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BIDEN: STOP THE STEAL! It’s commonplace to hear Democrats and their allies in the media refer to what they call the “Big Lie.” By that, they mean former President Donald Trump’s claim that Democrats rigged the 2020 vote in a number of states and that Trump, in fact, won the presidential election. Indeed, it’s not true. Trump, in fact, lost.
But now, President Joe Biden is claiming that Republicans are rigging the 2022 vote in a number of states in order to win the midterm elections. He said it outright in Georgia recently and reiterated it at his long news conference on Wednesday. And that’s not true, either.
As Trump did throughout 2020, Biden has been setting the stage for claims of a rigged election. When Georgia passed a voting reform bill, Biden referred to it as “Jim Crow on steroids.” He supported Major League Baseball pulling the All-Star Game out of the state. He spoke darkly of “voter suppression.”
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In an incendiary speech in Atlanta on Jan. 11, Biden accused Republicans of plotting to “subvert” this year’s midterm elections. “Here’s how they [Republicans] plan to subvert the election,” he said. “The Georgia Republican Party, the state legislature, has now given itself the power to make it easier for partisan actors — their cronies — to remove local officials.” Then, according to the Biden scenario, GOP cronies will throw out thousands, or hundreds of thousands, or millions, of Democratic votes to ensure Republican victory. “The chances for chaos and subversion are even greater as partisans seek the result they want,” Biden said, “no matter what the voters have said, no matter what the count. The votes of nearly five million Georgians will be up for grabs if that law holds.”
The only way to avoid this fate, Biden argued, is for Congress to pass the Democratic voting bill that would federalize elections under terms favorable to Democrats. Republicans have only one choice, Biden said in Atlanta — either support the Democratic bill or go down in history as notorious racists. “I ask every elected official in America: How do you want to be remembered?” Biden said. “Do you want to be on the side of Dr. King or George Wallace? Do you want to be on the side of John Lewis or Bull Connor? Do you want to be on the side of Abraham Lincoln or Jefferson Davis?”
On Wednesday, Biden used his one-year anniversary news conference to raise the stakes even higher. A reporter asked, “If [the Democratic voting bill] isn’t passed, do you still believe the upcoming election will be fairly conducted and its results will be legitimate?”
Biden could have expressed confidence in the electoral system. But like Trump in 2020, he instead chose to sow doubt. “Well, it all depends on whether or not we’re able to make the case to the American people that some of this is being set up to try to alter the outcome of the election,” he said.
Later, reporter Philip Wegmann of RealClearPolitics tried to clarify. “A moment ago, you were asked whether or not you believed that we would have free and fair elections in 2022 if some of these state legislatures reformed their voting protocols. You said that it depends. Do you think that they would in any way be illegitimate?”
Biden was confused by the question — for a moment, he thought Wegmann was talking about the 2020 election. But when he focused on 2022, Biden said: “I’m not going to say it’s going to be legit … The prospect of being illegitimate is in direct proportion to us not being able to get these reforms passed.”
There it is. The only way to stop the steal, Biden said, is to pass the Democratic bill.
In the months before the 2020 election, President Donald Trump often railed against mail-in voting and said the only way the election result could be legitimate was if Americans followed his policy preference and voted the old-fashioned way — in person. Just go through the Trump Twitter archive: “The 2020 Election will be totally rigged if Mail-In Voting is allowed to take place.” “Because of MAIL-IN BALLOTS, 2020 will be the most RIGGED Election in our nation’s history.” “Don’t allow RIGGED ELECTIONS!”
Today, Biden speaks differently. He warns of subversion and suppression and illegitimate results. But Biden is sending the same message: Run the election how I want, or I’ll say it was rigged.
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