The Big Lie And Voter Suppression

by Vijaya Chandrasoma

The Big Lie, initiated by former president Donald Trump after he lost the November presidential election, that the election was stolen from him, is continuing to attack the foundations of democracy in America, and will have far reaching and deleterious effects in future elections.

A Big Lie, when used as a propaganda technique for political purposes is defined as “a gross distortion or misinterpretation of the facts, especially when used as a propaganda device of an official body”.

The most infamous example of the Big Lie was the one used by Hitler and the Nazi propaganda machine headed by Joseph Goebbels. Historians say that the original Big Lie, that the First World War was started by “an international Jewry”, was a “war of extermination against Germany”. World War I was not lost by Germany in 1918, but their defeat was caused by the betrayal of the Jews.

In his book “Mein Kampf” (My Struggle), Hitler describes a lie “so colossal that no one could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously” when the colossal lie has been accepted as the truth.

The Big Lie must contain an element of truth. Jews have been persecuted and been the victims of pogroms, riots aimed at their expulsion or massacre, since the Crusades, escalating in the cruelty of 19th century Russia and Europe. The Nazis simply made use of this innate race-hatred as justification of Hitler’s Final Solution, the genocide of all Jews.

Hitler also revealed his other great enemy, the Lugenpresse, (the Lying Press), or its modern version, Fake News, which interfered with his dream of a pure Aryan (white) race in Germany, cleansed of Jews, Gypsies and those of impure blood.

Though his Final Solution was doomed to failure, his “dream” claimed the lives of over six millions of Jews and others of “impure blood” in the holocaust.

Hitler shot himself at the end of the war. The name of Hitler is now held in contempt and disgust in Germany and the world.

History is repeating itself. Trump’s Big Lie is that the November 2020 presidential election was stolen from him through massive election fraud; that the election was not lost by him, but he was betrayed by insidious forces, Republicans and Democrats, who stole it from him.

He set the stage for the Big Lie, following Hitler’s example almost to perfection, by identification of his – and America’s – primary enemies as brown and black skinned minorities and immigrants, who were acting against his American Dream of the continuation of white privilege/supremacy, which had held sway for centuries.

Trump identified these immigrant enemies during his election campaign as the Republican nominee for the 2016 presidency. In his opinion, immigration was an invasion. He described the Mexicans and other legal and undocumented Hispanics as a hostile force. “They’re bringing crime. They’re bringing drugs. They’re rapists”. All Muslims, even American citizens, were terrorists. He had only contempt for immigrants of brown skin from shithole countries, as he called them. The brutal treatment of African Americans for centuries hasn’t changed much to the present day, and Trump fanned those flames with his racism.

Once he had identified the main enemy, he named the second threat to Trump’s America – the media, or Fake News, which he dubbed “the Enemy of the People”. He implored his white, ill-educated supporters not to believe what they see or hear. Only he would tell them the truth, on Twitter and on Fox News, the Republican propaganda TV station. And his supporters believed every lie he invented. They attended his rallies in their tens of thousands to show their vociferous devotion.

Trump’s dream had a touch of the truth for white, racist Americans; their fear of imminent danger of the loss of white privilege they had enjoyed for centuries.

The third lie that immediately preceded the Big Lie. When Trump realized that he was going to lose the presidency to Biden, he told his supporters that he would lose the presidency only if the election was rigged.

So the stage was set for the Big Lie, after he was comprehensively beaten by Biden for the presidency in November 2020, by 81 million to 74 million on the popular vote and 306 to 232 in the Electoral College.

After this landslide defeat, Trump and his supporters continued to accuse the Democrats of rigging the election. His legal representatives filed 60 cases of election fraud, which were all thrown out by district and federal courts, even his hand-picked Supreme Court, for lacking a shred of evidence.

Trump’s claims of election fraud were contradicted by his own Election Infrastructure Government Coordinating Council (GCC) which called the 2020 election “the most secure in American history…. There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised”.

Trump’s Big Lie was backed by the earlier lies he had implanted on his Republican base that the election will be rigged. The Lie was believed by his base. After all, 74 million Americans had voted for him in spite of this lie, and 3,500 other lies he had used during his presidency, all designed to camouflage his ignorance and criminal incompetence in carrying out the duties of the president.

During the 11-week Lame Duck transition period, Trump continued with the repetition of the lie and obstructed the peaceful transfer of power. He even tried to intimidate the Governors and election officials of Michigan, Pennsylvania, Arizona, and most famously, Georgia, with an hour-long recorded telephone call, when he was heard to threaten Georgia’s Republican Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger, with a felony, unless he “found” 11,780 votes which would give him the fraudulent majority necessary for him to win the state.

