Election Denial Is Still A Massive Issue.

Even As Democrats Lose, "MAGA" Refuses To Acknowledge Reality.

One of the weirdest phenomena in recent political history was the vitriolic reaction to Trump losing the 2020 election that we saw from conservatives. Center to this outrage was the idea that the election was stolen, something that would soon become a core theme of the Trump base.

This belief that Democrats could rig elections quickly surged from a fringe theory put forth by Trump, to a mainstream debate on the merits of the claim. Which almost instantly showed there were no merits to this argument, there was no evidence.

With over 60 court cases on the matter affirming this, as not a single one found fraud that would’ve changed the outcome of the election.

With, if anything, Trump’s own research disproving his own claims. Fast forward to now, where Democrats lose the very next election. And you might think this would be the end of the conspiracy. If the Democrats lost, obviously they can’t rig elections right?

Alas, it’s never that simple for MAGA.

So I’ve decided we’re going to litigate the claim that the 2020 election was stolen and show why it’s baseless. Starting first with the fact no credible evidence was ever put forward, then showing how Trump knew these claims were baseless when he spread them, and we’ll end on what this means going forward since Trump was essentially just rewarded for lying.

No Evidence of Fraud.

The first problem with this theory of election fraud is how quickly most pieces of evidence fall apart. What is often touted as concrete pieces of evidence that show the fraud happen, never hold the merit being portrayed.

For example, this video, courtesy of Rudy Giuliani’s X profile is often touted as “indisputable.” Where the claim is it shows ballot boxes being replaced, ballots being stuffed, and other fraudulent acts.

Which would be quite the smoking gun, if longer video didn’t literally exist showing how the ballot boxes in question were placed there earlier in the day.

They hadn’t been moved, and no fraudulent acts occurred.

If this is not enough for you, Rudy Giuliani then went on to admit in court he made up the whole thing. Claiming he believed it was his first amendment right to do so.

Another piece of “indisputable” evidence often thrown around is the film 2000 mules. Often depicted as hard-hitting journalism mainstream media would otherwise try to censor that gets straight to the point and pulls no punches.

The problem with this? The producer has now also admitted he lied in court after being sued for the claims the film made. He also cites organizations in the documentary who have came out and said they never made the allegations he was citing.

Not that he should’ve ever been trusted, as he was already incriminated in a federal campaign finance crime.

Another claim on the mainstream again surfaced thanks to Rudy Giuliani, who’s credibility calls into question any of these alone, as he stated over 20,000 dead people voted in Pennsylvania.

This has been repeated by the likes of Mike Lindell, and is often one of the first retorts out of a Trump supporters mouth about the 2020 election.

The claim even made it to court, with a case filed by conservative group Public Interest Legal Foundation. However, this case was shot down during standing, though the judge analyzed the evidence and found it had no merits.

The issue here arises when you realize the reason the judge shot down the case. It was filed in the final days possible, with no evidence to support the claim.

It was quite literally just this private company making a claim and asking the judge to take their word for it. As many of you know, this is not how court works. I can’t just accuse you of murder and get you wrapped up in a lengthy legal process with 0 evidence, the same is true here.

One of the more fringe theories that still needs discussed is something known as the “Bellwether Counties.” Republicans will tell you these have accurately predicted every Presidential election in who they voted for except for the 2020 election. With the assertion being this anomaly proves the fraud as since they went for Trump, he was supposed to win.

Impracticality of this theory aside, research on Bellwether Counties picks apart this idea rather thoroughly. These counties, which are just counties who predicted the prior president correctly, have become less accurate indicators of presidential success in recent years as polarization becomes more prominent. These counties becomes ones that just regularly vote red or blue.

Furthermore, study into the demographic of these counties finds on average they are less diverse in that the majority of the population are older, white, non-college educated males. This is also the precise demographic Trump over performed in, which could easily explain his success in 2016, 2020, And 2024 in these counties.

Also in the strongest Bellwether counties, those in the Midwest and Northeast, reporting on the 2020 Biden campaign shows he avoided these area’s largely as he expected Trump to carry them.

