We have been left to believe that John Fetterman obtained over 50% of the votes cast by the citizens of Pennsylvania and that over 50% of the voters in Arizona prefer a lady who not only wouldn’t debate Kari Lake but hid in the bathroom of a fast food restaurant to avoid a reporter who only wanted to know why?
For me, these midterms—like the 2020 election—were all about the Democrats presenting America with plausibly deniable optics.
The Democrats have learned that if they cheat, they only need the victory to be manufactured in a way that the Democrat’s victory in any particular race is only by the slimmest of margins—e.g. 51% to 49%. That way, to the general public, it has the appearance of a legitimate race that was neck-and-neck—the question about whether there was any cheating dissipates and anyone who maintains that a cheat did occur is characterized as a sore loser, and in some instances … even a domestic terrorist.
At the end of the day, however, the fact remains that the victories we are seeing ARE the product of people gaming the system to defeat conservatives in races across the country who—but for the cheat—would have been elected by the will of a majority of the people.
To suggest otherwise is to say that America has now become a nation comprised primarily of people who want to cast their votes for candidates favoring:
- High inflation;
- Rampant crime;
- Releasing criminals;
- Sex trafficking of minors;
- Altering the gender of our children at their request without parental consent;
- Late-term abortion (i.e., murder);
- Altering our nation’s history to promote ideologically-based things like critical race theory (CRT) and the 1619 Project;
- The censorship of speech;
- Removing a citizen’s right to own a firearm;
- Open borders (i.e., no borders);
- Corrupt bureaucracies;
- Weaponized law enforcement; and
- A political establishment embedded in our government and our courts at the federal, state, and local level that is openly opposed to both the Constitution and the Rule of Law.
I, for one, don’t believe these are the platforms supported by the average American citizen, or in the aggregate, a majority of them. I need to believe that these midterm results indicating that it IS our new platform is, but for cheating, an impossibility. Thus, I have to conclude cheating occurred and was successfully engaged in by a minority who—to the detriment of the majority—hates this country and is willing to do whatever they can to bring about its downfall.
When I see a cheat, I don’t care whether the cheat is pulled off with a 30% margin of victory or 1%. To paraphrase attorney Lin Wood: A cheat is a cheat … always has been … and always will be. And unless and until those perpetrating this election cheating are held accountable for the treason they are committing, the cheating will only continue to occur in the future and this great country as we once knew it to be will soon cease to exist.
Of course, the trouble is, it is quite difficult for anyone to reasonably expect the cheaters who take office by their cheating to use the powers of their illegitimately gained offices to prosecute themselves for cheating—truly, a “Catch-22,” if ever there was one.
So … where does that leave patriotic Americans who still hold in their hearts a certain fondness for things like liberty, the Constitution, the Rule of Law, and an impartial system of justice that people like me thought was supposed to come along with the package that America was intended to be?
The midterms left many of us asking questions like this. Which, in turn, has left many also asking … what can be done to get America past this “Catch-22” that the cheaters are now shoving in our faces with an almost cavalier indifference about whether or not we see it?
Thoughts?
Cliff Nichols, an attorney, is the author of A Barrister’s Tales and the curator of The American Landscape.