How do you win an election? To the degree that elections are a lot like — some of us anarchists would say an actual form of — war, it’s worth consulting military figures on the subject.

Few military figures come off quite so quotable as Confederate cavalry general (and Ku Klux Klan founder) Nathan Bedford Forrest, who said of winning battles, “I always make it a rule to get there first with the most men.”

That, of course, also constitutes the conventional rule for winning elections: Get there first (by motivating mail and “early” voters as well as election day voters) with the most votes.

One variant: “I just took the short cut and got there first with the most men.”

In every election we hear accusations of various “short cuts,” such as registering unqualified persons to vote, combing the graveyards for names with still-registered voters in the caskets and casting ballots in their names, etc.

Sometimes the stories are true, sometimes they aren’t. They’re usually, but not always, attributed to the Democratic Party.

Republicans usually, but not always, get more credit for trying to suppress the Democrat vote than for trying to get out the Republican vote.

As this year’s midterm elections approach, that tactic looks a lot like another Nathan Bedford Forrest aphorism. It pops up in different forms, but I’ll use the one associated with the Battle of Day’s Gap, fought in May  1863. Forrest’s instruction to his troops:

“Whenever you see anything blue, shoot at it, and do all you can to keep up the scare.”

Earlier this year, Republicans started talking up the notion of stationing Immigration and Customs Enforcement gang members … er, “officers” — outside polling places to intimidate would-be voters.

When asked about that possibility in an October 1 interview with Time, Trump said he “doesn’t rule anything out or in” and mentioned the Insurrection Act. Voting in areas with lots of Democrats, you say, may just constitute insurrection.

Then the little “October Surprise” operations stepped up.

The US Department of Justice charged 21 individuals with illegal — specifically, non-citizen — voting in California.  The biggest takeaway from that SHOULD be that after years of asserting huge numbers of non-citizen votes, DOJ only thought it could make the charge stick against one one-millionth of California’s registered voters.

The Department of Homeland Security raided the home of US Representative Ilhan Omar (D-MN) in an “immigration fraud” investigation, even though it’s literally impossible for her to have lied on her immigration and citizenship paperwork (her father, claiming her as a minor dependent, filled out and signed that paperwork).

Back to the US Department of Justice:  On October 23, it filed suit in Alaska to preemptively overturn that state’s US Senate election … but only if incumbent Daniel S. Sullivan loses. It seems there’s an invisible, previously unnoticed clause in the US Constitution forbidding candidates with similar names (like independent Daniel J. Sullivan) to challenge Republican incumbents.

Any of these several “one weird trick” moves, taken in isolation, might come off as a frivolous waste of the public’s time and the government’s stolen money.

Taken together, though, they constitute a strategy: Whenever you see anything blue — be it a Democratic-leaning state electorate or polling place, a Democratic congresswoman who’s an easy target for dog-whistle attack, or an independent candidate whose votes might bring a Republican candidate up short of victor — shoot at it, and do all you can to keep up the scare.

I guess if I was a Republican strategist looking at current poll numbers, I might suggest desperation plays like these myself.

I hope the effect of those tactics is less to influence the specific outcomes than to wake Americans up to the nature of politics itself. It really IS just another form of war.

And, as with most kinds of war, this kind inevitably despoils the public and rewards the belligerents. The politicians aren’t your friends. They’re soldiers in an evil, unworthy cause.

Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

On October 19, US president Donald Trump visited Kansas to prop up a lagging Republican candidate (US Senator Roger Marshall), and he brought the bucks with him, pledging an $8 billion bailout for farmers hurt by Trump’s tariffs and Trump’s war on Iran.

That follows $150 million for power lines in Alaska (to goose another tight Senate race), $475 million in $500 “ObamaCare refunds” on September 10, $1.9 billion in $90 “Medicare Part B rebates” on October 2 (seniors are an especially key voter demographic) , and of course  his promise to put a $5,000 check in the mail to each adult US citizen after — and only if — his party prevails in the upcoming congressional elections.

“A billion here, a billion there,” the late US Senator Everett Dirksen (R-IL) mused, “and pretty soon you’re talking about real money.”

