Trump's "Big Lie" Like a New COVID Variant: Why So Many Republicans Fall for His Craziness

Riding the “Big Lie” as far as possible

(Right to the end of our democracy)

Pretty startling story here from the NY TIMES (June 7, 2021) a lot of concerting details at the same time with this headline:

“Rejecting Biden’s Win, Rising Republicans Attack Legitimacy of Elections”

Short Introduction: Across the country, a rising class of Republican challengers has embraced the fiction that the 2020 election was illegitimate, marred by fraud, and inconsistencies. 

Aggressively pushing Trump’s baseless claims that he was robbed of re-election, these candidates represent the next generation of aspiring GOP leaders, who would bring to Congress the real possibility that the party’s assault on the legitimacy of elections, a bedrock principle of American democracy, could continue through the 2024 contests.

Dozens of Republican candidates have sown doubts about the election as they seek to join the ranks of the 147 Republicans in Congress who voted against certifying President Biden’s victory.

There are degrees of denial: Some bluntly declare they must repair a rigged system that produced a flawed result, while others speak in the language of “election integrity while promoting Republican re-examinations of the vote counts in Arizona and 

Georgia and backing new voting restrictions introduced by Republicans in battleground states.”

They are united by a near-universal reluctance to state outright that Joe Biden was and is the legitimately elected president.

A few examples:

In WI, a Republican House candidate says he is appalled by the violence he witnessed at the January 6 rally that turned into the siege at the Nation’s Capitol. He did not disagree with GOP’s effort to overturn the election results. (Note: Biden won WI by 20,682 votes).

In MI, a woman known as the “MAGA bride” after photos of her Trump-style wedding dress went viral is running for Congress while falsely claiming that it is “highly probable that the former president carried her state and won re-election.” (Note: Biden won MI by 154,000 votes).

In WA, Republican nominee for governor last year is making a bid for Congress months after finally dropping a lawsuit challenging his 2020 defeat — a contest he lost by 545,000 votes. (Note: Biden win WA by 785,000 votes).

In NV, Sam Peters is campaigning for a Las Vegas-area House seat said: “I would not have voted to certify Jan. 6, not without more questions.” He added that he was not sure that Biden had legitimately won Nevada. (Note: Biden won NV by 33,000 votes).

Generally, How and Why Have We Have Reached this Crazy Time:

Trump and his allies remain relentlessly focused on the false claims about the election (e.g., he said even before the first vote was counted that the election was “rigged” and would be a “fraud).

Steve Bannon, the on-and-off Trump adviser, said in an interview with NBC News that challenging the results of the 2020 election was a “litmus test for Republicans running in 2022. Trump has been pushing reviews of last year’s results.

The most-highly publicized is the widely criticized Cyber Ninja AZ audit. 

He continued with that line and effort in a speech on June 5 in NC. (Note: Biden won AZ by 10,457 votes).

Impact of all this: Victories by these candidates would expand the number of lawmakers who support overturning the 2020 results.

Thus that keeps raising doubts about whether Americans can still count on the routine, nonpartisan certification of free and fair elections in the future and that is bad, very bad for our democracy.

The full story continues at the NY TIMES site.

My 2 cents: Not much I can add to this except to the say to savvy voters in those states above and others who subscribe to the Trump’s “Big Lie” running for office is: Do not send those people to Congress otherwise January 6 and that near total destruction of our democracy will continue – bet on it.

Having said that, I have faith in the voters and that they will not accept this craziness now spreading wider. 

I say to the voters, my friends: Help stop this Trump-driven GOP madness now, or certainly next election cycle, or it could be too late after the fact.

Thanks for stopping by.