Stolen Election?

In the lead up to the 2020 presidential election, Trump began his mission to undermine voter confidence in election results early. Months before the first votes were cast he was calling the election rigged, claiming that the only way he could lose would be if the election were somehow stolen. When results started coming in on Election Day evening indicating that he would lose, he doubled down, refusing to concede and embarked on a three month crusade to overturn the results. He and his supporters cited what they thought were anomalies, and threw around accusations that the voting machines were programmed to change votes. A recurring theme was that neither Trump nor his cult thought it was possible that Biden, who campaigned virtually for much of the year, had the support to beat Trump. To this day, Trump has never admitted that he legitimately lost to Joe Biden. 

Fast forward four years and Trump comes back and defeats Vice President Kamala Harris. Harris concedes and Trump is inaugurated a second time on January 20, 2025. There is no "Stop the Steal" movement spurred on by Biden and Harris, no one storms the Capitol, Biden attends Trump's inauguration and life goes on. Except...

...many Democrats and other progressives begin to claim that Harris "actually" won the election and that it was somehow stolen by Trump with the help of Elon Musk and other tech bros. This was not something originating with the Democratic National Committee (DNC) or with elected Democrats, but was more of a grass-roots phenomenon. A Substack article by This Will Hold lays out some technical information as well as some of the names involved in changes to the vote tabulation software and Dissent in Bloom points to some irregularities in Rockland County New York. You can read these articles yourself and see if you're convinced that the information that we currently know (or think we know) means that the election was stolen and that Harris won. I don't think that it does. Here are a few supposed red flags from This Will Hold:

"Data that makes no statistical sense. A clean sweep in all seven swing states.
The fall of the Blue Wall. Eighty-eight counties flipped red—not one flipped blue.
Every victory landed just under the threshold that would trigger an automatic recount. Donald Trump outperformed expectations in down-ballot races with margins never before seen—while Kamala Harris simultaneously underperformed in those exact same areas."

If one were to accept these results at face value—Donald Trump, a 34-count convicted felon, supposedly outperformed Ronald Reagan.

This sounds very similar to some of what the Trumpists were saying in 2020 when "bellwether" counties unusually didn't predict the winner. Whoever crafted the statement that I quoted seems blissfully unaware of what independents and fence-sitters were thinking. They have apparently underestimated just how much the high inflation of 2020-2022 hurt the Democrats -- how many people turned a blind eye to Trump's negatives while convincing themselves that he was better for the economy. How the chaos of Biden's withdrawal from the general election and Harris' anointing as successor turned off persuadable people. How Biden's paralysis on immigration and Harris' guilt by association swung many people to Trump's side. Let's not forget that for many people, Trump's felony convictions are a non-issue -- they think it's a politically inspired "witch hunt". 

Do I think it's possible that our elections were subverted and stolen in the way that is suggested? Sure, anything is possible. Do I think that speculating about scenarios that might be plausible make it so? Absolutely not. This is what the paranoia of right wing podcasters engendered after the 2020 elections. Fantasize about what could've happened and then make the leap to it absolutely did happen with barely a break for lunch. Plausibility does not equate to certainty. Do I think these allegations merit an investigation? Absolutely. Do I think that blog posts suffice as investigations? Nope. 

What thinking like this does is further erode confidence in our elections and discourages civic engagement. If you really believe that one side has made it impossible for them to lose, why even bother voting.