OPINION:
Following the tumultuous 2020 presidential election, Americans have been reassured that politics isn’t rigged. Whether it is or isn’t, politics ain’t what it used to be. Convention is shifting on the boundaries of fairness.
More than two months on, befuddlement still overshadows the events surrounding the Nov. 3 election that put Democrat Joe Biden in the White House and Republican Donald Trump out on the street. An eye-opening after-action report in Time magazine last week helps lift the veil on the mystery. “The Secret History of the Shadow Campaign That Saved the 2020 Election” by reporter Molly Ball describes the Trump ouster as the work of “a well-funded cabal of powerful people, ranging across industries and ideologies, working together behind the scenes to influence perceptions, change rules and laws, steer media coverage and control the flow of information.”
Then comes the kicker: “They were not rigging the election; they were fortifying it.” There is little doubt the victorious schemers who share the left-wing ideological bubble with Mr. Biden would nod in agreement. Tens of millions of Trump voters, though, must wonder whether there is any real difference between “rigging” an election and “fortifying” it. Mr. Trump clearly concluded that some measures taken to defeat him were illicit, and Twitter permanently banned him for saying so.
The cabal’s “conspiracy” was breathtaking in its reach: Global business represented by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce made common cause with historical adversary Big Labor. Never-Trump Republicans linked up with Never-Republican Democrats. Upper-crust philanthropists poured millions into street-level get-out-the-vote action, and government at all levels ordered law enforcement to stand aside when orchestrated mobs demanded change, or else.
Big Tech’s social media apparatus amplified voices that endorsed the Biden campaign and suppressed those opposing it. Biden backers successfully leaned on friends in major media to make late-breaking stories about Hunter Biden’s embarrassing China connections disappear.
A Media Research Center post-election survey found 17 percent of Biden voters would have not chosen the Biden-Harris ticket had they been aware of that news story or a handful of other damaging revelations — more than enough to flip the outcome. The First Amendment guarantees Americans the right to free speech, but current law doesn’t assure them access to news that Big Media chooses to spike.
The bold conspirators managed to wrestle away authority to alter state election laws from their respective state legislatures, and judges chose to hide beneath their black robes rather than stand and defend the U.S. Constitution.
The law-abiding believe that fair elections are foundational for the republic. If they are to preserve it, though, Americans will need to seek a clearer understanding of where “fortifying” elections end and “rigging” them begins. The Biden “cabal” has demonstrated that fairness ain’t what it used to be.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.