The Conspiracy to Steal the 2024 Election is Hiding in Plain Sight
Authoritarian power-grab conspiracies that succeed do so because they succeed in seizing the apparatus of power, not because they manage to keep their plans a secret
By Ryan McGreal.
784 words. Approximately a 2 to 5 minute read.
Posted September 25, 2024 in Blog.
It’s vitally important to understand the central truth about the way authoritarians think about power: they don’t care if you believe them when they claim something, they only care about having the power to make their claims stick, regardless of how many people actually believe them.
In some ways it’s better when most people don’t actually believe them, because it lets them show that the truth has no constraining power over them.
Authoritarian power-grab conspiracies that succeed don’t succeed because of secrecy. They succeed when knowing about them is not enough to stop them.
I can’t emphasize this enough. TFG is not trying to win more votes. He is saying out loud, over and over again, that he plans to win by controlling how the votes are counted in the swing states.
His campaign isn’t even running a ground game. Instead, they’re openly running a full-court press against voters and voting.
His enablers in state governments are changing voting laws and regulations to suppress legitimate turnout by making it more difficult to obtain voting ID, aggressively purging voter registrations, cutting the number of polling stations in Democratic-leaning districts, even making it a crime to provide water to voters lined up for hours in the heat because there are so few polling locations.
They’re also attacking the mechanisms of voting itself, taking over key positions in state election commissions and implementing new rules - often blatantly illegal - designed to manufacture chaos when it comes to tabulating and certifying results.
This tactic creates space for the other part of their plan: To undermine public confidence in which candidate won a swing state so badly that it becomes effectively impossible to submit a clean slate of electors to the House.
Why does that matter? Glad you asked.
The theory goes that if the states can’t present their electors on time, or if the results are deadlocked, then it falls to the House itself to break the stalemate. And the current Republican House majority leader didn’t just vote against certifying the results in 2020, he actually led the House effort to overturn the 2020 election results through specious legal arguments.
Asked point-blank about 2024 this week, he said, “If we have a free, fair and safe election, we’re going to follow the Constitution.”
“If”.
Again, if this conspiracy succeeds, it won’t be because they managed to keep it secret. They’re doing it all in public view.
If it succeeds, it will be because they succeeded in seizing the apparatus of power and making their plan stick.
Mike Johnson has the power he has over the next election - as House majority leader and second in line to the presidency - because his fellow Republican party members decided that his efforts to overthrow the last election were not disqualifying. That was a choice to put power ahead of truth.
On the other hand, the state of Nebraska won’t make a last-minute change to their law apportioning electors to switch to a winner-take-all model because a single Republican state lawmaker - State Senator Mike McDonnell - stood up to the massive pressure from the MAGA movement and refused to allow a special session to enact the change.
This demonstrates the huge difference a single courageous person can make, but it also illustrates just how fragile the rule of law has become under the sustained assault of a party that no longer wishes to earn power by winning public support.
All of this is happening even as organized, coordinated campaigns of abuse and violence seek to drive good people out of public office and the machinery of democracy and civil service.
And despite all this, the outcome remains a toss-up just six weeks from election day.
I’m not American so I can’t vote. But the world is watching, and would-be authoritarians the world over are busy taking notes and cheering for their guy to win.
Thanks to political polarization and the Electoral College, the election will most likely end up being decided by around 50,000 votes in a handful of swing states. Every single vote matters. And every action taken to reach people and inspire them to vote for freedom and democracy is essential.
I wish I had a more inspiring closing note, but this is going to be a nail-biter and there is no magic wand to guarantee the outcome.
The good news is that this is also true for the people trying to stack the deck against democracy.
They’re trying, but they have not yet succeeded.
And if enough Americans come together to campaign for a more hopeful, more inclusive future, that hopeful goal is absolutely within reach.
The rest of the world is rooting for you to succeed in keeping your republic and carrying it forward.