Electoral Bigfoot does not exist
The Seattle Times’ front page report, “Republicans double down on debunked
myth of voter fraud,” (Sunday, 12/27/20) revealed the glaring disparities between:
- claims made by Pres. Trump and his accomplices of vast voter fraud in
the presidential election and that the election was “stolen”
— compared to –— - their 60 to 1 loss record in court. (And the one “loss” would not change the
final election result in any way.)
Things haven’t changed much since then. There is still no credible or substantial
evidence of election fraud. Trump clearly lost. If you want to know why read on. If you
don’t want to know, if you want to believe press conference assertion and speculation
rather than considering evidence and reason — if that is too challenging, too uncomfort-
able, indeed offensive to you, then you must consider whether you are an intellectual
coward. Be brave and consider this.
What seems unnoticed in this overwhelming rejection of election fraud cases is
that there is a reason for it. The nearly total rejection rate is not surprising because
courts require proof. Trump’s lawyers and other supporters can claim anything they
want, no matter how outlandish — conspiracy theories, destroyed ballots, dead people
voting — anything they can conceive of to challenge the consequences. They can
claim any preposterous theory conceivable at press conferences, on Fox News,
YouTube or other websites or platforms. But there is a huge difference between what
they can get away with in the media and what the courts require. While these media
displays may convince Trump’s loyal/gullible base, they don’t convince the courts —
because, unlike press conferences and YouTube interviews, where the most prepost-
erous conspiracy theories can be claimed as fact without any proof, the courts require
reliable evidence. The courts are well trained, experienced and equipped to decide
disputed issues of fact. That’s what they do. They require reliable evidence; real
evidence, not hearsay, not anecdotal evidence, not speculation, suspicion, rumor or
conjecture. But that is all that the Trump supporters have presented in court. Obviously
and justifiably, the courts are not buying it.
When it comes to proof of fraud — in court especially — the requirements are
necessarily quite stringent. Court rules require “clear cogent and convincing evidence”
of fraud — that means specific facts of each element of fraud. When claims of a stolen
election are proclaimed on TV by Trump fraud hucksters that is one thing, but in court
they must back them up by presenting substantial, admissible, provable, relevant facts.
They have consistently failed to do that and they cannot do it — because none
exists. And that’s why virtually all of these election fraud cases have been thrown out.
Instead fraud promoters fall back on press conference conjectures, hearsay, specu-
lation, phony, unqualified “expert” opinion and anecdotal evidence. All of that plays well
in the media, in press conferences and on websites but fails every time in court. This
Bigfoot delusion of massive electoral fraud cannot be proved because it does not exist.
If it did exist. If there was widespread election fraud, Trump and his legal henchmen could easily prove it, but they have not. Massive fraud would be manifested by massive
evidence.
For those of you who still believe the election fraud fiction, how do you
explain all of this? I’m not saying that the courts never make mistakes, but not in over
60 cases. Most all of us rational people have confidence that if we are sued or need to
make a claim in court that our cases will be properly heard and fairly decided under the
evidence and the law. We have entrusted the courts to decide these very issues. We
all rely — or should rely — on the integrity and expertise of our courts as the final arbiter
of all kinds of everyday disputes, some involving claims of fraud — and that includes
election fraud. Fraud is a legal issue. The courts decide legal issues. That’s what they
do. They are the final arbiter, the best equipped, indeed the only institution equipped
and tasked with the duty to hear and decide legal issues, especially including fraud.
Of the 61 cases heard, some were heard by judges appointed by Trump himself
or appointed by other Republican presidents. Some were appeals and all of the
decisions have been upheld on appeal. That’s over 60 courts that have held that there
was no election fraud and that claimed “irregularities” were ordinary and minor mistakes
and procedural slipups that would not have changed the result. In the face of this
virtually unanimous record in court, how can you say that every one of those 60 or so
cases is wrong? Really ask yourself, is it at all plausible to believe that all of these
decisions were wrongly decided? So you’re going to take the word of Pres. Trump or
Rudy Giuliani or Sidney Powell or retired Gen. McInerney – who were not speaking in
court and not subject to cross-examination or subject to the rules of evidence or
required to provide reliable proof of facts – you are going to take their word over this
complete judicial refutation of the election fraud fantasy?
