Big lies threaten last best hope of Earth

Two lies writ large in the Trump era are causing horrific damage to the democratic process established by the U.S. Constitution, and those lies, perhaps the most egregious ever put forth and pandered by a sitting United States president and believed by so many of his stalwarts, place into dire question whether our system of governance can survive.

Those two lies embody a core truth behind Donald Trump’s hold on both his once proud party and those he still holds in thrall.

One lie began circulating widely in 2019. It purports that 22-million illegal aliens living in the U.S. vote in U.S. elections. The second lie, of course, is Trump’s “Big Lie” that he won the election of 2020, defeating Joe Biden in a landslide.

“We are up BIG, but they are trying to STEAL the Election,” Trump tweeted just before 1 a.m. November 4. “We will never let them do it.”

“We won states, and all of a sudden, I said, ‘What happened to the election? It’s off,’” he said in his own inimitable way at a news conference later that day. “And we have all these announcers saying, ‘What happened?’ And then they said, ‘Oh — Because you know what happened? They knew they couldn’t win, so they said, ‘Let’s go to court.’ And did I predict this, Newt? Did I say this? I’ve been saying this from the day I heard they were going to send out tens of millions of ballots. I said exactly. Because either they were gonna win, or if they didn’t win, they’ll take us to court.”

As Donald Trump is wont to do, that quote not only contained more than one lie, it also attempted to lay the blame for that which he was guilty on the person he’d accused.

At the time of that fallacious tweet, votes were still being counted and the race too close to call. The Trump campaign had already filed suits in Georgia, Michigan, Nevada and Pennsylvania.

None had been filed by the Biden campaign.

Trump and his followers would go on to file 63 law suits alleging voter fraud or improprieties regarding the 2020 election he lost, each and every one dismissed or ruled unfounded. Instead, the election that set a record for voter turnout turned out to be the most scrutinized, most recounted election in history.

The objective truth is that Joe Biden garnered 306 electoral and 81,282,632 popular votes to beat Donald Trump’s 232 electoral and 74,223,234 popular votes.

The Center for Election Innovation & Research says the 2020 general election was the most secure in history.

“Almost 95% of all ballots were cast on auditable paper, up from less than 80% in 2016, including all ballots in every swing state,” they wrote. “States across the country conducted more legitimate audits of those ballots than ever before. More pre-election litigation clarified the rules, and more post-election litigation confirmed the results, than ever before.”

Yet because of Trump’s Big Lie, less than one-third of GOP and Trump voters (32%) are confident that votes across the U.S. were counted accurately in 2020. Confidence remains low going into 2022 at 38%. Self-identified Democrats (87%) and independents (62%) are much more confident about 2022. Without confidence in our electoral process, our constitution becomes moot.

The contention that illegal immigrants have the vote further erodes confidence.

“There is no evidence that there are 22 million immigrants in the U.S. voting illegally, either in 2020 or at any time,” said Lorraine Minnite, an associate professor of public policy at Rutgers University in Camden. “The claim is preposterous.”

To further bolster the fallacy of the claim, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security estimates the total number of people living in the U.S. illegally is closer to 11-million.

Federal law requires citizenship to vote in national elections and an oath on penalty of perjury. No state in the union grants non-citizens the right to vote. A few municipalities do allow such votes, but only in municipal races.

Whether the result of these two lies or as a backlash to so many voting in 2020, legislatures in 19 states enacted 33 laws in 2021 making it harder for American citizens to vote.

“Nobody has been prevented from voting,” is a common refrain these days from Republicans and Trump supporters. “Just illegals.”

I beg to differ. The majority of those laws don’t prevent illegals from voting, they make it harder for qualified voters most likely to vote against Republicans and Trump supporters to cast the ballot to which they are entitled.

Four states; Georgia, Iowa, Kansas and Texas, have imposed new or more harsh criminal penalties for election officials and those who assist voters.

It’s now criminal for people in Georgia to give water or snacks to voters waiting in line. In Kansas and Iowa, it is now illegal to return ballots for those who are disabled, home-bound or unable to get to the polls. In Texas, it is now illegal to encourage voters to request mail-in ballots.

Other measures shorten the window during which to apply for a mail-in ballot and/or to deliver it, make it more difficult to remain on absentee voting lists, eliminate or limit sending ballot applications and or ballots to those who don’t specifically request them, restrict assistance in returning an absentee ballot, limit absentee ballot drop boxes, increase voter identification requirements, expand voter purges, increase barriers to disabled voters, eliminate election day registration or reduce polling sites and hours.

A new law in Idaho will impose more strict signature requirements for absentee ballots beginning in 2022.

These changes do nothing but limit qualified electors, especially minorities, the disabled and the less affluent, from casting ballots.

Instead of fixing what might be broken, it appears that these state legislatures are instead attempting to break what’s been so tortuously fixed over decades; progress slowly and painfully eked out over the course of the civil rights movement, most gains paid for in blood.

Tiny steps over the course of tumultuous decades to right centuries of outrageous wrongs. Tiny steps to benefit all citizens, each equal, each “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.” Life, liberty, the pursuit of Happiness.

And there you have the truth of it, and the truth of what the chant “Make America Great Again” actually means. It is we who have certain unalienable rights, endowed by our creator. There is no other. It is we who decide what defines “great.” To fit in, you must conform.

I am proud not to fit in, and I will never conform. I will mourn the loss, should we give sway to the weak minded, of the government we will so meanly lose.

A government conceived in liberty. The last best hope of Earth. Will it be nobly saved, or meanly lost?

We are given, once again, to decide.