Election denialism is far from the whole of the issue
Trump attempted to remain in office despite losing the election. Virtually all Republicans running in Arizona participated in, condoned, or say they would have participated in the plot.
Democrats are making election denialism an issue in the 2022 campaign.
The failure of Donald Trump and many Republican candidates to accept the legitimacy of the outcome in the 2020 presidential election, and the spreading of false claims about election fraud, undermines faith in the accuracy of election results, and thus faith in American democracy itself, goes the argument. To protect democracy, these candidates need to be defeated, is the call to action.
In addition to generally standing their ground about the 2020 election, Republicans are pointing fingers about election denialism among Democrats.
Stacey Abrams, Georgia’s Democratic candidate for governor this year, is Exhibit A. She denied, and continues to deny, the legitimacy of her loss in the 2018 gubernatorial election. Like many of the Trumpeteer GOP candidates, she refuses to say that she will accept the legitimacy of the election this year. Unless, and again like the Trumpeteers, she happens to win.
Then there are the handful of Democratic members of Congress who have objected to accepting the electoral college votes from certain states in presidential elections won by a Republican.
Election denialism is a bad thing, regardless of who does it. In reality, the United States has the most honest and legitimate elections in human history. After the various proctology exams of the 2020 election in Maricopa County, what was stunning was how vanishingly few real problems or issues surfaced.
It is right and good that Abrams has been put on the defensive about her election denialism, as she struggles and fails to distinguish between hers and that of Trump and the Trumpeteer GOP candidates. Ditto for the Democratic members of Congress and their previous posturing during the counting of electoral college votes.
However, the issue in this election is significantly broader than just election denialism, as serious as that is in its own right. There is legitimate reason to question the commitment of Trump and many GOP candidates to democratic norms and democratic succession. That’s particularly true with the Trump ticket here in Arizona.
Trump attempted a coup, staying in office despite losing the election. It was one of the most nefarious acts in all of American history.
The blizzard of lawsuits the Trump campaign filed, although overwhelmingly bogus, aren’t part of this. That’s the appropriate venue for making election challenges.
The plot consisted of having GOP legislatures in states Trump narrowly lost designate the Trump electoral college slate as the official one, rather than the Biden slate voters had chosen. Failing that, having the Trump slate convene and produce a document proclaiming themselves to be the official slate and sending the document to Congress.
Republican members of Congress were to vote to reject the electoral college votes of the states en masse, not just a few numbskulls. When Congress nevertheless voted to approve them, since Democrats have the majority, Vice President Mike Pence was to refuse to accept them anyway, denying Biden the electoral college majority he had earned.
The proximate cause of the plot’s failure was Pence’s refusal to play his appointed role in it.
Virtually all Republicans running in Arizona this election either participated in the plot, condoned it, or say they would have participated.
Many of the Republican members of the legislature were willing to convene and assert that the Trump electoral college slate, not the Biden slate Arizona voters had chosen, was the official one.
Three of Arizona’s GOP members of Congress – Andy Biggs, Paul Gosar, and Debbie Lesko – voted to reject the certified electoral college votes from Arizona and Pennsylvania. The fourth, David Schweikert, tried to play it too clever by half, voting to accept Arizona’s electoral college votes but reject Pennsylvania’s.
The Trump ticket for state offices – Kari Lake for governor, Mark Fitchem for secretary of state, and Abe Hamadeh for attorney general – all say they would not have certified Arizona’s 2020 election results.
The Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, Blake Masters, says he would have voted to reject the electoral college votes from some states.
As bad as election denialism and casting false doubt about the legitimacy of American elections is in its own right, this is in an entirely different, and much more disturbing and dangerous, category.
Despite her malign election denialism, Abrams made no attempt to have herself rather than Brian Kemp installed as governor. The Democratic congressional numbskulls who voted to reject some electoral college votes in favor of a victorious Republican presidential candidate weren’t involved in a real effort to seat the Democrat instead.
Hillary Clinton and others cast some false shade on the legitimacy of Trump’s election to the presidency in 2016. But there was no organized plot to make her president despite having lost.
The candidate in American history to have the best claim to have been cheated out of the presidency was Al Gore. After the Supreme Court, in a highly dubious and partisan ruling, shut down the Florida recount and made George W. Bush president, Gore accepted that was the end of it – even though he was vice president at the time and, in Trump’s coup theory, could have rejected whichever electoral college votes disfavored him.
Because of the Biden administration’s failures and incompetence, Republicans have the wind at their back this election. But voters should weigh what the Trump Republican Party has become, and what he and it did after the 2020 election.
Reach Robb at robtrobb@gmail.com.