Now you may think that it was just that the courts didn’t want to deal with a
contentious political hot potato. That’s not true because many court cases have been
heard fully on the merits with all the rules and procedures in place that decide all other
cases. In all the election fraud cases all the allegations and evidence Trump’s lawyers
had were presented and still all were rejected. Rudy Giuliani claimed in a press
conference that he had hundreds of affidavits. Did he ever present them in court? No,
just two and they didn’t prove anything relating to large-scale fraud. And among these
other alleged massive collections of affidavits, few if any have ever been presented in
court. Many of these affidavits present what is known as anecdotal evidence or contain
inadmissible, unsupported, unqualified “expert” opinion or hearsay evidence, all of
which have been rejected as insufficient proof of fraud according to time-honored court
rules of evidence.
If you have never read any of the court cases brought by Trump and his people
you are not very well informed. The court cases are available to read online. You
should read one or two at least if you want the truth. I have. And, while some of these
election challenges have been thrown out for lack of standing and other technical or
procedural shortcomings of the claims made. Many others have been dismissed after a
full hearing on the merits. Astonishingly, some cases were dismissed because Trump’s
lawyers failed to even state a claim on which relief could be granted. In most of these
cases Trump’s lawyers did not even claim fraud. Why didn’t they? Trump’s own high-priced, experienced and smart lawyers could not bring themselves to present the flimsy
proof peddled by Giuliani and other fraud hucksters. They didn’t present claims of fraud
because there wasn’t any evidence for it. Obviously, if they had evidence of fraud they
would have presented. Then there was former prosecutor Sidney Powell, who did try to
present a totally bogus fraud claim. She has been sanctioned by the courts for violating
court rules that require lawyers to present claims that are based on fact and the law and
penalize them if they don’t.
The claim that an election was rigged or stolen because of massive election
fraud is basically a claim that the election was illegal; that the conduct or the procedures
of the election were illegal. Fraud is a legal issue and legal issues are for the courts to
decide. The courts have time honored, well tested, balanced and fair rules and
procedures for deciding claims of fraud. Every one of the elements of fraud must be
proven by clear, cogent and convincing evidence. That’s what the courts require and
we should require no less in such a crucial matter, a matter of life or death for
democracy. These rules are uniformly applied in all cases where fraud is claimed, not
just in election cases. It is not a political issue. It is an issue of credible proof. That is
because it is so easy, so tempting to claim fraud, but so harmful, so dangerous when
the claim is false. In spite of what you have heard or what you might believe, there is no
such evidence — not even any ordinary factual evidence at all that massive fraud
swung the election to Joe Biden. I will explain fully.
Not only that, but remarkably there are in fact a good number of realists with
integrity in the Republican ranks; Republicans who have the integrity and courage to
acknowledge the truth. They include diplomat and very conservative former Trump
advisor, John Bolton, and National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien. Bolton urged
Trump to accept the result and said that his failure to do so is creating unfounded
distrust in the electoral system and was hurting the country, including the transition to
the Biden Administration.
The Department of Homeland Security is responsible for federal electronic and
computer security. It has publicly rebuked Trump and his allies, even calling this year’s
election “the most secure in American history.” The Election Infrastructure Sector
Coordinating Executive Committee said in a statement that “there is no evidence that
any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compro-
mised.” Cybersecurity chief for the Department of Homeland Security, Christopher
Krebs, refuted the claims of computer manipulation of election results. He said, “On
allegations that election systems were manipulated, 59 election security experts all
agree, in every case of which we are aware, these claims either have been
unsubstantiated or are technically incoherent.” He announced that there was no
security breach in the nation’s voting systems. Trump then fired him. Finally, Trump
loyalist, former Trump appointed Atty. Gen., William Barr, concluded that there was no
evidence of election fraud. He said colorfully the claims were “BS.” As you know, that
was the same conclusion reached by the Republican Secretary of State of Georgia who
Trump tried to cajole into finding enough votes for him to win the state.
All claims of vast election fraud have been discredited, not only by the courts, but
by state election officials as well, many of whom are Republicans and Trump supporters. In contested elections in Georgia and Arizona the paper ballots have been retained
and recounted by trained election workers, supervised by Republican election officials.
In Georgia there were three recounts and none of them disclosed fraud or even mis-
takes that would have changed the result. A massive hand recount of ballots in
Arizona, conducted by a team hired by the Republican-controlled Arizona legislature
actually came up with a few hundred more votes for Biden than had previously been
counted.
