This week started off with almost every Big Media entity congratulating "President-Elect Joe Biden." There is now an Office of the President Elect, some fabrication that I recall was created by Obama to suck the oxygen out of the room even before he took office.
Republicans are being pilloried for not being able to show "proof" of election fraud. Trump's team has provided the List of the Dead, an Egyptian-like roll of voters who voted from the grave. Tucker Carlson ran lists on his show — dead people who rose from the grave to vote.
As Republicans seek those gnarly voter rolls, get their hands on the most egregious ballots, they are stymied at every step. For every Republican court case, there are Democrats opposing them or sitting on the judicial bench thwarting them. Running out the clock.
Well, what should one do? This is where the fun really begins, and our pals the Democrats have brought us this little party. Let's go there.
As the "anecdotal fraud" stories grew, they further inflamed people. Funny thing about anecdotes: They may not add up to lots of fraud votes, but every one is a memorable story. A story is far more important right now than being able to snag the names of more dead from the roles. Tucker pretty much topped that off.
Anecdotes are stories, and stories are the oldest form of human communication. The Bible came to us from stories, later written down and passed through the ages. Homer's Iliad and later Beowulf are stories that remain today the most intimate view into the life and times of early Bronze Age Greeks and the early Middle Ages. Stories move — statistics not so much.
Anecdotes are driving 71 million Americans mad.
Americans are particularly sensitive to fairness. A young child recognizes someone cutting in line. Fairness is innate; we all have it. For some, it is baked out by ideology when they adopt "the end justifies the means" kind of thinking. But those are not the Trump voters.
This election was not fair. Everyone, or about everyone, sees it, and, clearly, about 71 million people who voted for Trump cannot get past it.
To make it more unfair, those who committed the fraud will not let Trump's team see the scorecards. No vote-counting unless they are bludgeoned into it. Lower courts, often with Democratic judges, are equally opaque. Nothing to see here.
Sometimes you have to thank your opponent for being really stupid. Napoleon said never needlessly interfere with your enemy when he is destroying himself. We might create a corollary here: when your opponent drives you to high ground, take it. And say thanks.
Let's do that. Let's call it the American Thinker corollary. Give it a name like the Overton Window or Occam's razor, and into Wikipedia it goes. Fun times.
We cannot win the mind-numbing, detailed, line-by-line, opposed at every step swamp war with those who just stole an election. At least we cannot do it in 30 days, which is about all we have. More importantly, we cannot deliver every day the statistics to reverse the media drum beat to just move along and go with Joe.
We can, or Trump himself can, take the stories to the people, all 71 million of them. It appears he is starting down that path. This week, the speaker of the Pennsylvania House, a now key player in this drama,
said "no certification without audits."
Here's what that means.
Screw the stats. Trump is the number-one communicator in this quadrant of the galaxy. Trump has scores of anecdotes like that loose string on the sock where, when you pull it a bit, the sock comes apart.
The Trump rallies hit every swing state and educate their legislatures about the power of anecdotes. Anecdotes drive voters. Everyone remembers a story. Voters remember.
This election must be certified by two chambers of every swing-state Legislature.
The speaker in Pennsylvania just showed us the high ground. The Republican legislatures follow his lead and say no certification without the following:
- a full audit, by hand of every vote
- any court or election official mandate not approved by the Legislature does not count — take out those votes
- voting machines: cough up the source code, the audit logs for our forensic teams
You get the picture.
If the Democrats challenge this, the clock works against them. Thirty days. Tick, tick.
Trump plays the Trump card. Seventy-one million people demanding a recount — fair, honest, transparent.
No recount, no certification. No voting machine code review, no certification.
No certification, and the House of Representatives makes the call, and Trump gets off the golf course and back to work.
This is the high ground. The Democrats have given it to us; let us gather together and say "thanks."