The U.S. will mark the anniversary of the January 6 insurrection on Saturday, a milestone that will confer upon the reality-dwelling citizenry a grim reminder of the potency of propaganda and how quickly it can warp perception when introduced into the public square.
Just three years ago, most of the country watched with dismay and horror as a violent MAGA mob beat back authorities and stormed the country’s citadel of democracy. The Donald Trump-incited crush of disillusioned rioters, fueled by a stream of fantastical lies, believed that the 2020 election had been stolen by sinister forces working to undermine the democratic election.
Of course, not only was their belief flatly incorrect, but evidence later emerged indicating that it was Trump who, in fact, had tried to subvert democracy.
Facts, however, have little bearing on the sentiment inside the Republican Party, which has been fed a steady diet of lies and half-truths by Fox News and the rest of the sprawling right-wing media machine. To wit, the false notion that Joe Biden nefariously stole the 2020 election is now widely shared inside the GOP. A CNN poll conducted over the summer found that nearly 70% of Republicans believe Biden’s win was not legitimate, a number that has continued to tick up.
Just wait; if a Republican wins the next election, the democrats will be crying about voter fraud and a stolen election. It is the great circle jerk of American Politics.
It’s quite a speculation. Democrats haven’t lost (or won) any 2024 election yet.
That said, let’s try to think how elections are “stolen”. First of all, i define stolen as irregularities in counting votes. People voting twice or on behalf of someone else is unheard in the…human history (why? Because it’s hard, a villain needs to find, one by one, millions of votes for making any meaningful impact on elections)
For counting irregularities it takes two things (1) that the primary system for counting is corrupted and (2) control mechanisms are corrupted and/or ineffective.
Only incumbent can influence (1) because only incumbent has power at the time of election while (2) is even more complex and, by design, neither incumbent (nor opposition parties) have full control of control mechanisms. So, realistically, only incumbent may have a chance to corrupt the system. In 2020, indeed, incumbent (Trump) tried to influence the counting system and failed because of the control mechanisms (e.g. state officials, even republican state officials, refused to comply because they knew their internal control mechanisms would not have allowed them).
Now in 2024 the incumbent is democrats so, if anything, only republicans may speculate irregularities.
But anyone can say anything. I may say that i am billionaire but not for this reason the bank must give me 1B$ cash. I have to demonstrate to be billionaire.
So, to recap, in 2024 onoy republican can reasonably accuse of irregularities and, in that case, they must demonstrate that there were these irregularities.