April 12, 2021 ☼ trump ☼ voting ☼ lies ☼ gop
Source: The Washington Post - Link
The 2020 election is a case study in how unproved claims can be weaponized. For decades, former president Donald Trump’s party warned of significant voter fraud while successfully pushing policies such as voter ID. In 2016, Trump laid a predicate for contesting an election by suggesting there was massive fraud, even in an election he had won. By 2020, when Trump lost, it culminated in a huge portion of the electorate believing a “stolen election” theory for which there is vanishingly little actual evidence.
We are reaping what has been sown over the decades. Enough of the electorate believes that unless we implement restrictions there will be (or has been) massive fraud, though none has been found. These restrictions will be implemented. I suspect (and hope) they prove to be ineffective. Temporary practices put into place for the pandemic would likely not have continued anyway.