When Republicans started laying the groundwork for widespread, institutionalized voter suppression back under President George W. Bush—when then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales fired a U.S. attorney for refusing to manufacture voter fraud cases to prosecute—they couldn’t have imagined what they were unleashing because they couldn’t have imagined a Trump. For one thing, that was actually a scandal and Gonzales ended up resigning—Republicans wouldn’t support him. Then we had the nation’s first Black president and there is nothing Republicans won’t do to punish the nation’s voters for allowing that to happen—including not just electing Trump, but allowing his Big Lie to consume the party.
It’s not that they didn’t see it coming. In 2019, well before the election, Trump was harping on voter fraud, creating a narrative for his eventual defeat at the polls. One former chairman of the New Hampshire Republican Party, Fergus Cullen, sounded downright prescient in retrospect. “People hold riots after their favorite football team loses the Super Bowl. […] There’s just no telling what people will do when they’re incited to it. We’ve never been in a situation like this, where there’s so much dry kindling across the landscape and we’ve got someone all too willing to light the match.” Again, that was Aug. 2019.
When a riot did happen at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, when blood was shed, even that wasn’t enough to turn Republicans from Trump. He unleashed a mob that would have happily harmed Republican as well as Democratic lawmakers, and still, not a single one of them with national stature is challenging the Big Lie. That could be in part because in that, they see their path to victory in 2022 and 2024.
They’re probably not wrong, because the proponents of the Big Lie are seizing control of election processes all over the country, and particularly in battleground states.
The Michigan GOP has installed election canvassers at the local level who back the Big Lie, and has a fraudster running for Secretary of State and another running for attorney general—both endorsed by Trump. Election fraudsters in two Pennsylvania counties won election to election inspections positions this fall.
There’s a movement in Colorado to stack elections offices with 2020 fraudsters. Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who blew the whistle on Trump’s efforts to overturn the election in that state, is being primaried by the Trump-endorsed U.S. Rep. Jody Hice who would happily “find 11,780 votes” for him if need be.
“The attacks right now are no longer about 2020,” Colorado’s Democratic Secretary of State Jena Griswold told the Washington Post. “They’re about 2022 and 2024. It’s about chipping away at confidence and chipping away at the reality of safe and secure elections. And the next time there’s a close election, it will be easier to achieve their goals. That’s what this is all about.” A Post tally finds 10 Big Liars running for Secretary of State positions around the country, and 8 running for attorney general.
“This is a great big flashing red warning sign,” said another former GOP chair from Michigan, Jeff Timmer. “The officials who fulfilled their legal duty after the last election are now being replaced by people who are pledging to throw a wrench in the gears of the next election. It tells you that they are planning nothing but chaos and that they have a strategy to disrupt the certification of the next election.”
The key to fighting this is to pass strong elections protections and voting rights legislation which includes protections for elections officials and safeguards for the process. That legislation exists. The only way to pass it, however, is to end the filibuster on it. The only way to do that is to convince Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin that the fate of our democracy is in their hands. If they can be distracted from all that fundraising from GOP mega-donors that is.
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