The anti-Trumpers have a simple answer: all these problems are caused by Donald J. Trump, and thus I am over-amplifying what will surely prove to been merely a four-year aberration. The problem with this very, very widespread belief is that it ignores the election debacle of 2000.
But how can we ignore that? We can perhaps ignore "Rutherfraud" B. Hayes, because that integrity-sapping election was in 1876, but the disenfranchised African-American Floridians of 2000 cannot look in an election booth reflection and ignore themselves.
And yet, ask many of those who feel their candidate is about to win in 2020 about the year 2000 and you'll be amazed how many Americans have already moved on from the way-back, bygone, irrelevant, antediluvian era of April 2019: Back when the candles of Saint Mueller (that was a piece of sacrilegiousness you could actually purchase, please remember) guttered out in the absolute nothingness of the Mueller Report on the Russiagate allegations that "Russia tampered with vote tallies in order to help Donald Trump get elected president", to re-quote YouGov's poll question.
Widespread belief of voter fraud in the US is thus not new at all, and that is entirely the point to not gloss over in your personal opinion regarding the current US election.
And yet nobody here thinks for second that this repeated election madness will produce any long-term changes, and I am referring to moderate types of common-sense changes which fall quite short of being "revolutionary". Many don't even genuinely want long-term changes:
On the right you have whom I refer to as "American Salafists", who think a golden era can be installed by reverting back to the time of prophet George Washington and his companions, and also by believing the US Constitution was produced by divine revelation. These people believe these things prove the superiority of American institutions, and yet in 2020 they also believe the election system is terrible and rife with fraud.
On the left you have "leftists" who since 2016 have undoubtedly become pro-war, pro-Deep State, pro-corporate, pro-censorship and, bizarrely, incredibly pro-transgender bathrooms (until the coronavirus knocked that off the front pages). But to put 2020 Democrats in a historical context: you have people still devoted to the multi-century ideas of (hysterical and proselytising) American Manifest Destiny and American Exceptionalism - both concepts rest on the idea that American institutions are 100% worthy of being universally exported. These people believe these things prove the superiority of American institutions, and yet in 2019 they also believed the election system is terrible and rife with fraud.
The schizophrenia of all imperialist cultures: 'Obviously, we're the best/Obviously, we look like we're the worst'
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