In all cases in all states throughout the country that use paper ballots they are in
retained according to law and are available for recount. No recounts have ever
changed any of the last election results. If there is some mysterious, insidious computer
software infecting voting systems why doesn’t that show up in the paper ballots
produced by these systems that are available for a hand recount? The laws in almost
every state require paper ballots. It’s just impossible to argue fraud when the paper
ballots still exist and can be counted and recounted as many times as the challengers
want — with the results being the same. That alone shows that fraud claims lack any
supporting evidence.
Election procedures and technology have improved immensely over the years,
especially since the old days of Tammany Hall and Chicago Mayor Daley. And we are
no longer dealing with butterfly ballots or hanging chads. Improvements have advanced
to the point where today election fraud is impossible unless one assumes that election
officials and election workers are predominantly dishonest partisan zealots or that they
are infiltrated with a vast secret, underground conspiracy of evil election workers bent
on rigging elections. You have to assume either or both of these propositions in order
to believe there was vast fraud in the 2020 election.
I’m not saying that mistakes and irregularities do not occur. They always do, but
mistakes and irregularities are random. They are just as likely to benefit one of the
candidates as the other and certainly cannot be known to favor either side because of
the secret ballot rule. If ballots are always kept secret you can’t know who the voter
voted for. Irregularities are not fraud. But concerted, deliberate election fraud does not
occur without significant collusive action of significat numbers of evildoers.
Moreover, election computer software is used widely and is very difficult to man-
ipulate without being detected. None has been discovered. The reason is that election
software programs are installed and tested off-line before the elections and during,
which means they are not connected to the Internet either during set up (that is the
downloading of ballot formats), during pre-election testing or during the actual ballot
counting process. Computerized election processes are more secure than the software
that is used to charge purchases on credit cards — which most of us rely on without
questioning.
There are two separate and different voting systems that are prevalent
throughout America.
First, there are the cases where voting is done on separate voting machines at
various polling stations located in neighborhoods and in schools, churches and other
public places throughout the jurisdiction. In these cases there might be 5 to 20 machines in each polling place, adding up to hundreds throughout the entire jurisdiction. Vot-
ing machines, after being set up with the ballot format downloaded onto each machine
are tested and are then ready for the election. Prior to election day they are stored
under lock and key at a warehouse or other storage location. In order to change the
election machine’s program, a nefarious conspirator would have to break into the
storage area and manipulate every one or a large number or hundreds of machines by
physically opening them (with a tool of some kind) and alter the software or replace
previously installed computer chips. These machines are then transported to the
various polling stations just prior to election day. Voters who appear at polling stations
must present suitable ID. Commonly these polling station machines throughout the
country print out a ballot for the voter to review before the voter deposits his/her ballot in
the scanner for optical scanning and counting. Optical scanners read the ballot exactly
as it is printed. So every voter in these cases can look at their ballot print-out and see
how they voted before inserting it in the scanner for counting. Many voters would note
any discrepancy on the printed paper ballot right away if there is one and would report
the discrepancy to election workers. The election results are tabulated at each polling
station and those results reported to election headquarters for adding to the overall vote
counting. The printed ballots are retained after the election and can be recounted in a
hand count.
The other election method involves ballots mailed to registered voters usually a
couple of weeks before the election. Voters, in the privacy of their homes, can take their
time in marking their ballots. Every ballot is marked by the voter so there is little chance
for fraud at that stage and we have to conclude that is what the voter intended. These
ballots are either mailed or placed in a dropbox by the voter. Ballot envelopes are
received at a central location or headquarters where they are checked for signature
verification, the ballot is removed from the envelope and then fed into a machine that
optically scans and tabulates each ballot. This is a system typified by the state of
Washington and states that vote totally by mail. The safeguards against fraud in these
cases are comprehensive.
Tabulating machines are set up, thoroughly tested, operated and supervised by
experienced high-ranking election technicians and officials. All of this is done off-line. I
emphasize: election computers and tabulating equipment is not connected to the
Internet during testing and counting of ballots. So, again, there is no way election
equipment at centralized locations can be surreptitiously and undetectably tampered
with in any massive way by internet hackers. All paper ballots that have been fed into
the ballot counting machines are retained after machine counting and can later be hand
counted if questioned, which was done in the case of Arizona, Michigan and other
states and recounted several times in Georgia with no significant discrepancies found.
