Mon, Aug 12, 2024 | By John Schroeder
I have never been willing to say that the 2020 presidential election was “stolen,” but I was willing to say it was irregular. Its irregularity was born of the covid “emergency” and thousands of decisions, small and large, to forego normal procedure – resulting in a severe lack of transparency that means the election will forever be ripe for suspicion and speculation. Even if the results are as they would have been under normal circ*mstances, one is forced to wonder. My hesitancy to declare the election “stolen” is born not of a lack of suspicion, but of a desire to restore and uphold our electoral process. Declaring that election “stolen” is declaring our electoral system as broken and in need of replacement – a replacement that I do not believe would be an improvement.
But if you think that election was suspicious and lacked transparency – consider what we are in the midst of, at least on the Democratic side of the election.
Like 2020, there was an emergency. In this case it was Joe Biden’s decline and incapacity – apparent to all but “revealed” suddenly creating an emergency. Upon the revelation of the emergency everything went behind a curtain, erasing any opportunity for transparency. Where information is not available, suspicion and speculation follow – such a situation demands that a new candidate be selected by the most transparent methods possible simply to avoid that suspicion and speculation. But no, we have gotten just the opposite. Even if we presume Harris stood unopposed and the delegate votes could be so rapidly and easily corralled, the vote proper was conducted “virtually” again reducing, not enhancing, visibility. Then finally there is her choice of running mate.
Kamala Harris “was” far to the left of the mainstream of the Democratic Party, until she wasn’t. So weak a candidate was she that she dropped out of the 2020 primary before a vote was cast. Her electoral ship simply would not float. And while she has simply declared herself more centrist than any prior evidence would indicate, and her party “appears” to buy this massive and complete about-face, she has picked a running mate as far left as she “used to be.”
The opacity of her ascendancy combined with her choice of running mate reinforcing a stance far to the left of her party, let alone the nation, leaves no choice but to suspect that events are something other than completely above board. Hence the term “coup” (Shorthand for coup d’etat) has come (originally by the host as far as I know but recently picked up by the Republican candidate in fundraising materials) to be attached to events inside the Democratic Party. Perhaps everything that has happened has been on-the-level, but we will never know due to the utter lack of transparency and complete lack of representation of the center of the party.
No matter how you cut it, no matter the outcome of the general election, the net effect of recent events inside the Democratic Party is to further weaken the faith of the nation in its electoral process.
Simply put, we cannot reward such. A vote for the Harris/Walz ticket is a vote for something less than the democratic republic we are supposed to have. Look, I get it, candidates emerging from smoke-filled rooms full of party power brokers has been the norm for most of the history of our nation – but not in recent decades. There is a case to be made that the movement towards binding primaries of recent decades has gone too far, but to suddenly and completely reverse course under the guise of an emergency that was not actually emergent is a move towards something that resembles a totalitarian state more than our republic. We cannot reward such.
Not calling the 2020 election “stolen” was to leave the window open for the restoration of faith in our electoral processes. But what we have witnessed in recent weeks has not merely failed to take advantage of an opportunity so carefully preserved. Rather it has served to further erode that confidence. Clearly, only we, the voters, can restore that confidence – by soundly defeating the Harris/Walz ticket sending a clear and loud message that such shenanigans will not be tolerated.