All his efforts to overturn his election failed, still his base continued to believe the Big Lie in the face of overwhelming evidence. He recognized that his final opportunity to achieve the unachievable would be on January 6, when Congress, with Vice President Pence in the chair, assembled to perform their constitutional duty of officially certifying the presidency of Biden.

I have written about the events of that fateful day, when Trump supporters led an assault of the Capitol, an insurrection incited by a desperate Trump, which caused six deaths, hundreds wounded and millions of dollars in damage to the seat of American government.

The mob threatened the lives of the entire Congress, calling for the assassination of both Vice President Pence and Speaker Pelosi. The insurrectionists were finally subdued, and Congress carried out their constitutional duty of declaring the presidency of Biden.

The sad fact that remains is that there are millions of Americans who still believe the election had been stolen from Trump, and will continue sporadic violent attacks on American institutions.

But the big picture is that Trump, and his dream of a pure white America, with the subjugation of minorities, including African Americans and brown skinned immigrants from ‘shithole’ countries, has failed.

Trump will likely be convicted of just about every crime in the penal code, and will die in prison. The name of Trump will, like Hitler’s, be held in contempt and disgust in the history books of tomorrow.

Unfortunately, the Big Lie has influenced state legislators, with 47 states adding new voter suppression laws, designed to make voting more difficult, especially for the poor and the minorities, usually supporters of the Democratic Party. These laws will suppress the votes of a large section of the electorate and pervert future elections and the peaceful transfer of power, the cornerstones of American democracy, perhaps for generations to come.

Republicans have been faced with an unexpected adversary in enacting these voter suppression laws – the corporate sector. Corporations have traditionally supported the Republican Party, and contributed vast sums of money to the election campaign of Republican politicians. In return they have received lucrative tax and ancillary benefits.

In fact, President Biden recently announced his intention to increase corporate taxes to 28% from Trump’s 21%, which makes the current corporate opposition to Republican-backed laws even more bewildering.

Delta and Coke have made statements against voter suppression laws, and the American Football League (AFL) announced change of venue of their All-Star game, which features the game played by the best players of the year, from Atlanta, Georgia (the state whose Governor Brian Kemp, has proposed especially Draconian voter suppression laws) to Denver, Colorado.

In all, over 100 companies, including Twitter, ViacomCBS, Google, Facebook and Uber, have formed a Civic Alliance, which made the following joint statement:

“Our elections are not improved when lawmakers impose barriers that result in longer lines at the polls or that reduce access to secure ballot boxes. We stand in solidarity with voters …. in our nonpartisan commitment to equality and democracy”.

President Biden has called these voter suppression laws proposed by 47 states as a “return to The Jim Crow era” when African Americans were abused under laws similar to the apartheid system of South Africa until the 1990s.

Predictably, Republican senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, made scathing remarks about corporate protests against voter suppression laws, saying that Big Business “will invite serious consequences if they become a vehicle for far-left mobs to hijack our country outside the constitutional order. … Businesses must not use economic blackmail to spread disinformation and push bad ideas that citizens reject at the ballot box”.

McConnell’s spectacular hypocrisy brings to mind the statement of Hamlet in Shakespeare’s play;

“For ‘tis the sport to have the engineer Hoist with his own petard. And it shall go hard”.

The petard, the little bomb, hoisted on “engineer” McConnell is his own Citizens United Act, which describes corporations as people, and, according to the First Amendment (freedom of speech), permits them to make unlimited contributions to election campaigns. A law which gave a significant advantage to the Republican Party, the party of the billionaires and the corporations.

However, to McConnell’s consternation, the Act also allows corporations the right of freedom of speech, which they are now using, amazingly and admirably, to protest the proposed Republican laws of voter suppression.

These statements by corporate America have infuriated McConnell, who is now ordering his erstwhile allies to “keep giving us your money but keep your damn mouths shut about politics, especially about Republican politics!”

On the brighter side, these voter suppression laws are being challenged in the Courts, and hopefully new laws will be enacted to making it easier, not harder, for all eligible voters to fulfill their constitutional right to vote.

Trump’s criminal and racist actions won’t be easily overcome, the stench will linger for some time. But President Biden has made a very good start in righting the ship of state. He has already taken giant strides in containing Covid-19 and reviving both the job market and the economy. He has also reestablished America’s role as the leader of the Free World in under 100 days of his presidency.