaning up' the elections, especially after a Republican-controlled legislature passed measures suppressing minority voting.
• They desperately needed ex-'s endorsement--Or at least they thought they did. That, as it turned out, is starting to attach badly. Ask Dr. Oz in Pennsylvania, and Tim Michels in this state. Or Paul Ryan, who went out of his way to say what many should have begun saying long ago--that ex- is starting to become a "drag" on the Republican ticket. The Republicans expected to clobber the Democrats Tuesday. They did not. Enter Ron DeSantis?

And finally--

• The elections in question should never have been questioned in the first place because nobody tried anything edgy or illegal, and those that did got caught at the door, including ex- --and down deep inside, they knew it. It's not as if elections haven't been tinkered with in the past--both parties are guilty there--so bringing that up echoed a familiar refrain that takes time to decipher and by then, the cynicism has turned to genuine belief. (Plus ex- set us up for his victimization way back in 2016, if you recall.) Nobody remembers this, but there was a Senate investigation of illegal and improper activities in the federal elections of 1996. You can also study, say, what happened in 1876 and 1960. The 2020 election, as marred as it was by ex-'s attempts to sew chaos through the postal service and the rampant confusion of the pandemic, was one of the least corrupt, if not the least corrupt, in American history. As previously written here, the shadiness of the 2000 presidential results in Florida had its ripple effects in other states which did not feel like being as embarrassed as that state was--so they cleaned up their processes pro-actively.

We can only hope that that posturing will now fade away and become part of the past's rhetoric. It would serve to eliminate useless, reckless investigations that go nowhere--Michael Gableman, anyone?--and restore, to a certain degree, confidence that democracy really does work. No, it doesn't work perfectly, as various campaigns have displayed and continue to do so, But there is and will be, I predict, greater faith that one's vote really is opened when it should be and counted the same as everyone else's. That basic equality is one that modern technology helps us strive for and, one day, achieve. Beyond the maddening insistence upon that basic lie--one which ex- will repeat, of course, when he runs again; we will see how it now attaches--forces are still at work that will stop lies like the one we've had perpetuated before our very eyes. We all win then.

Be well. Be careful. With some luck, I'll see you down the road.

Mister Mark