Stop the Steal

 Watching this last election, especially in the last year, has been mind bending. Watching after the election was even more mind bending. As court after court threw out election challenges - 60 - SIXTY - at state level, state supreme court level and US Supreme court level, it seemed obvious to a reasonable person that there was insufficient evidence to conclude election fraud.

But Trump supporters couldn't let the idea go. "Stop the Steal" took root and it was dug in deep. Around town you could see it with Trump signs and some have not gone away. Trump supporters I know were posting on social media with expectation that something big was going to change it all. As the court cases fell, one by one, by dozens, the desperation grew. I saw romanticized Revolutionary War images and Mel Gibson as the Patriot. Threads assured commiserators that something big was going to set things right. "Time to fix bayonets" appeared on one page.

On January 6th at the start of the insurrection, I checked one persons page. "It's Happening!" she posted gleefully. Others chimed in with similar excitement.

That day I watched in horror but I was not surprised. There has grown a blood thirst with this right wing movement. We saw it in our own town when a peaceful group met to support Black Lives Matter and a dozen or so AR15 guys showed up, supposedly to protect our city monuments. My only surprise from January 6th is that I didn't know someone who was part of the insurrection. 

Anyone who tries to tell me that insurrection was Antifa not Trump supporters, needs to explain what all the Revolutionary War posts are all about. Why were so many QAnon, Proud Boy and Oath Keeper members identified and arrested?

And the biggest question of all - If the insurrection was successful, what would the country look like after that? Would there be elections? Would those elections automatically eliminate votes from certain parts of the country? If all the elected officials were killed that they wanted killed, then what? No repercussions? We just kill people we don't agree with?

We do need to "Stop the Steal". We need to stop the steal of reason and rational thinking. We need to stop the steal of our civility. We need to stop the steal of our morality. 

I've watched people I know say on one hand that something is a hoax and then say it was cooked up in a lab and intentionally spread. Others have irrationally grown focused on human trafficking. Another believes the Kent State massacre is proof that we need AR15's. It's simply mind bending. I've had a nurse argue that we should not wear masks because they do nothing to help.

We do need to "Stop the Steal". We need to stop the steal of reason and rational thinking.

I love DEEP but there is TOO DEEP for me.

Much is possible outside of "conventional wisdom". Just because we believe something IS doesn't mean it really is. I believe in the unknown. There really may be intelligent life out there. We may have been visited by aliens. There may be aliens living among us. It is possible. Maybe it is even probable. But until is is provable, it's just possible and probable. It's fun for me to think about and consider, but I won't stake my life on it. It's just possible and probable. I love imagining and will share those with you.

So, when you ask me to believe the election was stolen, I can visit the possible. Maybe. But if you want me to stake my life on it, it needs to be provable. Zero, out of 60 - SIXTY - cases were successful. NONE - NOT ONE - moved into court. Filing with the courts - state, federal and even the Supreme Court - took it to possible but NONE moving forward removed the probable for me. THERE WAS NO THERE, There. I'm not staking my life on it. And I'd be stupid to stake my reputation on it. I could play with maybe there is so huge deep, deep state. And it is a huge deep state.

That deep state includes regular people who are poll watchers and vote counters. It includes both democrats and republicans who are either ignorant or compliant. It includes republican and democrat election officials at county, state and federal levels. It includes democrat and republican judges at all levels. It's DEEP, Deep, deep. It even includes postal workers across the country. It's DEEP, Deep, deep.

So then, if I am to believe that this DEEP, Deep, deep thing happened, I am further to believe that insurrection is the answer. If I want to preserve democracy, I am supposed to believe that overturning an election is the way to do it. I need to take over the Congress and install "my guy" because I could not prove to the courts that he won. I could not convince his own vice president to lead an insurrection, so I need to do it.

That's DEEP. That's really Deep. That's deeper than I can go and I like to explore the possible - even the probable. This is not probable to me. I'm not diving with you.