Many (though not nearly all) of my friends on the Republican side of the bipartisan aisle are utterly convinced that the 2020 presidential election was “rigged” to produce a fake victory for Joe Biden — that Donald Trump actually won, and had his victory stolen via a vast conspiracy to manufacture false votes and fraudulently switch real ones.

None of my friends on the Democratic side are buying it. Neither, it seems, are the courts. Nor am I.

So far, the evidence produced to substantiate the claims isn’t just unconvincing, it isn’t evidence. In substance, the argument is that 1) if voter preferences didn’t change between 2016 and 2020, and 2)  if the preferences of mail voters didn’t differ from the preferences of  in-person voters, a Biden victory was so statistically unlikely as to be suspicious.

But voter preferences DO change between elections, often in numbers sufficient to change outcomes from election to election in “battleground” or “swing” states.  That’s why that handful of states are called by those names. The margin between winner and loser in those states is always slim. Only a few minds need changing, or a few previously lazy voters motivated to turn out, to reverse the previous result.

As for mail versus in-person voter preferences, Donald Trump and the Republican Party spent the months leading up to the election telling their base that mail voting is suspect and in-person voting is better. The utterly predictable and completely non-suspicious result:  Mail voting went Democratic in a big way, while some Republicans who intended to vote in person decided at the last minute to catch a Seinfeld re-run instead of standing in line in the rain for two hours to participate in the real-life show about nothing.

All that said, yes, the presidential election was rigged. The next American presidential election that ISN’T rigged will be the first in living memory.

No, it wasn’t rigged to ensure a Biden win, or a Trump loss.

It was rigged to ensure victory for the status quo and for our de facto one-party system.

It was rigged by party committees, by state legislatures, and by the  Commission on Presidential debates.

It was rigged with committee rules, state ballot access laws, and debate requirements intentionally designed to keep both “major party” dissidents (e.g. Tulsi Gabbard) and third party and independent candidates as far off of voters’ radar as possible.

It wasn’t rigged to benefit a particular person. It was rigged to preserve a system: The post-World-War-Two, military-industrial complex-centered “consensus” system.

The rigging worked. If you don’t believe me, ask any progressive eyeing Joe Biden’s cabinet appointment announcements. He’s staffing his  administration with corporate lobbyists, party loyalists, and long-time ladder-climbing sycophants.

Exactly like Donald “Drain the Swamp!” Trump did. His election victory was anomalous given his rhetoric, but even if he had meant what he said, the system’s second line of defense  — some people call  it the “Deep State” — would likely have proven up to its job.

The election game is always rigged to produce business as usual.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) 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

“Congress,” The Hill reports, “is barreling toward a veto showdown with President Trump over the mammoth must-pass annual defense policy bill.” At issue: The annual National Defense Authorization Act, which as usual has little to do with actual defense.

Trump says he’ll veto the NDAA if it requires military bases named after Confederate generals to be re-named, as Congress desires.

He also says he’ll veto the bill if it doesn’t include his desired “reform” to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, giving government power to control social media platforms’ content moderation policies.

The main purpose of the annual NDAA is to feed hundreds of billions of dollars of corporate welfare into the maw of the military-industrial complex we’ve been ruled by since World War Two.

A secondary feature, often utilized by Congress, and occasionally by presidents using the threat of veto, is to use its supposed “must-pass” status as a shoehorn for forcing controversial items into law.

This year, we’ve got a two-fer on that secondary feature, and a game of chicken between President Trump and Congress.

In his four years in office, Trump has vetoed eight bills, fewer than any president since Warren G. Harding. Unless this NDAA fight goes south on him, he’s also set to become the first president since Lyndon Baines Johnson to finish his presidency without Congress overriding at least one veto.

Who’s going to blink? Who knows?

Congress’s heavy gun in the NDAA fight is the pretense, put on by politicians and parroted by media, that military spending bills are “must-pass” material.  But they aren’t.

Unlike “mandatory” spending such as Social Security, which occurs automatically absent congressional action to stop it, “defense” spending is “discretionary.”

Neither the Constitution nor any existing legislation requires the US government to spend one thin dime on the armed forces. In fact, the Constitution forbids Congress to fund the army for more than two years at a time (the idea being that standing armies are dangerous).

Presidents Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush all vetoed annual “defense” authorizations. The world didn’t end when they did it, and the world won’t end if Trump does it.

But it’s a silly fight, this one.

Congress, or the president, or both, should take a stand against spending many times as much taxpayer money on the military as could possibly be justified by any rational definition of “defense.” A fight over how much to cut from future NDAAs, and how quickly to cut it, would be a fight actually worth having.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) 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

I’m writing this column as an open letter to my state’s US Senators (Republicans Marco Rubio and Rick Scott). I encourage you to write to yours as well, and if you like any of the language herein, feel free to “steal” it.

Dear Senators Rubio and Scott,

On December 4, the US House of Representatives passed, by a margin of 228 to 164, the Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement Act. If passed by the Senate and signed by the president, the MORE Act would  remove marijuana from the federal “controlled substances” schedule. While the bill unfortunately includes provisions for regulation and taxation of the plant, it’s a move in the right direction.

The Washington Post reports that, to their and their party’s shame, all but five House Republicans voted against the bill, and that Republican leaders in the House and Senate mocked it as a distraction from other matters such as COVID-19 relief.

As former President Barack Obama liked to say, “let me be clear” on this issue:

While I’m personally never inclined to vote for Republicans or Democrats, in Florida those are usually my only two options in US Senate races. You have a chance to get my vote for re-election in 2022 (Senator Rubio) or 2024 (Senator Scott) .

In fact, if you sponsor a Senate version of the bill, work to bring it to a vote, cast your vote in favor of it, and lean hard on President Trump (or, depending on time frame, President Biden) to sign it, you’ve got a pretty GOOD shot at my vote.

If you assist Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in keeping such a bill from coming to the floor for a vote, or if you vote against that bill when it comes before you, you’ve got NO shot at my vote. Not for US Senator, not for President, not even for dog-catcher.

It’s just that simple.

Thirty-six states now provide for medical access to marijuana, and 15 states have legalized recreational use. It’s time for the federal government to get with the program.

Marijuana is not and never has been a dangerous drug. It’s a medically and commercially useful plant, and as a recreational intoxicant it’s considerably less unhealthy and dangerous than alcohol or tobacco.

In fact, the most dangerous thing — practically the ONLY dangerous thing — about marijuana is the possibility of getting arrested over it.

Millions of Americans have, over the course of decades, found themselves entangled in the criminal justice system for using, possessing, growing, buying, or selling a common and beneficial plant.

That’s a moral crime, and politicians like you are chief among its perpetrators. Your participation in the ongoing conspiracy against rights known as marijuana prohibition ruins lives, destroys careers, and restrains commerce to the detriment of all Americans.

The Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement Act offers you a chance to give up the thug life on this one issue. Seize that opportunity with both hands — if not because it’s the right thing to do, then because your political futures depend on it.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) 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