As the November election approaches, we should be draining our hoses and shutting off the outside water. It’s going to be getting cold.
Wise people prepare for problems and try to avoid them. Our Republic faces a hard winter. Elections are where we should prepare.
I pay a lot of attention to local elections because I think that’s what’s most important. So, I was very encouraged when a woman I have known for a long time threw her ring in the hat. I respect her integrity, her industry, and her character. She is running for the position of County Clerk. The clerk, honestly, runs the courthouse. Commissioners think they do, but they are wrong. The clerk manages the courts and elections. It is probably much more important than the county coroner, though that is painful for me to admit.
So, when I looked at this woman’s positions online, I was a bit surprised. She said very many good things about how she would run the office, improve transparency and the workplace. I believe she could well do just that. She’s a wonderful person.
But when the Idaho Republican Party asked her to identify two instances of election fraud in the 2020 election, she gave two examples straight out of 2000 Mules. I trust her, so I Googled some more.
Do search engines just give you the answers they think you want? Of course. So, I reGoogled. I double and ghost Googled.
The evidence supporting these examples is poor. It has in fact, been rejected by judges, and Republican US Attorneys. But she believes it to be true.
We have had many profiles of candidates for legislature and county offices in our local papers. I have yet to see a reporter ask or the editor print an answer to the question of just who believes in “The Big Lie”. Why isn’t this an important electoral question?
Polls show us 70% or more of Republicans believe this. That the results of the 2020 Presidential election are fraudulent, and that we all now suffer under the executive authority of a chief executive whose position is a fraud. Why isn’t such a belief an open question that should be answered and discussed? Why is this topic avoided?
The supposition of a representative democracy is that we can elect people to represent us to enact laws that will govern us. If the elections are judged fraudulent, so is the assumption of representation. The strong man wins, and we the people lose.
This question sits right in the Republican Party’s lap. Do they, many I consider friends, endorse the idea that our elections are fraudulent? Our past President beat this drum long before his loss in November 2020. It seems many have embraced this. Such an embrace puts our Republic at risk. If elections become meaningless, we will be ruled by the strong man, or woman.
Lots of folks believe silly things. I have relatives that don’t believe we landed on the moon. I had a brother-in-law that believed in the world domination of the Jewish Banker cabal, I think is what he called it. I would just poke the campfire when he went off like that at elk camp. His odd beliefs could go up with the embers. I was not troubled.
But I need to decide how to vote for the person who will be the clerk of our elections. I need to decide how to vote for the legislators who will write laws about how we can vote. I need to know if such people have faith in our representative democracy.
If they don’t, which strong man are they going to line up behind? Is that the right question now? It should not be. We, the people, are wiser.