Commentary: Grave Damage to Our Democracy As Many Convinced of Stolen Election

By David M. Greenwald

A Reuters article painted a scary picture—rural areas, large swaths of voters refusing to believe that Joe Biden won the presidency, some willing to take up arms if President Trump calls for it.

Truth be told, while this group is a bit scary and the thought that “preparing for the possibility of a ‘civil war’ with the American political left” is a bit unsettling, the bigger danger is not in the wingnuts but rather the core.

A recent poll by Reuters found that half of Republicans believe that Trump “rightfully won” the election but it was stolen from him in systemic fraud—while just 29 percent believe that Biden rightfully won.  Some polls have shown that figure to be as high as 80 percent of the base believing Trump’s fraud narrative.

But the narrative lacks proof or even really evidence.  Thirty-two lawsuits filed by the Trump campaign, only two wins—minor and technical as they were.

Moreover, most of the lawsuits have not even alleged fraud or, if they have, have not offered any proof.

From yesterday: “The District Court abused its discretion in denying the Motion to Amend for numerous reasons…  This prevents the Campaign from litigating its serious and well-founded claims that Defendants – Secretary Boockvar and seven County Boards of Elections controlled by Democrats – engaged in a partisan scheme to favor Biden over Trump by counting potentially tens of thousands of defective mail ballots.”

Important here is the word “potentially” which means they don’t have proof of this.  And more important is that they are asking them to set aside 1.5 million votes because there are potentially tens of thousands of defective mail ballots.

Like most, this one just filed is not going very far.

The evidence of fraud is simply not materializing.  But the claims if anything are becoming more bombastic.  Many focused on Giuliani’s press conference last Thursday, but it was Sidney Powell who has since become completely unhinged.

In an interview with Newsmax she wove an elaborate weave, tying the fraud to the REPUBLICAN and Trump-supporting Governor and Secretary of State, through the company Dominion with ties to Huge Chavez (dead since 2013) as well as the CIA and communism.

“That’s a total farce, Georgia is probably going to be the first state I’m going to blow up,” she told the interviewer.  “Mr. Kemp and the Secretary of State need to go with it.  They’re in on the Dominion scam with their last minute reward of a contract to Dominion of $100 million.

“The state bureau of investigation for Georgia ought to be looking into financial benefits received by Mr. Kemp and the Secretary of State’s family about that time,” she continued.

She said that Dominion was created as “election insurance,” and said “that’s why Hugo Chavez had it created in the first place.”  She added, “I think it’s hammer and scorecard from the CIA.”

The commentator broke in: “Just to clarify, you’re saying that Governor Kemp who has been a long time ally of the president, is directly involved because of financial benefit in a conspiracy to defeat the president in Georgia?”

She has the opportunity at this point to back off and soften the blow of her comment.  Instead she doubles down.

“We have certainly been told that there is evidence of that and would warrant an investigation if anyone were going to do an honest investigation,” she said.

She was pressed for details.

“I can’t give you any more details,” she responded.

Of course not.

The President’s people sought to distance themselves from Powell.  Rudy Giuliani, whom people were questioning after Thursday’s press conference, put out a statement, ‘Sidney Powell is practicing law on her own.  She is not a member of the Trump Legal Team.  She is also not a lawyer for the President in his personal capacity.”

The exact role of Powell is not clear, but she had appeared with its legal team at a press conference last week and had been embraced by them because of her defense of their claims.  She was described last week as a member of the team’s “elite strike force” but the entire conspiracy theory linking to Hugo Chavez, dead since 2013, in an effort to rig elections with the help of Republican-elected officials who are allies of the President seemed too far-fetched, even for the Trump team.

But not everyone.  There are people who really believe this stuff.

One person I exchanged messages with on Facebook said: “I’ve been following this.  Been trying to get you to see it for months but you ‘don’t have time for such nonsense.’”

I asked if she thought this was a plausible theory.

She said, “Yes I do.  There is a lot of information that you just won’t be hearing from corporate news.  I encourage you to look at those sources.”

I responded that while there are a lot of stories not covered by the mainstream news, in my view Powell’s comments were “completely unhinged.”

Her response: “You only think so because you don’t know all the background information leading up to her statement.  I and others have complete confidence that she knows what she is talking about.”

Later she said, “she stands by her words. she has an honorable track record. only time will tell if she is right.”

Yes, I’m sure the Republican Governor of Georgia who is an ardent Trump supporter conspired with nebulous forces to steal the election from Trump.  You can write this stuff off, but Sidney Powell was a person who clearly had endeared herself to the Trump legal team before they had to cut her loose.

One observer yesterday made an interesting point—this election really wasn’t *that* close, we saw a MUCH closer one in 2000, so would Trump have succeeded in undermining the results of a closer election?

Then again look what happened in 1876 and the nation survived.  So there is that.

—David M. Greenwald reporting

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