THE MYTH OF VOTER SUPPRESSION (and the reality of voter fraud)

As Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts notes in his poignant introduction, the primary question addressed by Lucas’s book, The Myth of Voter Suppression, is this: “[W]hy does the Democratic Party oppose free, fair, and credible elections?”  The short answer the author provides is that Democrats are much better at cheating and rigging elections than Republicans are.  Tammany Hall, the Chicago Daley machine, and Missouri’s Pendergast organization provide three historical examples.  That’s not to say Republicans never engage in electoral shenanigans, of which cases Lucas provides several examples.  But it is Democrats who consistently oppose measures designed to increase election integrity--measures that even a former Democratic President, Jimmy Carter, advocated in 2005 when serving on a bi-partisan commission co-chaired by former GOP Secretary of State James Baker. 

Two major recommendations of that commission were voter IDs and restrictions on mail-in voting, the latter being a process riddled with invitations to fraud, especially when corrupt voter rolls include dead persons, duplications, and folks who’ve moved elsewhere.  Opportunities for fraud are multiplied when, as in California, ballot harvesting is permitted.  Under this execrable practice (also known as vote trafficking) almost anyone can take custody of and deliver mail-in ballots to a mail box or voting receptacle--a “chain of custody” nightmare that would have made Mayor Daley’s day in 1960.  

By contrast, the top Democrat priority in 2021, HR-1 (mendaciously labeled a “voting rights” bill) would have eliminated most state voter ID laws, expanded ballot harvesting, mandated Election Day voter registration, and required no-excuse absentee voting in all states.  Ironically, in 1977, first-term Delaware Senator Joe Biden opposed Election Day voter registration because it “could lead to a serious increase in voter fraud.”  Fortunately, this “For the People” bill didn’t survive a Senate filibuster but, as Lucas explains, Democrats continue to press for legislation that would essentially federalize elections and thus make their legitimacy as questionable as the Covid-rationalized measures that plagued the 2020 election.

Lucas also notes that the whole idea of “voter suppression” is a myth designed to smear legal measures like voter IDs.  No law actually mentions the term “voter suppression,” and the author cites numerous examples that debunk the Democratic narrative that ID laws diminish election participation.  Indeed, most electoral evidence suggests ID laws actually increase participation and buttress voter confidence in election integrity.  It is, of course, true that laws designed to increase election integrity do “suppress” fraud, which is doubtless a major reason Democrats oppose such laws that are common in Europe.  Case in point: “Today, Democrats routinely call seeking an accurate accounting of eligible voters ‘suppression.’“  Such an accounting would obviously “suppress” the votes of 25,975 dead people who were discovered on Michigan’s voter rolls, stiffs who would obviously prefer to vote by mail.

A trip down memory lane reveals that political bosses have typically made arguments akin to those now proffered by the “voter suppression” crowd.  Tammany Hall opposed cleaning up voting roles in New York City (where more votes were cast than there were available voters).  That same corrupt Big Apple machine also “worked to get prisoners released to ensure they voted and even established a ‘naturalization mill’ to instantly turn immigrants coming off boats into voters.”  Other strong-arm organizations campaigned against the secret ballot, which lessened their power to intimidate voters.  Then there was 1864, when “Democrats tried to use mail-in voting to defeat Republican President Abraham Lincoln.”  Today, the Brennan Center for Justice, along with the queen of the “voter suppression hysteria industrial complex,” Stacey Abrams, serve as the foremost Democratic voices for corrupt elections. 

Lucas provides scores of examples of fraud that actually affected the outcome of elections, thus disproving the Democrat-Media mantra that fraud in American elections, and especially the 2020 election, is almost non-existent.  While Lucas doesn’t assert the 2020 POTUS election was stolen from President Trump, the examples he provides (including an eye-opening analysis by Professor John Lott of mail-in voting in adjacent, typically homogenous precincts) make it clear that that election was far from “the most secure” in American history.  I should note that Lucas’ book is not and does not claim to be a thorough analysis of possible fraud in that election, but in my view the information he does provide indicates that its outcome could easily have been affected by the widespread use of mail-in ballots whose signatures weren’t carefully scrutinized and whose contents were frequently submitted for tabulation via vote harvesting.   

Given this evidence plus a whole chapter listing organizations that provide an endless supply of money and energy for the Democrat HR-1 election fraud agenda, I question the brief assertion made in Lucas’s first chapter that neither voter fraud or voter suppression currently pose an existential threat to the republic.  The $400,000,000 supposedly non-partisan “Zuckerbucks” that went overwhelmingly to Democrat precincts is only one of many 2020 illegalities that makes this “existential” observation less than reassuring.  Indeed, the conclusion I drew from reading Lucas’s scrupulously researched analysis of election laws and practices is that voter fraud (not voter suppression) is an existential threat to the republic right now. 

The original “Godfather” movie is famous for the line, “Leave the gun; take the cannoli.” In this case I’d say, “Read the book but leave out the not-currently-an- existential-threat assessment.”

Richard Kirk is a freelance writer living in Southern California whose book Moral Illiteracy: "Who's to Say?"  is also available on Kindle    

GUTFELD! NIETZSCHE and NIHILISM!