Typically when these fail the next talking point is the dreaded “Hunter Biden laptop” and how it was censored by big tech media. With the conspiracy here being that if people knew of the existence of this laptop they would’ve changed their vote.

Despite plenty of people voting for Trump, a man civilly liable for sexual assault, defaming the victim of his sexual assault, and guilty of 34 felony counts as well. We’re supposed to believe a laptop would’ve been where the line was drawn.

But alas, lets pretend this is a serious claim and analyze it on the merits. What really happened was Facebook lowered visibility, and Twitter prevented posts of one article from New York Post about the laptop story.

This is the norm for social media companies, and as nothing was proven at this point they felt this would be best. Especially after the fiasco of Russian interference hacking the DNC in 2016.

They both quickly reversed course, Twitter was allowing the article to be posted within 24 hours and denies any pressure to do so from the Biden administration

Polling on the matter also shows the only voters who cared about the Hunter Biden laptop story were Republicans who were closely following the laptop story. So not Biden voters, not independent voters who don’t care about these things, but hyper-polarized Republican voters who weren’t voting Biden anyway.

Lastly we have the court cases. Trump or those invested in a Trump win opened over 60 court cases regarding the 2020 election and lost every single one. Aside from a small, semantic victory in Pennsylvania that didn’t change any existing rules.

Over half were lost on something known as “evidentiary grounds” which essentially means the evidence provided didn’t meet the claim made. Of the other cases lost on standing, the evidence was still analyzed in all but 3 cases. In each of these, it was found there was no merit to the evidence provided.

The 3 where this did not happen included 2 states trying to sue other states, where they were told someone in that state would have to bring the lawsuit. In both cases someone in that state then brought the case, and it was lost on evidentiary grounds. The third was a frivolous suit someone raised against Mike Pence, claiming he should’ve unilaterally overturned the results.

Trump Knew What He Was Doing.

The most damming piece of this all is that Trump was knowingly spreading false claims. We know that everyone close to him from his Vice President, his Department of Justice (DOJ), National Intelligence, Cyber security, State Officials, his Attorney general, were all telling him there was no merits to these claims.

Including quotes like “The details don’t matter.” After being told by a lawyer they couldn’t prove any of these claims in court. He then went on to threaten to fire senior DOJ officials if they didn’t spread his false claims.

When all else failed, he resorted to threatening state officials to refuse to certify the results of the election, hoping it could get thrown back to the house to decide. Meanwhile, Trump is also enlisting “fake” electors who were not certified by the state to fraudulently sign on like they were and deliver corrupted ballots to the white house. Even going as far to fly them out to D.C to carry out this plan

And the culmination of this as we know is Jan 6th. Where Trump urged his protesters to pressure Mike Pence to accept his slate of electors, and to “fight like hell” while doing so as he claimed the election was being stolen.

Which is twice as sinister when you realize while giving this speech Trump both knew for a fact the election was not stolen, and that the electors he wanted Pence to accept were fraudulent.

What This Means.

I typically try not to end on too bleak of a message, so we’ll see how this trend continues here. Trump winning in 2024 doesn’t give any reason for a losing candidate to not only just cry fraud, but to make that their entire reason for running again.

I mean the justification here is that 2024 was “too big to rig” despite Trump getting roughly the same amount of votes, not winning the majority of the vote, and having one of the smallest popular vote margins of victory ever.

If anything it incentives it, because after knowingly spreading election lies and being indicted for election interference he got more votes than in he did 2020. So now this can be utilized as an entire campaign strategy and labeled as “Anti-Establishment.”

Where now the infrastructure to support it is in place as well. With over 157 members of congress who deny the results of the 2020 election and over 70 state election officials as well the constituency is growing.

So next time someone wants to stoke outrage at an election being stolen, while trying to steal it behind the scenes themselves, it could be more successful.

The bright note to look to is the guardrails held last time, and now more people are waking up to the fact that this actually happened. Obviously as social media grows it’ll be harder and harder to get away with something like this. So while election denialism may live on in rhetoric, its day in the sun as a tool against the establishment may be over.