Back in 1983, Americans were shocked when a cadre of toddlers began making startling allegations of abuse. Beginning in metro Los Angeles, the matter spread as far and wide as Florida and Washington, DC. The extensive criminal case in California stemmed from rumors of ritual exploitation and sodomy occurring in tunnels under a daycare center. The matter gave rise to what was popularly called the “Satanic Panic.” After years of exhaustive investigation, all charges and cases were dropped without any convictions. The children’s tales were written off by experts as overactive imaginations. The concerns of parents and the Christian Right were dismissed, sometimes mockingly, as baseless accusations lacking any evidence and driven by hysteria and conspiracy theory.
Over thirty years after the last hung jury in the Panic cases was dismissed, the United States held another quadrennial presidential election. I was as happy as a clam the other day when old MB asked me to sum up the affair. As you know, this was a plain, uncontested victory followed by the smoothest of transfers of power … Just Kidding! Seriously, you likely have heard much about the matter already; this is the briefest of reviews of some of the more historic events, allegations, and ramifications. A word of warning: herein, I include links to voluminous reading material; however, I’ve tried to make things as simple as possible while also including a little information you may not have read elsewhere.
The election was held on Tuesday, November 3, 2020. When the dust settled, the official popular vote tally was 81,268,924 for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris (Biden) and 74,216,154 for Donald Trump and Mike Pence (Trump). In December, Biden tentatively defeated Trump with an Electoral College vote of 306 to 232. Congress jointly assembled to certify the vote on January 6, 2021, and following mildly entertaining antics did so certify Biden’s victory on January 7th. Surrounded by several dozen supporters and tens of thousands of soldiers, Biden was sworn in as the US’s 46th President on January 20, 2021. There were, as it turned out, a few hiccups along the way.
First, concerning the popular vote, to call it a “record turnout” is an understatement. Biden, who had barely campaigned, received the highest number of votes in history. Trump, who had barely campaigned coherently, obliterated Hillary Clinton’s winning popular vote from 2016 and both of Barack Obama’s victories in 2012 and 2008. In fact, Biden aside, Trump received the most popular votes in history - and yet still lost by over 7 million votes to a man who had barely campaigned. A very interesting anomaly. The final arrival of those winning votes was interesting too.
Those who stayed up late on the evening of November 3rd slowly witnessed the maps fill in until only a handful of states (PA, GA, MI, WI, etc.) remained undecided. Around midnight, almost all precincts had reported and, by all appearances, Trump was about to be re-elected, in some cases appearing beyond a margin of mathematically-allowable defeat. Then, all at once, all of the states stopped counting. Over the ensuing days, the lead percentages flipped, resulting in the above Biden victory - another interesting anomaly. (This entire election was a series of interesting anomalies).
Accusations of systemic fraud began to fly from the Trump team. Recounts were demanded and lawsuits were filed, 80 in total. Trump’s benchmark case was, for sake of mentioning, Pearson, et al v. Kemp, et al, in the North District of Georgia, which alleged stunning fraud and manipulation of paper and electronic ballots to include foreign interference by China and Iran. The suit was backed by informational and affidavit exhibits, such as No. 1-1 (to view the rest, merely alter the final “.1” in the HTML code, sequentially: 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, etc). Many assumed the allegations of foreign (and domestic) interference were sufficient to trigger Trump’s September 2018 Executive Order on combating the same. As set forth, the information was both damning and (barring rebuttal) all-but conclusive. For a video presentation of the bulk of Trump’s evidence of alleged fraud, one may watch Mike Lindell’s expert-guided documentary HERE or HERE. As Lindell asserts, pending adjudication otherwise, the proof looks “absolute.” Rebuttals did come - generally from the media and interested parties, rather than from independent analysis for or in the courts.
By way of a short example, a claim circulated that, via electronic manipulation, Biden benefited from a 26% vote delta in Ware County, Georgia. Had this margin been extrapolated nationwide, there was the possibility of a 13 million vote reversal and a corresponding popular Trump victory. These claims were dismissed, following a recount, by the Georgia Secretary of State’s Office. In another example, Antrim County, Michigan allegedly posted a 68.05% ballot-tabulation error rate, a smidgen over the .0008% rate allowed by the Federal Election Commission. The Associated Press and the Antrim County Clerk assured the nation that this alleged example was based on misinformation and that, in spite of being misinformation, the error had been fixed. These cases, and perhaps 10,000 others, led to the mildest suspicion of possible systemic fraud.
Speculation abounded that Trump, along with others in the military and the (so-called) intelligence communities, had suspected the same kind of potential fraud in the 2016 election and were positioned to catch it, as it (if it) happened, in 2020. The nature, arrangement, and presentation of the alleged information in Pearson gave the appearance that something indeed was caught and that some of the exhibits were backed by or through the dissemination of related classified material (Trump could, as President, declassify anything to anyone at any time for any reason). Pearson was withdrawn without the Court performing any evidentiary exploration; it was never decided on its merits.
