Messenger vs. Message
Joe Biden will be the next President of the United States. Contrary to some highly irresponsible claims, Biden will not win by theft, but by people actually voting for him. It frustrates me to see my own party demanding lawfully cast ballots not be counted.
I am opposed to counting ballots that show up after Election Day. I think ballots need to be in by Election Day. Those that arrive by Election Day need to be counted and those votes will hand Biden the presidency. There are issues for which the GOP should force accountability in the vote, including the Pennsylvania Supreme Court wanting to accept all ballots, including those that show up after Election Day. But the GOP should not be so willfully trying to claim a stolen election. Democrats are not out manufacturing tens of thousands of votes and Republicans who think that need psychotherapy.
Hanging on to that grievance and playing the victim also will cause the Republicans to lose sight of just how well they did. Donald Trump may have lost, but Republicans held the United States Senate, added seats to the House of Representatives, gained a state legislative chamber while holding all their others, and picked up a gubernatorial seat. Republicans will control redistricting for congressional and state legislative races in most states for the next decade despite losing the White House. That is a very good thing.
That success also is more evidence the election was not stolen. Stealing the presidency and not the Senate so the Republicans can block the President’s agenda and deny him his judicial picks really would be a waste of time. Stealing the presidency while ensuring the GOP can control the majority of redistricting for the next decade would be silly.
Donald Trump clearly brought more black and Hispanic voters into the GOP than prior Republican nominees. They came for two issues: jobs and education. If Republicans are able to show non-white voters that they will give their kids good educations and help them compete on a level playing field for jobs, the GOP can cement itself as a part of the working class across racial and ethnic lines.
Starr County, TX is the most Hispanic county in America with a 95.7% Hispanic population. Hillary Clinton won it in 2016 with over 65% of the vote. Joe Biden won it too, but only by 5%. In Florida, Hispanic voters and young black men turned out for the GOP. Certainly, it was not a majority of young black men, but it was a significant enough number to help the GOP. There is a realignment coming as secular, rich white people leave the GOP for the Democrats and more culturally conservative Hispanic and black voters leave the Democrats.
All the data points to a few things. Donald Trump’s policies are broadly popular. The nation just ensured a Republican Senate can block President Biden. The nation rewarded Republicans who would advance the President’s agenda down to the state level. The President himself was a flawed and undisciplined messenger for his message and the nation rejected him. Likewise, the nation rejected the progressive agenda that many Democrats want Joe Biden to pursue.
In the month prior to the election, Democrats began openly bragging that they would scrap the filibuster, pack the Supreme Court, enact a government-run healthcare scheme, pass the so-called Green New Deal, and end fracking. So convinced of Joe Biden’s win, they were boastful of these things. Concurrently, they blocked a COVID relief package assuming they’d be able to use the failure of a deal to gain the Senate.
American voters have flat out rejected all of that. Americans have rejected the socialist revolution progressives called for. Americans have rejected court-packing, government healthcare schemes, and silly environmental proposals. They embraced Joe Biden as a President they would not have to think about every day and rejected ever passing his and the Democrats’ agenda.
Voters rejected the Republican’s messenger. Voters rejected the Democrats’ message. Though the American political press has long cheered the end of a viable Republican Party because of demographic shifts, the GOP is more viable now than the Democratic Party.
I agree it is wrong to reject lawfully cast votes. However, it is not clear all the votes were cast and counted legally, as pretty much everybody knows voting by mail when not properly controlled is subject to fraud. For example, there have been multiple examples of multiple ballots sent to the wrong address and there is no way of proving or disproving that such ballots were not illegally voted. What is provable is that this election had far more votes cast than even a high-turnout election. For example, the latest NY Times vote totals are Biden 72.0 M-votes and Trump 68.4 M-votes, with Trump having about 8 M-votes more than Obama in 2012 60.9 M-votes and nearly as many as Obama in 2008 69.5 M-votes. I believe the 68.4 M-votes Trump has already received far exceed the number of votes any Republican may have ever received. So your assertion that voters rejected the messenger (Trump) doesn't have a lot of merit, particularly in battleground states with margins less than 1% and Trump receiving record numbers of votes.
If you follow Kimberly Strassel (of WSJ) tweet sequence ( https://twitter.com/KimStrassel/status/1324207542151475201 ) she outlines what the Republican's are officially requesting is: 1. Counting votes that arrived before election day or according to state law (some regulations for counting were put in at the last minute without legislative approval - which violates state law). 2. Better access for GOP observers to the vote counting. 3. Challenging vote counting that violate state laws for deadlines. None of that, including requesting a recount in WI is against the law.
Your assumption is that the messenger can be separated from the message, which in the case of Trump's policies is very questionable. One reason Trump got 68.4 M-votes is he has kept his political promises both to conservatives and to minority communities. When Trump put his first tariffs on China I can recall you posting something like, "this is the start of the Trump recession," which was obviously a bad assumption on your part (not unlike your assumption that averaging inaccurate polls is going to produce an accurate result). It was Trump's willingness to keep his promises, despite the opposition of Republicans like yourself that made life better for blacks, Hispanics, Jews, union workers, etc. that got him a record number of votes. There is no Republican in America who has anything like Trump's tweet stream with 88 M-followers who is able to control the message that reaches the public through a very biased media.
Perhaps, Christians who objected to Trump's sexual immorality from over a decade ago can take joy in having the party supported by the Hollywood crowd control the moral standards of our government through a Biden administration. Perhaps, you can take personal joy in having Trump's defeat avenge the unjust harm inflicted on your family by Trump supporters he probably had never met. As for me, I feel bad for the 57 million people who attended Trump's rally in Butler PA that was about 25 miles from my house. They have probably lost a powerful advocate, who because of his dominant personality will be very hard to replace. I have "Victory in Jesus. My Savior Forever." But the lives of many people in America will arguably take a turn for the worse if Biden becomes President. That is not something for me to rejoice.
Erick,
The evidence looks pretty damning. Over 100,000 ballots appear overnight and not ONE is for Trump? The Dems are so focused on veating Trump that - in their single'-mindedness they very well could just mark a ballot for Biden and leave the rest blank.
As for message v. messenger, that's the point. Is it even possible to separare the two?
No Republican in the last 40 years (and maybe not even Reagan) has voiced the message Trump did. IIs there anyone on yiur 2024 bench who will pick up that banner and run with it?
I don't know... but I don't think so.