Rumors to Rile You Up

First, a matter of housekeeping.

I send an email every Wednesday that you may not be subscribed to. It is something I have done with increasing regularity. As you know if you are a long-time reader, I believe people should build community offline. One way to do that is around a table. So each Wednesday, I send out a recipe by email and then post it. I’ve gone one and published this week’s recipe already. It’s for homemade buttermilk ice cream.

You should get on the email list and you can do so by going here. I don’t spam the list. I don’t rent the list. It is not for sale. It is just a weekly recipe.

The Rumor Mill

I keep getting people telling me something is happening in Georgia related to the November election. I have been rather perplexed because I live in Georgia, am pretty plugged in, and was an elections lawyer. Nothing is happening in Georgia. But a lot of friends outside of Georgia keep telling me there’s big stuff happening.

I did go digging.

Georgia

From what I can tell, some right-wing sites are peddling information that suggests all sorts of rampant findings of fraud in Georgia. Well, the Secretary of State has purged 100,000 people from the voter rolls. It is not really news. This happens every odd-numbered year and only affects voters who have not voted since 2012 with some exceptions.

Specifically, 101,789 voters were purged. 67,286 were for people who had documented changes of address. 34,227 had mail returned repeatedly. 276 had no contact with elections officials or elections in at least five years. Additionally, 18,486 other voters died and were also removed.

Some right-wing sites are claiming this is proof inappropriate people voted in 2020, but that’s not true. Only people who have not voted since 2012 were purged.

Likewise, there’s the Fulton County absentee ballot case. A judge has mostly dismissed it. The plaintiff is declaring a win, but also concedes that the ballot copies in the plaintiff’s position are not of good enough quality to do a forensic audit of the ballots. I realize the plaintiff says he got a big win, but that’s like clogging the toilet after pooping and calling it a big win. There’s a pile of something smelly and nothing else.

There’s really no there, there in Georgia, which is why I have not written about it. But I am amazed how many people think there is something.

The Trump Indictment

I relate all of that to talk about something else entirely. While getting dinged by people on the right for not covering what is happening in Georgia, I am getting dinged by people on the left for not talking about the pending indictment of Donald Trump.

I have not talked about it on the radio or written about it here because, like so much else in the “WALLS ARE CLOSING IN” spectacular, it had the same feel as a clogged toilet bowl the stolen election stuff in Georgia has had.

So much of it has been wishful thinking.

Now it appears there will be no indictment of Trump and possibly not much about the Trump Organization, though I’m sure MSNBC will play it all up as big as possible. The goalposts are already shifting. They’re going for Don, Jr. next.

As much as people on the right are obsessed with the stolen election narrative that never comes true, the left is equally if not more so obsessed with “Trump is going to jail” nonsense. I have no doubt the left is going to relentlessly hound him and try to bankrupt him through lawsuits, but it does not appear Donald Trump is getting indicted for anything.

The major difference

There is one major and obvious difference between the stolen election stuff and the Trump indictment stuff. The former gets dismissed by the media and the latter is perpetually embraced by the media. The news networks and reporters of America are fully invested in the “orange man bad” narrative of the left. They are perpetually in pursuit of walls closing in on Donald Trump. It just never pans out that way. Reality operates like Lucy pulling the football away each time.

I can’t blame people for fully embracing the stolen election stuff, even as I think it is misguided. After all, the media has given every reason to not trust the media so it is hard to debunk nonsense. The media has shown itself to be perfectly fine with nonsense, just so long as it is anti-Trump nonsense.

I still think the truth matters and it is better to wait than rush out into conspiracy land.