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Where I grew up in Richmond, Virginia, I had to read a lot of Edgar Allan Poe’s gothic poetry and short stories. Richmond claims Poe proudly as one of its native sons. I was told as an article of faith that Poe died in Baltimore on October 7, 1849 (true) and that he was committing voter fraud (maybe not so true). Examining this myth about Poe gives some insight into how the tall tale of voting fraud tends to spread.
Republicans are the ones getting caught in voting fraud schemes. From the NYT yesterday:
Ms. Hall, a 63-year-old and very ardent Republican whose ranch house in Clermont sports life-size cutouts of Donald and Melania Trump and a MAGA poster in the window, was charged last week with 10 felony counts of submitting false voter registration forms. On at least 10 forms traced to Ms. Hall, officials said, the party affiliations of already-registered Democrats and Independents had been switched to Republican.
Ms. Hall was a canvasser for Florida First Inc., a recently created nonprofit that is financed at least in part by a dark-money group formed by Mr. Trump’s re-election campaign manager, Brad Parscale, and other Trump associates.
Part of the problem is that Poe’s first biographer was a literary foe who was paying off past debts from an old feud. Later biographers have been trying to get out from under that animus.
To think is to make stories so nothing unusual about that; it’s what humans do. The problem is failing to examine the story and consider alternative narratives. Aristotle’s comment that, “it is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it,” could be amended to say it’s the mark of a reflective mind.
“The universe is made of stories, not atoms” – Muriel Rukeyser
I enjoyed Poe quite a bit in high school but have NEVER heard the “voter fraud” story. Maybe Virginia was more of a hotbed of voter suppression than Wisconsin was, back in my day?
Why couldn’t Poe have been cooped? The largest political riot in the US would take place in Baltimore two years after Poe died from people protesting cooping.
These people believe things that are not true because it makes them feel good. Like one of the attendees at CPAC who said she did not believe anything cmiong out of the CDC.
This is why one cannot have an intelligent discussion with a Republican. The have their own little world and are not persuaded by facts logic, or reason.
Those who believe or in many cases say they believe that in person voter fraud is an issue fall into two categories, Dumb and Evil.
The Dumb category is very small. To actually believe in person voter fraud is a serious issue you must at least be able to site any election down to dog catcher where it has mattered. The truth is there is no election at any level that anyone can site in the last 50 years that in person voter fraud has made a difference.
But using the false argument of in person voter fraud as a tool for voter suppression has decided many elections including at least one presidential election in the last 50 years. That is most people who say voter fraud is an issue are knowingly and purposefully engaging in voter suppression to help fraudulently win elections.
One of the GOP’s greatest weapons is “The Big Lie.” They start telling a story on Facebook or Twitter, Fox “News” picks it up, it moves to all the right-wing websites and pretty soon CNN is reporting it. The answer is to be skeptical, to check snopes.com or politifact.com and finally make up your own mind. This is too much work for many people.
I have made a hobby of studying political communications and messaging for the last 20 plus years. One generalization that is overwhelming upheld in the literature is that we first emote about a problem or issue, then we , maybe , think about it.
As card carrying liberals, we share with the author of this piece a firm belief in rationality and appeals to same as having the power to move mountains.
It doesn’t . So, asking people to check their facts about voter fraud is basically asking those who know better to keep knowing that. Those who need to be convinced otherwise can only be reached by powerful, concerted messaging efforts directed at them that begin by engaging their core values and emotions before hopefully engaging their intellects. In short I enjoyed the article but a simple appeal to the ones who need to be convinced to be more rational is probably a non-starter.
If you want a really good deep dive on all this , check out The Righteous Mind : Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion [ Haidt , Jonathan ]"
I think the writer is using the word “myth” when he means “legend.” A myth is not true, while a legend is debatable. There’s no concrete evidence to support any one theory- but cooping at least fits the facts we do have. I don’t see the harm in supporting one theory over another in the case of Poe’s death. It was a strange set of circumstances that just begs for a larger narrative.
I had heard of this “legend” explaining why Poe was found on the street, mainly because at least one novelist based a whole fiction book on it. See The Poe Shadow, by Matthew Pearl. It was of some interest, but I didn’t find it compelling enough to finish it.
Regardless whether “cooping” is the explanation, the right-wing fixation on voter “fraud” depends on two things: first, a willingness to believe, without evidence, the politicians on their “side” who are manipulating them; second, a feeling that some classes of people who are “different”, particularly people of color and low-income people, likely should be subjected to special scrutiny that they would not apply to themselves. It’s interesting that Democrats don’t believe that individual voters on the right are engaging in “fraud,” while they recognize politicians as working in various ways, through legislation or administrative procedure, to disenfranchise people or discourage them from participating.
And the way to prevent political scammers from turning elections is to bring their illegal or unethical schemes to light and expose them to prosecution, disbarment, etc.
And thank you, Lightseeker, I may take a look at the book you recommend.
