When Several Million People are Bonkers, What do You Do

Kari Lake, the politician in AZ who is running for the U.S. Senate just lost another court maneuver where she is trying to get to the Supreme Court. She continues to claim her election defeat was due to fraud. There is no evidence to date that she lost due to fraud--she just lost. 

A veteran reporter in his sixties tried to understand people who believe Trump was not defeated and the Biden's election was due to fraud. He reached a man who lives near me. This man, retired and in poor health, has been convicted and sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison for threatening on the phone a public official in AZ who certified Biden's election results. The convicted man is waiting for completion of a back surgery before reporting to a federal prison. He was a sworn police officer. The reporter wanted to hear directly from someone who would go to such extremes to support the unproven claim Biden was not the legitimate winner. The interview of this fellow appeared on The Atlantic site. I can't seem to link to it.

The fellow going to prison did not remember saying the threatening words to the public official. He did it twice and both times it was recorded. He could not deny he made the threats. And, he had no remorse for making them. He told the writer that to this day he sees no possible way Joe Biden could have won the election but for fraud. Biden does not hold the office as the result of a legal election, the fellow still believes. Though he lives here in Iowa he apparently follows Arizona politics and must agree with Kari Lake that she, too, was deprived of a win by electoral fraud. The reporter asking him about all of this could not end the interview fast enough--there was no hope of having a rational give and take. 

Then there is Mike Lindell, Mr. Pillow. He was a multi millionaire but now says he is flat broke. He is broke because he publicly said many times, and is still saying, the voting machines used in the Trump election were wired to the internet and were manipulated from afar by Democratic operatives. These machines were investigated and no link, nor the ability to accommodate an internet link, was found anywhere. Lindell was rightfully sued by the voting machine companies and, along with his lawyer fees, paid dearly. His pillow warehouses are empty and no one will sell him any materials to make more pillows. He said in an interview last week it was all worth it to "bring the truth to the public."

The famous book, 1984, was about producing lies and repeating them to gain and maintain power. False election charges, when not true, can be used to maintain power in fascist regimes. We are seeing it in real time.