TIME wrote a very interesting piece making some very alarming claims. Namely, that a secret cabal banded together across the country to stop Donald Trump from winning re-election. This included everything from manipulating media coverage to getting election laws changed, at least according to TIME’s account.
Yeah, this seems like a pretty big deal to me, and nakedly undemocratic, at least if you care about that sort of thing. Politics is inherently manipulative on some level, I suppose, but working to change election laws and quenching the flow of information to affect an election is a bit past your typical bluster on the stump.
Of course, none of this is especially groundbreaking to those who have been paying attention. For all the chatter about “dark money” and “interfering in elections,” it’s always been those on the left (and that includes the “right-wing” Chamber of Commerce mentioned here) who have had a no holds barred approach to winning. Given the control over popular culture, financial institutions, and political influence operations that the left wields, it’s hardly shocking they’d use every lever to defeat Trump.
Yet, the hypocrisy is still a bit much. We dealt with four years of hyperventilating about Russia and Facebook posts from anti-Trump forces, yet the reality of who is truly interfering in our elections hits much closer to home. The actions listed in the TIME article are also far, far more consequential and dangerous to free and fair elections.
No matter, this secret cabal isn’t made up of imaginary Russians so it’s all good. The left truly only care about election interference and manipulation when they deem it a threat to their own preferred outcomes. Otherwise, they are all for it. You won’t see the mainstream media decry this. You won’t see a tearful lament from Nancy Pelosi about the dangers it poses to our republic. Rather, this will all be ignored. Heck, it’ll be celebrated as a brilliant political strategy.
And while I’m sure some fact-checker will have qualms with me describing what this group did as manipulation, I believe the objective definition of that word more than applies here. When you seek to stop people from having information that could affect their vote, that’s manipulation. When you go and lobby to get certain laws changed specifically to help your side, that’s manipulation. It is what it is.
Meanwhile, Republicans can get in the game or get busy losing again.