The Big Lie, Con't

People keep saying the GOP's Arizona audit adventure was a joke, a laughable, risible exercise that accomplished nothing for the Republicans and for Trump, and that's simply not the case. Steve M makes some very good points here:

 

But Republicans are usually slicker than this. They know that most people won't read the report -- they'll just absorb the headline, which is that the audit affirms Biden's victory (and increases his winning margin). Outside the fever swamps of the right, this audit looks like a joke. And within Wingnut World, it's unnecessary -- rank-and-file right-wingers already "know" the election was stolen by the Democrats. It's a core element of their worldview. They don't need audits to confirm something they regard as self-evident. Nor do GOP legislators seem to need any excuse to pass new voting restrictions aimed at Democrats. They certainly didn't need an audit for that purpose earlier this year in Georgia, Florida, or Texas (although Texas is now planning to audit the 2020 vote in four large counties, three of which went Democratic in 2020 and the other of which, Collin County, was 13% more Democratic in 2020 than in 2016 and nearly went for Joe Biden).

Why conduct audits when the faithful are already certain that Democratic fraud is rampant, no one else is persuaded by the audits (especially when they don't find any fraud), and GOP-run legislatures need no pretext to manipulate elections in their favor? I'm stumped. Apart from the need to feed the instatiable ego of Donald Trump, I don't get it -- and even Trump won't be satisfied unless the audits make him president again, which they won't. So what's the point?

 

The point, as I said yesterday, is to prepare the 2022 and 2024 field for overturning Democratic wins in the future by normalizing endless audits in multiple states now.

This is happening, out in the open, and it is happening now.  2020 was a dress rehearsal. The 2024 revision will, unless it is stopped, put America into a hell of authoritarian make where the only party will be the GOP, and we will join the many other dictator "democracy" states: the Philippines, Brazil, Turkey, Poland, Russia, where the reality of elections is permanent one-party rule by a tyrant dynasty for decades, cemented by military power.

We barely escaped it last time.  We won't be so lucky in 2024. Trump is setting the stage for a coup if he loses, and more importantly, he's setting the stage to normalize challenging and even nullifying and overturning election wins by Democrats in the years ahead.

The point is to normalize questioning election results where Dems win, whether by 1% or by 25%. The point is to always call them fraudulent and to investigate them. The point is to question county election results in large blue counties in red states, counties with large numbers of Black and brown voters, and to invalidate those votes and those voters. It was to justify the raft of scores of voter suppression bills, to pretend it was "due diligence".

In 2022, when these states find "fraud", the stage is set.

That's the point.