AFP/Barron’s: Big Lie 2.0: Trump Bids To Remake US Democracy In His Image

09.15.2021 / By Frankie TAGGART
AFP/Barron's: Big Lie 2.0: Trump Bids To Remake US Democracy In His Image

Government watchdog Common Cause is backing the Freedom to Vote Act, introduced by the Democrats in Congress on Tuesday, which would ban removing election officials for partisan political purposes. "His Big Lie has just been metastasizing and really undermining trust in our elections in a way that is very dangerous," Stephen Spaulding, senior counsel at the organization, told AFP. But Spaulding believes the greatest remedy to electoral dark arts remains robust turnout at the ballot box. "In 2020, we had the highest voter turnout in more than a century in the middle of a pandemic, so voters really showed up," he said. "So ultimately, voters need to continue to show up in record numbers."

His defeat may only just have been established but Larry Elder was already claiming fraud in the California gubernatorial recall election before a single ballot had been counted.

A website funded by Elder’s campaign claimed the day before Tuesday’s vote it had detected fraud in the “twisted results” — underlining the new Republican orthodoxy that echoing Donald Trump’s fantasies of stolen elections has currency even in the bluest corners of America.

The right wing talk radio host was just the latest in a growing number of Republicans counting on winning Trump’s endorsement by echoing the so-called “Big Lie” — the former president’s baseless allegations of voter fraud in the 2020 election that he lost irrefutably to Joe Biden. …

While Trump’s bogus claims were debunked by state governments, courtrooms nationwide and Congress, there are still deep concerns that the tactic could succeed in 2024.

In multiple swing states, proponents of the Big Lie are being backed by the Republican firebrand to become chief elections official, sparking fears that the people who did the most to undermine confidence in the last election could be the ones running the next.

The endorsements come ahead of a rally planned for Saturday in Washington to protest against prosecutions of suspects in the January 6 insurrection, when a mob incited by Trump’s fraud allegations ransacked the US Capitol in an unsuccessful bid to halt the certification of the 2020 election. …

Government watchdog Common Cause is backing the Freedom to Vote Act, introduced by the Democrats in Congress on Tuesday, which would ban removing election officials for partisan political purposes.

“His Big Lie has just been metastasizing and really undermining trust in our elections in a way that is very dangerous,” Stephen Spaulding, senior counsel at the organization, told AFP.

But Spaulding believes the greatest remedy to electoral dark arts remains robust turnout at the ballot box.

“In 2020, we had the highest voter turnout in more than a century in the middle of a pandemic, so voters really showed up,” he said.

“So ultimately, voters need to continue to show up in record numbers.”

See More: Abuse of PowerTrump Administration/Executive EthicsVoting Rights