Election administrators in a deep red Northern California county have been facing off with an ongoing election denial stronghold in the county that local officials and election experts worry will only intensify ahead of the 2024 election.
After losing last month’s Shasta County Board of Supervisors primary race by a significant margin, Hobbs, who has been endorsed by Lindell, as well as conspiracy theorist and so-called “election integrity expert” Douglas Frank and the California Rifle and Pistol Association, is doing what any MAGA candidate would do in the face of an obvious election loss: she’s contesting the results of the election, making wild accusations of widespread voter fraud and challenging the election in court.
Well, being a MAGAt, Shasta do something to make a spectacle of her ineptitude. She lost, and now Shasta fight to make it not so. Tain’t gonna change anything, but Shasta do something! Accepting reality is just not a plausible option!
So, it’s been such a long time for me, but do they still make Purple Kool-Aid?
“Rigged? How is that possible?”
I wasn’t aware Trump University had a microbiology program.
I hate to sound uncaring (which I am), but who cares! Let the assholes have their way, break the Federal and State laws and let them have a hand count. Admittedly, the results probably won’t be ready for 2024 until 2027, but who cares. Then whatever the cost should be added to Shasta County property taxes, and clearly labeled as "Asshole Neighbor Expenses, and let the voters take matters into their own hands. Personally, I’d be in favor of an Old West tradition–a tall tree and a short rope, but I don’t live there.
Outstanding!
There are two levels to this: one is just the insanity and the exhausting business of dealing with the crazy day after day but the other is the illicit grasping for power by any and all means; i.e. the cynical vs the unsane. As a practical matter it may be a distinction that doesn’t matter much though.
Elections are secure in America…until they’re not. I suspect that MAGA counties in November are going to submit wildly-off numbers that far surpass past vote totals for those places, and there’s the fear that the bothsides media will create a narrative of previously disconnected Trump voters coming out in droves, when it’s all made up. When Democrats complain about obvious and real statistical anomalies pointing to clear fraud, they will call us conspiracy theorists and hypocrites. Accuse the other of what you plan to do. Is this a multi-year strategy cooked up by Steve Bannon following a Putin playbook? Let’s hope the margins are too big for that.
Both the cynical (how could Trump possibly have lost? Everyone I know voted for him) and insane (Trump won. Everyone I know voted for him) are contained within the umbrella group of nihilism.
Now for Trump’s secret theme song
You think it’s bananas now, just wait until CA is forced to step in and make sure their election is run legally…that will really drive the crazies, uh, crazier. You can bet on lawsuits and “stolen election!” to ring, and Republican attempts to use the illegality of Shasta trying to botch their election as “proof” that all Democrat-run elections are illegal cheating messes.
None of it will be true of course, but truth quit mattering to these people a long, long time ago.
They can try, but in states like CA the red counties are too small to sway the results, and in the red states it’s irrelevant. The swing states are largely run by Democratic governments right now, they won’t allow any shenanigans that break the law, and you can count on pre-election lawsuits if they get out of line with state law. FL, OH, NC, those are the states to worry about, and while Biden can win without them the Senate and House could turn based on those races (especially the Senate). It is a question if the media will report this accurately…it feels like the media is calling out the lies more openly now, but it doesn’t compare to the propaganda loudly trumpeted by right wing media.
I guess we’re going to have to hope that the average American voter will be turned off of Republicans when it finally engages in October and sees how extreme they have become. Though, if the media harps on some Biden slip up and starts wondering about dementia they may swing against him…if the media screws us again with their coverage of an election it’s going to be infuriating.
Rigged? Short answer, NO.
The actual counting of votes takes place at the precinct level, that is at the level where people actually cast votes - of which there are more than 180,000 separate voting precincts in America.
The results of each precinct are then added together in ever larger bins, from county yo state and then nationally. For the election results to be ‘rigged’ would mean tampering with vote counts at tge precinct level. It simply isn’t practical.
Thus, Trump has relied on voter suppression and such outlandish schemes as the bogus Republican “independent state legislature theory”, which says state legislatures can just ignore or discard the actual certified vote counts and substitute their own preferences.
Sure, Shasta try!
But more likely a Fanta, see?
"The conspiracy theorist-endorsed candidate for a Shasta County Board position, Laura Hobbs, ran on a simple platform during the March primary. “I am 100% MAGA and America First. I am a stay-at-home mom with a doctorate in microbiology,” Hobbs said in her candidacy statement. “I support hand-counted, fair, and transparent elections. I will fight for the citizens of Shasta County to retain our sovereignty and all of our God-given rights.”
Not a single original idea in that blab. All of it old, hackneyed and trite. What fucking good is a PhD in Microbiology if you’re a “stay at home mom”.
I don’t think these folks get just how fucking dumb they are to those outside their dumb ass circles.
Well, I suppose we should at least be glad they are not calling it Mordor. Mt. Shasta does have a dragon protecting the (sometimes) misty mountain.
It may be that the split between Democrats and Republicans is close however, the policies and positions of Republicans is not that evenly split and are overwhelming unpopular.
https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2022/01/25/views-of-the-republican-and-democratic-parties/
Since World War II, the United States economy has performed significantly better on average under the administration of Democratic presidents than Republican presidents. The reasons for this are debated, and the observation applies to economic variables including job creation, GDP growth, stock market returns, personal income growth and corporate profits. The unemployment rate has risen on average under Republican presidents, while it has fallen on average under Democratic presidents. Budget deficits relative to the size of the economy were lower on average for Democratic presidents.[1][2] Ten of the eleven U.S. recessions between 1953 and 2020 began under Republican presidents.[3]
Heh. Saw that sculpture just off the interstate as we drove back to Portland up I-5 from our 2 week road-trip vacation to the Grand Canyon, Arches National Park, Monument Valley, etc. a couple of months ago.
Last time I drove by was in January, and the mountain was very misty. It was raining so I didn’t stop for another picture (and have been kicking myself ever since.)