Since no one outside a voter’s household can alter a mail-in ballot and all such ballots
are tracked by unique barcodes assigned to each voter, mail-in voting is more secure
than polling station voting — contrary to Trump’s unexplained assertion that mail-in
balloting was “a whole big scam.”
Finally, there are many processes for assuring election integrity — for detecting
and reconciling discrepancies. In most cases every ballot packet sent to a voter by mail has a unique barcode included, usually affixed to a security envelope. There are
several distinct steps or phases in counting ballots:
- When received at election central locations, the barcodes on the outside
security envelopes are scanned and recorded as received so that election
records show how many ballot envelopes were received and exactly who
voted, but not how they voted. No ballot will be counted that does not
have a state issued barcode. A ballot with a phony barcode would be
rejected. This is done by a ballot tracker program in most jurisdictions that
use mail-in ballots, but a similar verification process is used in polling
station systems. - Envelopes are also inspected for valid voter signatures. Those with
questioned signatures are counted separately and put aside for later
verification along with the enclosed ballot. Rejected ballots are counted
later when and if authenticated. - The remaining ballots, that is, those that came with good barcodes and
valid signatures, are removed from the security envelope and are counted.
So at this point election offices know how many ballots were received for
counting. - The total ballots received for counting plus the number rejected are com-
pared and reconciled with the total envelopes received. The numbers
must match. - Then the votes on the ballots are counted. The total ballots on which
votes were counted must match the total ballots received for counting.
Obviously the total number of votes for any office cannot exceed the total
number of ballots received for counting. - In either case of polling station voting or mail in voting, if large quantities of
ballots had been insidiously destroyed there would be a clear discrepancy;
the number ballots cast at polling stations or received in the mail would be
much greater than the total number of ballots on which votes were count-
ed or rejected. There were no significant discrepancies of this kind
anywhere in the 2020 election.
Again, for emphasis, let us remember that in the vast number of challenged elec-
tions paper ballots actually existed and were retained for recounting by hand. No
significant discrepancies have ever been found.
There is one baseless theory of a practice purportedly challenging the integrity of mail in voting. It has two do with nefarious political actors called “mules” intercepting and changing mailed ballots. The theory goes that large numbers, perhaps thousands, of political operatives go out and visit the homes of unsuspecting voters and offer to deposit their ballots in the mail for them. If a ballot is entrusted to them they would privately unseal the envelope, change the vote, reseal the envelope and put it in the mail. This practice has actually been carried out in some few minor municipal elections. There is no evidence that any number of mules did this in any significant scale in the presidential election. If there were 1000 mules there would have to have been many, if not hundreds of them who were identified and exposed. None have been. Besides, mail in voters are instructed to mail the ballots themselves and not entrust that to strangers. The likelihood that this practice in any way affected the outcome of the presidential election anywhere or even at all is nil.
Much has been made of alleged voting by dead people and untimely voting, that
is, election officials ruling that ballots received after previously set deadlines were
legally cast. All those issues were thoroughly presented, debated and resolved against
Trump in court. They are not cases of fraud anyway, but instead what we would call
“irregularities.” There is no evidence that large numbers of deceased voters cast ballots and the courts have held that extending voting deadlines under the circumstances was
within the authority of the election officials to do so and legal. The more important point
to note regarding these alleged “unlawful” votes is that this is not fraud and, because of
the “secret ballot” requirement, there is no way of knowing who the so-called “dead
voters,” tardy voters or other illegal voters voted for. You just can’t say that illegal votes
went largely for Trump or Biden. That is not fraud and whether it affected the outcome
is unknowable. It is baseless speculation to assume that any number of illegal votes
were ALL for Biden.
There are some election technology “experts” who support fraud claims, but they
cannot explain, except in the most incredible technological debunked fantasies, how
voting equipment could be sabotaged. The charges of vast election fraud could only be
supported by evidence of a vast, secret, sinister conspiracy of dishonest election
officials and workers, both Democrat, Republican and independents throughout the
country who intentionally sabotaged the election. Critics make the incredible assump-
tion, again without evidence, that the election workforce is infiltrated with corrupt
personnel.
A far more plausible understanding of election officials and election workers is
that they are likely no different than the rest of us: they are a cross-section of America,
not devious, dishonest conspirators. Instead they are in all likelihood, by and large,
dedicated hard-working citizens, probably like you or your neighbors, of all different
political stripes or non-partisan. For them it is a job. It is safe to assume that they are
honest and diligent workers. Among the thousands of these election officials and
workers some would have observed ballot rigging if it occurred. But, where are the
whistle blowers among them, the vast numbers of election workers? Not one has come
forward to report instances of i widespread ntentional vote-rigging. Mistakes, yes;
irregularities, yes; but consistent, massive vote rigging of the election against Trump,
no. They can’t all be a part of a vast evil conspiracy, can they? How can anyone
assume this implausible, astonishing degree of corruption and dishonesty without a sole
coming forward to report it or without any other shred of evidence that it ever took
place?
There are a number of inconvenient questions that all election fraud believers
must confront: If there was some credible evidence of election fraud, besides asking
where is it, another question is: when did Trump and his people know of it? Did they
know of it before the election or only after the election? Why did they only make a big
fuss about it after Trump lost? If they knew of it before the 2020 election why didn’t they
do something to stop it? If they did know about it they would have to have had know-
ledge of how it would happen and with that knowledge could easily have headed it off
and prevented it. If they did not know of it until after the election, if they learned of it
later, how and why did that come about only after the election? How come they
became convinced there was fraud only after they lost? How could something so
horrendous, so vast and pervasive remain such a carefully kept secret until after the
election? — and then all of a sudden after the election Trump and his acolytes start
yelling “Stop the Steal!”. If they know the election was rigged and how it was rigged by fraud why weren’t they able to present evidence of it to the courts or election officials —
either before or after the election?
If there was massive fraud …
there would have to be massive evidence.
What is their evidence? Trump and his lawyers have not come up with any
evidence of fraud. That’s why they lost. If you are an election skeptic, what actual
factual evidence do you rely on? Is it really just Trump’s assertion, his say-so or the
say-so of his close advisors? Is it just that if Trump says it happened, no evidence is
needed?
Why The Lie Won’t Die
Election fraud believers, confronted with the total lack of evidence for their beliefs
and faced with the overwhelming evidence that it did not occur — or better said, the
overwhelming lack of evidence that it occurred — have stubbornly failed to concede the
inevitable.
But why? Why, given that over 60 court decisions have heard the cases and the
claims and arguments (still cited by Trump supporters) and have rejected every one of
them — why do they cling to these beliefs? All their claims of massive voting fraud —
some outlandish and all lacking evidence of a stolen election, asserted by former
President Trump and his followers — have been rejected and debunked even by highly
placed members of Trump’s own administration, and the Republican Senate minority
leader, Mitch McConnell, and several Republican state secretaries of State. No one
who believes the election was rigged, no matter how committed, can cite one piece of
evidence supporting any fraud claim that has not already been thoroughly considered
and rejected by the courts and by election officials or refuted in countless recounts.
Under these circumstances why is it so difficult to stamp out this persistent
belief? Why are devout Trump supporters unable to accept the obvious truth? It
deserves an explanation. The lie won’t die just by always calling it a “big lie.”
Well, there is a rational explanation, mostly embedded in human nature and psy-
chology. Political allegiance is no different than any other kind of allegiance, whether it
is to a country, a city, a political party, a school, a race, a class, a tribe, a clan or a
sports team. It could be called tribal identity bias. Political allegiance is not much
different than sports fandom. I am a steadfast Seahawks fan and for me it is easy to
see and believe that the referees often get it wrong against “my team.” We must face
the compelling human frailty that all of us are burdened with — that we want to believe
that our side has won and should win, that we are on the right side and the other side is
wrong and is out to wrong us. We mostly believe what we want to believe —
sometimes to the extent that facts don’t matter. The human trait of identity or tribal bias
makes it easy for committed Trump supporters to believe the election referees got it
wrong because they want to believe it so badly.
But the election fraud issue is not a close call. It is not like a disputed pass
interference call which is a debatable judgment call. It is not debatable.
Besides tribal identity bias, what else, then, explains the persistent unfounded
beliefs of countless well educated, well-intentioned, intelligent Americans? They are not
mostly naïve or gullible people. How does a rational person overcome overwhelming
contrary evidence?
It is the impossibility of proving a negative. A fixed principle of logic is that you
can never prove with 100% certainty that some fact does not exist or that some event
does not occur.
So, hypothetically, if the police accuse you of possessing illegal narcotics and
they search you and your house and your car but they find nothing, they can still say
with perfect reason that you nevertheless may have illegal drugs but the police just were
not able to find them.
That hypothetical situation famously materialized in a real life historical setting.
During the run-up to the Iraq war members of the Bush administration, members of
Congress and the news media as well, refused to accept the conclusion of weapons
inspectors that Iraq possessed no WMDs. The logic was that just because weapons
inspectors and our intelligence agencies couldn’t find them doesn’t mean they didn’t
exist. How faulty and ruinous that turned out to be.
The same faulty logic now provides the rationalization for approximately one third
of Americans and two thirds of Republicans who doubt that Biden was legitimately
elected.
For their fall-back position, then, fraud believers say: “Well, while we can’t prove
fraud actually happened, neither can anyone disprove it with 100% certainty.” They say
that they have questions and suspicions without citing any reason for having them.
From there the argument goes, “If you can’t completely eliminate all possibilities of fraud
then you have to acknowledge the possibility that fraud occurred.” According to this
argument, it is fair to assume or suspect that fraud happened because we cannot prove
it didn’t happen. And that provides the opening for Trump’s fans: Since this is
something you desperately want to believe this provides the quasi-logic that allows
election fraud believers to feel confident in the belief that somehow, through some
unexplainable, unknowable process of hidden conspiracies, an election was stolen.
But that is a bogus argument. It completely disregards reality; that is, the
universal principle that we all rely on and live our lives on everyday, which is:
Consider and weigh the probabilities.
Consider this: For there to be massive undetected election fraud there would
have to have been massive, secret, nefarious collusion among the ranks of election
workers without a single whistleblower coming forward. Just how likely is that?
So, while there are no methods for proving with complete certainty that Bigfoot
does not exist, the fraud advocates, wanting fervently to believe that election Bigfoot
does exist, apparently would believe it even though the probabilities of that are so
infinitely small that most fair-minded realists reject all forms of Bigfoot, as fantasy.
Likewise, most people who aren’t totally blinded by partisan wishful thinking and who look at the evidence itself — and the lack of evidence — will say, “Trump didn’t get
enough votes.”
One final way to discredit the100% certainty hypothesis is to consider that if you
suspect fraud corrupted the 2020 election you must therefore suspect that all of our
elections have been similarly corrupted — because there was nothing so different about
this presidential election to distinguish it from all previous ones — EXCEPT for one
thing: The bare assertion alone of the former president himself, which has never
happened before. In this case, Trump completed a miraculous Hail Mary pass by
convincing millions of Americans that a landslide election was stolen without citing one
piece of evidence for it. It was true just because the great tribal leader said it was true.
Likewise, most people who aren’t totally blinded by partisan wishful thinking and
who look at the evidence — and the lack of evidence — will say, “Trump didn’t get
enough votes to win.”
Probably the most telling evidentiary point in this entire matter is that the principal
propagator of the election fraud claim, Trump himself, has never cited any evidence
whatsoever for his claims. He just makes the claim and apparently that is all the
support his followers need. It’s the blind faith that “He said it, so it must be true.” A
remarkable irony is that Trump’s position totally discounts the uniform decisions of the
courts against him, yet he is a prodigious litigator; he is constantly suing or threatening
to sue his critics and opponents. And in his (in)famous “fraud letter” published in the
Wall Street Journal he made an introductory general claim of fraud, citing no evidence,
but, in the following 20 bullet points, he identified no instances of fraud, not one —
irregularities, so-called illegal votes, but he cited no evidence of fraud. He claimed
thousands of illegal votes were counted but he can’t say exactly where or how and,
moreover, all of those claims have been heard and rejected by the courts and news-
papers and editors over the country, including the Wall Street Journal — all have said
his claims were false.
If you are ready to believe the election fraud fiction then you’re ready to believe
that the Sandy Hook school shootings were staged and that the moon landings were
faked. Please, carefully and dispassionately weigh the evidence — and the lack of
evidence — and rationally reject the incredibly improbable scenario that a landslide
election, for the first time in American history, was rigged and stolen, undetected by
Trump’s own election security department, by the courts, including some judges
appointed by Trump, or by anyone in America’s entire election workforce. Be realistic
and brutally honest with yourself. Don’t fool yourself. Accept the evidence, not
conjecture and the groundless wishful thinking peddled by Trump and his acolytes,
desperate to thereby avoid a humiliating defeat and remain in power.