The State of Texas filed its own suit, Texas v. Pennsylvania, et al, in the U.S. Supreme Court, seeking to bar certification of other States’ Electors based on additional allegations of fraud, to include vote theft sufficient to swing the entire election. See Texas’s responses to various rebuttals HERE. Irrespective of evidence or argument, that case was dismissed by Chief Justice Roberts for lack of standing.
Thirty-four of the 80 cases filed by or on the behalf of Trump have been so dismissed or withdrawn. 25 are still pending. Of the remaining, decided 21, Trump lost 7 and won 14. Trump has won two-thirds of the cases that have been decided on the merits - see HERE for a comprehensive list with outcomes. Because of Biden’s victory and assumption of office, these cases - all of them - are essentially moot as to determining the outcome of the election. Still, they say something about the process, as does (or did) the fact that seven states, PA, GA, MI, WI, AZ, NV, and NM, sent competing slates of Electors to Congress for final determination; these were acts of caution based on some suspicion of potential irregularity. The states punted the matter to Mike Pence under his Constitutional certification authority as President of the Senate.
Pence proceeded to allow full voting on the slates, resulting in Biden’s election. However, as the sole plenary arbiter of such matters, Pence could have legally tossed the Biden slates and forced Congress to certify Trump, or else hold a straight block-vote election, which would have also resulted in a Trump win. This would have angered certain parties. The only ones who would have had recourse would have been the jilted Biden Electors through their respective States, who could have filed suit in the Supreme Court - where John Roberts said they didn’t have standing.
Given the alleged manner of Biden’s win, with proposed foreign assistance (with domestic accomplishment), there was another Trump path. Election-rigging, long practiced by the CIA abroad, and computer system interference are or may be considered acts of war. Under the precedents set by previous presidents from Lincoln to Obama, Trump could have unilaterally declared the participating parties as enemy combatants engaged in an insurrection. He could have declared martial and dealt with them militarily and summarily. He did nothing of the kind, opting instead to give a rambling speech in Texas about his failed attempts to halt third-world migration.
The man who refused to declare or rebuff an insurrection was himself accused of fomenting one. On Saturday, February 13, 2021, Trump was acquitted by the Senate, 57-43, in his historic second impeachment trial. With House prosecutors having failed to obtain 67 votes, Trump may not be removed from office. Yeah. If these things mattered, then it might be interesting to plausibly consider that Trump was impeached in 2020 for allegedly facilitating Russian interference in the 2016 election and he was impeached this year for in some unproven way being associated with those who tried to thwart election interference by China and other countries.
These are the issues of speculation and contention that divide the US - the Divided States of America. We’re beyond the point of this counting for much and we’re unlikely to get definitive answers to satisfy half the country. Still, was there a secret plot against Trump to fraudulently rig the 2020 election?
The other side now admits there was indeed such a plan. They called it The Secret History of the Shadow Campaign That Saved the 2020 Election in a February 4, 2021 article in Time Magazine, archived HERE. “In a way, Trump was right. There was a conspiracy unfolding behind the scenes…” Do tell. What was, yesterday, baseless accusation, lacking any evidence, and driven by hysteria and conspiracy theory is, today, a noble plan to save precious democracy (from itself?).
Back to the Satanic Panic, in October of 2019, the FBI quietly released a roughly 600-page dossier, previously secret and still partly redacted. After all those years, all those dismissals, and all the mocking, it turns out the children had been telling the truth about the rituals, the tunnels, and more. By and large, the press ignored these revelations. The FBI knew and had known at the time what was happening (the CIA certainly knew), and yet, nothing was ever done about it. No one in power took appropriate action.
Assuming that the allegations made by Trump and/or by the secret, democracy-saving conspirators are true - and how could both sides be lying? - then it is certain that the 2020 election was either stolen, manipulated, or will be forever perceived by half the country as being stolen or manipulated. Once again, no one in power took any appropriate action to stop it. Just as children are scarred by unpunished crimes, nations are defeated by unpunished conspiracies. Reasonably deducing that this election was successfully manipulated and that the manipulation was allowed to stand, leads to only one conclusion - the US has seen its last honest and free political contest. Next time, any fraud will not be traceable, not that anyone will be looking for it. It may very well be that voting no longer matters, future leadership is pre-decided, and that elected, representative government is over. The good news is that, even if many cannot yet admit it, everyone knows it.
Author’s Note: When MB suggested this article, he mused it “would be good for the endurance of the Republic.” I sincerely hope it helps.
- Perrin Lovett is the CF Floyd Feature Writer of Affairs National at TPC & is also the Editor of Freedom Prepper.