Government spending is almost always about buying votes, but never more obviously than during campaign season.

With the elections only two weeks away, it’s not impossible that we’ll see Trump motorcading through swing House districts, using a leaf blower to distribute hundred dollar bills, before the Big Day.

He’s in a tight spot of his own making (on, among other issues, “affordability”). And many past presidents have found themselves in such situations.

His party faces near certain loss of the House of Representatives and possible loss of the Senate. Nothing new there, either — the ruling party almost always loses seats, and sometimes majorities, in midterms.

And whenever that happens, the “free money” spigot gets turned on full blast. Trump’s not unique so far as the impulse goes. He’s just got more of a flair for the theatrical.

Of course, all that faux generosity has to be paid for … and it gets paid for by, at least in part, the same people the “free money” lands on.

In order to spend money, the government has to have money. Which means it either taxes you to get the money, or it borrows the money and promises to beat it out of you later (with interest).

Science fiction writer Robert Heinlein popularized the acronym TANSTAAFL (although he was far from the first to express the sentiment):

“There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch.”

Is fake “free money” a good reason to vote Democrat in November? No, it isn’t. When in power and in danger of losing power, the Democrats throw around “free money” too. That’s how political government works: Take money with one hand, pass out less than you took with the other. As one New Deal politico put it, “tax and tax, spend and spend, elect and elect.”

I’m skeptical that we can vote our way out of that scam, but if you want to try,  you should look for Libertarians on your ballot.

Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

In late August, CBS News Miami obtained a copy of a grand jury report. That’s not supposed to happen, but it did. Here’s what that grand jury report found:

Several persons within and around the executive branch of Florida’s government conspired to misappropriate $10 million in taxpayer money, funnel that money through a charity founded by the governor’s wife, give it to Political Action Committees operated by the future state attorney general, and spend it to rig an election.

The grand jury declined to indict any of the conspirators simply because the web was so tangled that the jurors couldn’t figure out who knew, and did, what. It’s unclear whether governor Ron DeSantis, then attorney (now US Senator) Ashley Moody, or others actually gave the orders that resulted in the embezzlement/laundering of the funds.

Because no indictments issued, DeSantis claimed that “the only crime that was apparent was whoever leaked the grand jury report” (and yes, leaking the report was illegal).

On October 8, Florida’s First District Court of Appeals expunged the grand jury report, on the grounds that a grand jury can’t declare conduct unlawful without indicting those it identifies as having participated in that conduct.

DeSantis did a little public dance to celebrate his victory over “self-interested cabals in the state legislature,” a “very hostile liberal grand jury,” and the media.

But neither the expungement nor the victory dance change the factual assertions in the report, or the evidence underlying those assertions.

The assertions, again:

Several persons within and around the executive branch of Florida’s government conspired to misappropriate $10 million in taxpayer money, funnel that money through a charity founded by the governor’s wife, give it to Political Action Committees operated by the future state attorney general, and spend it to rig an election.

The election in question was a statewide referendum on legalizing recreational marijuana. It required a 60% vote to pass, but only got 55.9%.

Whether the $10 million election-rigging attempt made that 4.1% difference, we’ll probably never know. But we know it happened, we know who some of the conspirators were, and we have a pretty good idea of some others.

We may see some semblance of justice if the federal government decides to launch a Racketeering Influenced Corrupt Organization probe of the charity (Hope Florida), the PACs (Keep Florida Clean and Florida Freedom Fund), and their principals (Florida first lady Casey DeSantis and Florida attorney general James Uthmeier). Maybe someone will go to prison. Probably not, but maybe.

A certain measure of justice, fortunately, is inherent in the exposure itself.

Casey DeSantis was clearly gearing up for a run to succeed her husband as governor. That project fell apart when the misappropriation  came to light.

Ron DeSantis still seems to entertain 2028 presidential ambitions, but between running against Donald Trump in the 2024 Republican primaries and getting caught in, or at least near, this scandal, it seems reasonably certain that his politic career ends with his time as governor.

Courts can expunge reports, but once the truth is out, it stays out.

Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY