Opinion: GOP candidates add a repulsive new twist to Trump's 'big lie' - Sargent

[question everything]

It’s hardly surprising to hear that Republican Senate candidates are campaigning on the “big lie” that the 2020 election was riddled with fraud. This has become so routine that it’s no longer treated as newsworthy, which further normalizes it, a terrible development that we should resist. But at least four of these candidates have added an even more repulsive twist: In inventing widespread fraud in 2020, they go out of their way to emphasize that it took place primarily in urban centers.

What is it about urban centers that might make this lie attractive to GOP candidates? In addition to its obvious racial implications, Republicans trafficking in this are following a path blazed by Donald Trump. Fake GOP claims of voter fraud to justify voter suppression are an old story, of course. But Trump added his own toxic ingredients to the stew: a more explicit focus on cities, to create a pretext for express efforts to overturn election losses.

So it’s hardly a coincidence that Senate candidates adopting this line are among the most devoted Trump sycophants in the GOP. “Our concern is Milwaukee,” Sen. Ron Johnson, who’s running for reelection in Wisconsin, recently said. “This is one of these big Democrat strongholds that just can’t seem to get their votes counted until they know exactly how many votes they need.”

Good one, Senator. You know who actually did pressure election officials in Georgia to “find” precisely the number of votes he needed to overcome his deficit? Donald Trump did. In fact, he’s under criminal investigation for this right now. This trend, which Democratic operatives are closely tracking and highlighting, is metastasizing. This week, former hedge funder David McCormick, who’s running for Senate in Pennsylvania, attacked the “lack of oversight in many of the precincts of Philadelphia.”

(snip)

But the best example of all may come from Adam Laxalt, who’s running for Senate in Nevada. Laxalt has lent support to the stolen-election myth, while insinuating that the integrity of voting is suspect in counties that include Las Vegas and Reno. But as NBC reports, Laxalt has paired this with an explicit declaration that voting in heavily Republican areas is “legitimate.” Behold the logical extension of this Trumpist trope: Voting in urban strongholds is suspect, voting in heavily Republican outlying areas is above reproach, and the former justifies more voter suppression to maximize gains from the latter.

More..

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/02/08/republicans-2020-election-lie-johnson-mandel/

[Midnight Writer]

1. So Ron Johnson, who scored an upstart victory in Wisconsin, now says their elections are "fixed"?

Interesting.