One of the Left’s favorite philosophers, Friedrich Nietzsche, correctly predicted that the “death of God” would lead to a nihilist upheaval (e.g. The Gay (fröhliche) Science, #343). Put succinctly, if what was passionately believed for centuries to be the basis of truth is now considered false (i.e. the “death of God”) people will start to believe that nothing is ultimately true.  

The American version of Nietzsche’s prediction has become increasingly clear as faith diminishes and truth is transmogrified into political correctness and whatever sexual lunacy Leftists impose via their near monopoly over the means of education and communication. Given this state of affairs, one might ponder the outlook of individuals who come of age in this era, imbibe liberally its relativistic assumptions, but can’t stomach the political absurdities. Such are the social genetics, I think, that explain personalities of the Greg Gutfeld, Kat Timpf stripe--neither of whom should be called, or want to be called, “conservatives.”

While Gutfeld exults in exposing Leftist irrationality and even on rare occasions manages to compose monologues that omit his obsession with scatology, the host of late-night’s raunchy response to The View seldom, if ever, focuses diagnostic attention on intact families and never on religious faith.  Assuming Gutfeld’s humor bears some relationship to the truth, he has little affection for children and scant appreciation for male-female households whose primary focus is raising kids to be moral adults.  Instead, when offering cultural remedies, Gutfeld typically echoes the leftist cliché about education. To be fair, he adds an important “school choice” proviso that, while valid, continues to ignore the fact that schooling alone will have little impact on cultural degradation absent a revolution in curricula that presupposes massive institutional changes. And those changes won’t happen without a huge moral awakening that spawns millions more intact families. On one program it was up to Gutfeld’s conservative guest Mercedes Schlapp to note the essential role families play in shaping children’s lives.   

Ironically, the expletive-filled Gutfeld! program airs at 8 p.m. on the West Coast, the former “family hour.” That irony becomes thicker whenever Gutfeld passionately and regularly advocates the legalization of drugs--a position that coincides with his comic persona as an aficionado of most forms of chemical intoxication and sexual deviancy. Unfortunately such references may no longer be over the heads of South Park tweeners who tune in looking for some early-evening SNL humor. Given his oft-declared attachment to music emitted by bands with nihilist inclinations as well as his compulsive snicker, it’s not a stretch to think Gutfeld might actually assuage his psychological demons by resorting to other than over-the-counter remedies.

On this issue Gutfeld has a reliable echo in the person of Kat Timpf, a self-proclaimed libertarian whose on-air superficiality doubtless has Ayn Rand spinning in her grave. Kat’s a “no rules” gal whose “live and let die” philosophy opposes laws both against and for sexualizing young kids in school. In real life, of course, that position means allowing radicals who set the agenda for public education to continue pushing “instruction” to six-year-olds that would have been deemed child abuse twenty years ago. On one program Timpf was even unwilling to oppose (or favor) drag queen shows for kids.  Instead, she commented with unusual passion about her friendships with practitioners of that “profession.” The same inane preference for dogma over reality applies whenever Timpf opines about immigration (actually “illegal” immigration).  The “real” problem, she asserts (again with blind libertarian arrogance) is the welfare system, not immigration—as if there were some possibility that America's welfare system would magically disappear before the country’s schools, hospitals, and social services were overwhelmed with five-hundred million foreigners possessing little education or proficiency in English.

I find it hard to understand how Timpf became a writer (or blogger) for National Review, but it’s clear she has no affection for religion and only offers back of the hand “raised Catholic” slights that would have made William F. Buckley bolt up straight in his chair. It’s also revealing that Timpf once complained bitterly about how cold she was in the studio while wearing, as is her wont, attire suitable for a Caribbean beach. On another occasion Timpf scoffed at the name Rand Paul (as if “he” were a Libertarian) and affirmed her political allegiance to the Senator’s eccentric dad, former Congressman Ron Paul. To sum up, Timpf has to be squeezed to say anything remotely akin to a moral imperative but gets passionate about drag queens, drug legalization, criticism of the Beatles, and her desire to be left alone by others--a “hands off” preference that includes taxes and existence of the Federal Reserve.  

It isn’t particularly surprising that late 20^th century America produced individuals of the Gutfeld/Timpf stripe, personalities who put on display for an audience’s amusement lives enmeshed in emotional turbulence, stimulants, and various degrees of intellectual virtuosity that appear devoid of serious attachment to the Western intellectual, religious, and artistic traditions—individuals who clearly have little contact with line-dancing folks in “fly-over” country who love God, family, football, and the flag.  

If Gutfeld/Timpf were the only alternative to Leftist tyranny, I’d take it. But the important point here is that a shallow, agnostic, “libertarian” alternative is incapable of successfully opposing Leftist tyranny. One can’t defeat morally deranged ideologues with “live and let die” lifestyles put forward without commitment to a widely shared, deeply felt moral vision. I can imagine Leftists licking their chops while facing a regiment of drug-friendly “libertines” whose most passionate ideals extend no further than the desire to have a good time and a wish to be left alone.    

Richard Kirk is a freelance writer living in Southern California whose book Moral Illiteracy: "Who's to Say?"  is also available on Kindle