Yes, I know the election is over a year way, but the 2020 election is going to be history making in ways most Americans don’t know about. This is going to be the first Presidential election where the electorate has been told, and is mostly aware of, all the election tampering being done by foreign governments (mostly Russia). At the same time one side, the GOP, has been running around like a chicken with it’s head cut off screaming about ‘election fraud’. If the 2020 election is a close one, or worse yet one where the winner of the Electoral College does not get a plurality of the popular vote, then we are in a world of hurt.
So lets run a little thought experiment here. There are basically two conditions we need to think about. An election where one side wins big and one where the winner just squeaks by (like 2016). With the former Americans can have some faith that the elections were fair as it is very very difficult to massively stack the results in 40+ states. So lets look at the latter.
Lets say the Donald Trump and the GOP just barely squeak by just holding on to the Presidency and control of the Senate. Let us further state that Donald Trump wins just like he did in 2016. The Democrats can, and should, cry out that it was a stolen elections. But besides that, how can the GOP erasure the people that it wasn’t stolen. How can we trust the results?
Little to no effort has been taken by either the National nor State GOP to do anything reassure us that the elections are fare. Indeed in the last few years it has been then GOP who have taken actions to skew the elections in their favor with means both lawful and unlawful. Just the latest is the North Carolina congressional district gerrymandering that violated the State constitution. An let us not forget all of the efforts to prevent voter impersonation election fraud and all of the efforts to have proper IDs. While this is not a bad idea, the way it has been gone about leaves much to be desired. Seems like in most cases these laws impact poor voters. Of course, given the position of many in the GOP that most election fraud is done by ‘liberals’ and/or Democrats this is not to unexpected.
But the point is that the GOP has, for many many years been complaining about how fraud ridden our elections are but seem powerless to make any substantial changes. An the changes they do make seem to make maters worse not better. Now let us add in the widely held belief that in 2016 the Russians used the internet and social media to influence our election. Plus we now have reports of the election systems of some states, like Florida, have been hacked. This is leading us to a very big problem.
If the Trump Administration and/or the GOP in 2017 had taken the position that any interference by anyone is totally unacceptable. That it unfairly casts dispersions on the validity of Donald Trumps election. An to demonstrate that neither he nor the GOP will have any truck with this kind of action. We would not be where we are now. We have a President who totally believes that it doesn’t mater how you win as long as you win. We have a political party so afraid of its far right base that it is totally unwilling to do anything that might though any doubts on the legitimacy of it’s power that it will do nothing. So even if they win, they loose.
So what need to be done? Simply put, but hard, very hard to do, is to create a ‘wave’ election. An election, no mater who wins, that will put into Washington people who will say “enough is enough” and creates a bi-partisan national effort to secure both our elections, the internet, and social media. This will be a tall order, their are people who will see these changes as a challenge to both their power and their wealth. They will join with those out side the country who wish to see the USA in political disarray to do everything in their power to keep things as they are. Finally we need to do one thing: