Posted on 01/08/2021 6:32:56 AM PST by Presbyterian Reporter
Now that Democrats are poised to control the White House, Senate and House, the traditional game of finger-pointing and recrimination will begin inside the GOP.
The first instinct for politicians will be to assign blame, call names and jockey for position. But the 2020 election wasn't just an election, it was a political watershed in which the rules and strategy for winning were rewritten.
The November election (and Tuesday’s Georgia curtain call) wasn't won and lost by the tactics, spending, individual players and messaging in the weeks before Nov. 3, according to interviews conducted with more than three dozen frontline players.
Rather, its outcome was cemented long before Labor Day 2020 by a Democratic machinery of former Barack Obama proteges, like David Plouffe, John Podesta, David Axelrod and Stacey Abrams, who worried far less about the tactics of ads, travel (Joe Biden hardly did!) and fundraising and far more about the strategy of how to control the narrative and the rules that would shape the outcome.
They even told the Republicans and the public what they planned to do. Just read Plouffe's book, "A Citizen's Guide to Beating Donald Trump." They even boastfully predicted days before how the vote count would roll out on election night and for several days later. Trump would lead early, and Biden would surpass late, they said.
They were right. Why?
First and foremost, they usurped the powers of GOP-controlled state legislatures in the five battleground states and rewrote the rules of how votes would be cast and counted, using the pandemic as an excuse.
Mail ballots could be sent to everyone, even if they didn't ask for one, and wide swaths of Americans could vote by mail. Voter ID requirements could be suspended for those who felt homebound by COVID's wrath. Mobile ballot boxes could be deployed. Spoiled ballots that legally were supposed to be discarded could be "cured" by election clerks. Legally required voter roll purges could be skipped. And a single billionaire could donate $350 million directly to the election clerks, judges and vote counters in the states, requiring them in some cases to register voters, and create more poll locations in Democratic strongholds.
And Republicans — who controlled the legislatures in Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Georgia and Arizona and the constitutional right to set the rules — hardly put up a fight. Instead, they urged their voters not to take advantage of the loosened rules and to vote the old-fashioned way. They, in the words of the Trump-loving Georgia Democrat Vernon Jones, simply unilaterally disarmed.
Democrats understood that in a pandemic and in an America with millions of new millennial, urban and minority voters, the easier you make casting a ballot the more likely a low-propensity voter is to vote. Send it to them, help them register, make easy drop-off locations or the mailbox the final destination, and voters will vote a lot more willingly.
In other words, the liberal brain trust engaged in cutting-edge warfare, while Republicans tossed their comfortable set of horseshoes from the 1980s, hoping the good old recipe of evangelical GOTV, direct mail, talk radio and Fox News would deliver yet another election win as it had done for decades.
It didn't.
To be fair, Donald Trump mustered — by a mile — the largest national vote ever assembled by a Republican at 75 million-plus voters and barnstormed the country, risking COVID and criticism without fear. Kevin McCarthy picked an all-star slate of candidates and picked up seats. Mitch McConnell raised a ton of money, and Ronna McDaniel put together one of the most impressive get-out-the-vote efforts ever assembled.
But all that could not overcome the advantage of a rewired electoral system in the five battlegrounds, as the Georgia runoffs showed Tuesday, said Tom Price, a former congressman and Trump Cabinet secretary.
Democrats "leap-frogged Republicans' process, strategy, technology and tactics, and that is to the credit of folks on the Democratic side," Price told Just the News. "They have perfected harvesting, I believe it is harvesting, of absentee ballots, and I think the numbers will show in these runoff races, the same as they did in November, that Republicans who lost by close margins won the vote on Election Day, won on early voting in person and lost heavily in absentee ballots."
Secondly, liberals spent two decades building an alliance with the mainstream media, the social giants and the search giants and the permanent government bureaucracy until they could control the narrative, even when it wasn't true. They had it perfected by the time Donald Trump took office.
Those who objected were canceled and shamed. Intelligence and law enforcement and private investigators were misused to create false realities. True facts and legally protected speech were outright censored long enough to create the narrative needed to win.
Trump colluded with Russia, and bribed Ukraine to investigate his political opponents … though he didn't. The Hunter Biden corruption story was Russian-fed conspiracy theory …. though it is really true, and he was under criminal investigation the last two years ... American towns could be burned to the ground and police defunded because a Kenosha, Wisc., officer shot an unarmed man … who turned out to be wanted by police and armed with a knife.
Owning the information superhighway of the 21st century, like the rules of the election, was far more powerful than choosing where to run ads, campaign in person or spend money.
Finally, the liberal oligarchs club — George Soros, Mark Zuckerberg, Mike Bloomberg et al — spent more than ever to win. But they also transformed the way political donations were spent by imposing corporate governance and specific returns on investment.
Every recipient had to deliver very specific outcomes to keep getting money, governed by lengthy contract-like documents. And the outcomes and deliverables were mapped to the two larger goals of controlling the narrative and the rules of the election.
That's what interviews with three dozen experts revealed. So what do those same experts advise Republicans do to change their fortunes?
Exactly what the Democrats did. Don't point fingers, change the rules, and own the narrative, they said.
Phill Kline, the former Kansas attorney general, led the Amistad Project's efforts to challenge some of the Democrats rule changes. He said the the GOP legislatures in the key battlegrounds must reassert their constitutional right to set the rules of election.
Universal mail ballots can be ended, limited only to those who absolutely need it. Voter IDs can be mandated. Exemptions and legal settlements could, by law, be required to be approved by the legislature. Setting the rules of the election are easy if there is a will, Kline added.
"I think the discipline of the party should be all about de-powering Washington and empowering the states, especially the state legislatures," Kline told Just the News.
Secondly, conservatives need to build their own information ecosystem that rivals what liberals have: a vibrant press that covers conservatives honestly, and powerful delivery channels that can rival YouTube, Twitter and Facebook.
New services like Rumble, Parler, Real America's Voice, Citizen Free Press and CloutHub are incubating and attracting millions. They need to be grown and spread to tens of millions along with trusted news sources so conservatives have as big a bullhorn to the next generation of GenZ, millennials and cable-cutters as they have had to Boomers, talk radio and Fox News fans, the experts said.
"We are just playing to a draw," Price explained. "We are not reaching a lot of folks. And we have to be creative about how we reach them, and I think we've got to be able to control a lot of that messaging, and right now we just don't."
Finally, conservative donors need to have a new approach, stolen from the ROI model of the Soros and Bloomberg NGOs, so their millions don't just enrich consultants but have measurable outcomes in setting the rules and narratives that win the next elections. Everything from civic education and empowerment for state legislators to media-platform building needs to be funded, the experts said.
"Funding on the left seems much more strategic than funding on the right, which is predominantly tactical," explained Steve Hantler, who advises several high-net-worth conservative donors. "Liberal elites have for decades controlled the levers of power in education, media and entertainment and have used that power to indoctrinate generations of Americans against America's founding values.
"Now is not the time for for hand-wringing and finger-pointing. Now is the time for honest, critical self-evaluation."
Unless GOD in His mercy intervenes, the outlook looks dim. A godless crew is running this nation.
We have gone past the point of no return.
The enemies of freedom own the entire “election” process lock, stock and barrel.
There is no voting our way out of this.
Tragically, CW2 is dead ahead. Plan and prepare accoringly.
Pence the snake 🐍 ...new name
Basically a good piece by Solomon, but he left out the corruption/cowardice of the courts. The Supreme Court’s failure to correct the blatantly unconstitutional activities of Deep State operatives has opened the door for the foundational disintegration of this nation.
Kudos and to the point!
Honestly, I am yearning for the times of the wild wild West! History will probably repeat itself again!
