Something Will Have to Give

The New York Times, a former newspaper, published the results of a series of polls that they held in the six most hotly contested “swing” states, between Joe Biden and Donald Trump.  Trump won five out of six.  The only one Biden picked up was Wisconsin which was within the 4% margin of error for the poll.  Of the five Trump won, all but one (Pennsylvania) was outside of the margin of error.

So, what does this mean?  Well, if I were to guess, I think it means that independents in these states think Biden is doing a lousy job running the country.  And since the independents are the least ideological voters, their opinion is probably the most objective.  Two thirds of independents are saying they’d rather vote for the guy who is being indicted in four different criminal proceedings in four different jurisdictions around the country.  They’d prefer a man who has been demonized by every news outlet, the FBI and the Justice Department.  And impeached twice by the House of Representatives.  Essentially what they’re saying is, they want to vote for this guy precisely because all of these people say they shouldn’t.

Now imagine if these poll numbers remain where they are or increase right up to Election Day 2024.  And then suppose that we have a rerun of 2020 where the people go to bed on election night with Donald Trump up by insurmountable leads in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and Michigan but the polls get shut down without a completed tally and then after a few days or weeks of “finding” absentee ballots Joe Biden miraculously pulls ahead by a few thousand votes.

Well, I think that would be the end of people believing in the electoral system in this country.  After all, the label “banana republic” has already gotten fairly wide currency after the partisan prosecutions that the Justice Department has been indulging in for the last four years.  I’m guessing that comparisons of our electoral system to Sadaam Hussein’s will become quite common after that.

But the important question is, what practical difference will people’s perception of voter fraud make?  I mean, the fraud will still allow Democrats to control the White House and maybe the Congress.  And that will eventually allow the Supreme Court to be packed with progressives.  Will it matter if no one believes in the elections?

I think it will.  It won’t immediately topple the government.  The United States still possess formidable resources and many of its institutions are somewhat functional.  But history has shown that a republic that loses the trust of its citizens in the fairness of its institutions eventually radicalizes the common people and leads to recourse to a revolutionary alternative.

Rome succumbed to revolt once the republican government became corrupt and tyrannical.  And it’s not necessary to go back two thousand years ago to see what happens to a tyrannical government, even a powerful one once the people have lost faith in its legitimacy.  We only have to look at the Soviet Union.  When people discover that elections are fake their relationship to the state is no longer one of ownership.  It becomes purely transactional.  And so, if the government that presides over these fake elections also fails to provide prosperity, then the only thing that can keep it in power is brute force.  Slaves don’t work any harder than they have to.  In the Soviet Union there was a saying, “They pretend to pay us and we pretend to work.”  Well, we’re headed there.  Inflation means that people are working two jobs and still aren’t able to save up to buy a house.  But they see illegal aliens given free housing and welfare.  I don’t think Americans are ready to live that way.

Something will have to give.