They lost in ways they’ve not even begin to fathom yet....
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They are stupid round eye make their country 不好 .
How many Senate seats has the GOP lost since McTurtle assumed “leadership” of the caucus?
I count at least six, including the results from Georgia.
Yup. I reject any plan to rebuild the GOP or somehow “fix” it.
The GOP is every bit as much of a problem as the Democrats. I am now an Unenrolled (Independent) voter. No more GOP support from me. All done.
I will also say that we’ve been limping along under the Uniparty for decades. Things are bad, but haven’t been bad enough. I think we could limp along for another hundred years (frog in the simmering pot syndrome). Now that the Communists seem to have complete control of everything, maybe we will stop limping and maybe we will race full-speed ahead into disaster. That might be the only way people ever wake up.
Good article!!!
“It’s a big club, and you ain’t in it.”
Not in anyone’s club any longer just changed my voter status to Unaffiliated from Repub.
The GOP Legislators in Battle Ground States had a window of opportunity and they failed us. In those States where the legislative branches do not meet after an election unless the Governor calls a Special Session, they needed to challenge the illegal activity in Court before the election to set the stage for lawsuits if the cheating happened. The State legislative branches that met after the election, waited to long and failed to take control back before the vote was certified.
Get on your State legislators demand they change the rules regarding elections. Write the rules in such a way that the courts will intercede if those rules are not followed. Limit absentee ballots to military, civilians overseas, students living out of state attending a university, elderly and handicapped. For elderly and handicapped individuals they have to be legally cognizant to vote and their ballot witnessed by their Guardian. Make ballot harvesting and voter fraud a felony with fines from 50,000 to 100,000 dollars and/or 2-5 years in prison. Make it a higher level felony under state law to harvest votes from handicapped or elderly people in nursing homes and institutions. If you can read a ballot and understand it but are unable to write, that is one thing, if you no longer can read and understand a ballot that is abuse. Some college student trying to be smarter by half, fraudulent voting in two States if convict will have a felony on their record. Make sure that is highlighted on absentee ballots.
In States with RAT Governors, write the rules and give them no way to circumvent the rules with an emergency order. NC forced voter ID on a RAT Governor who opposed it but now it is the law and it was upheld by the Appeals Court.
Republican legislatures need to exert control? Um, they tried and were overruled by Democrat governors, courts, and even election boards that changed the rules as they saw fit.
Assuming Democrats don’t further stack the deck in their favor now that they control Washington DC—a very big assumption—Republicans must employ the same ballot harvesting tactics. There are more registered Democrats than Republicans, but we still have millions of Republicans who sat on the sidelines this last election. Those Republicans must be contacted and encouraged to vote—not in person but by mail as too many voters are apparently too lazy or busy to vote in person anymore.
That’s why the Democrats win mass mail in balloting. Normally, many of them wouldn’t bother voting, but when harvesters show up and make voting as easy as possible, these unmotivated voters will submit a ballot. Of course there’s also fraud—no one can know it wasn’t enough to change the 2020 election—but these mail in ballots and ballot harvesting are what’s really killing the GOP.
Welcome to the dark side. I do not know about you but I found it actually a relief. Now I follow my own path.
If it were just a matter of incompetence, the party might be rehabilitated, but as it has been demonstrated, the party lost on purpose. It no longer has a reason to exist.
Good bye WhiGOP. Hello MAGA.
The Democrats “leapfrogged nothing.” They had to step over a few lazy drunkards lying prostrate in the streets begging for a handout.
Correct. And how many Congress critters are in office today as a direct result of down votes for Donald Trump? How many are in office today because Donald Trump threw his support behind their campaigns?
Unfortunately for all those people who think we will regain the house and or senate in 2022, they fail to realize there is no reason for us Trumpers to go out and vote for any Republican.
George Wallace was right:
“There ain’t a dime’s worth of difference between the Republicans and the Democrats.”... George Wallace, 1968
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