Dealing with the Big Lie

Here's a look at what some are doing to address a real doozy of a problem: lack of confidence in our elections

What’s the problem?

It’s a clarifying question, especially when grappling with a particularly vexing issue. At my former employer, when we’d find ourselves stuck trying to figure out a proper course of action, we’d ask it as a way to reboot and force ourselves to think more deeply about what we were actually trying to accomplish.

Sometimes you’re addressing symptoms when you really need to be treating the disease.

A big problem I've been thinking about a lot since Jan. 6, 2021, is the loss of confidence in our election systems. The riot/protest/insurrection/tourist activity at the U.S. Capitol that day was certainly a clarifying event. There were enough people mad enough about the presidential election to storm the building where the pro forma counting of Electoral College ballots was taking place and bring that process to a terrifying halt. A demonstrator was shot and killed as she breached a secured area. Protestors attacked law enforcement officers. Congressional offices were ransacked. Human excrement was reportedly deposited in hallways.

So, what’s the problem with trust in our elections?

Is it polarization? Are we just so hopelessly divided that if our guy/gal loses an election then the other side MUST have cheated? Lest you think it’s only the red-hatted MAGA crowd saying a presidential election wasn’t legitimate, have a look at this video from Matt Orfalea with nearly 5 minutes of clips of Democratic leaders and mainstream journalists saying the same thing about the 2016 presidential election.

The fact that leaders from both parties are saying these kinds of things is a big part of the problem, according to Rachael Kleinfeld of the Carnegie Foundation’s Democracy, Conflict and Governance Program. She just published a paper, Polarization, Democracy, and Political Violence in the United States: What the Research Says.

The research shows Americans aren’t nearly as politically divided as they think they are. Our political leaders, on the other hand, most definitely are. Here’s an excerpt from a Governing article about Kleinfeld’s findings.

Governing: What did you learn about polarization in America that differs from “common knowledge” about it?

Rachel Kleinfeld: Most people think Americans of different parties hold radically different views, and that’s not true. There’s a lot of overlap in what Americans from both parties think, although they differ in intensity.

For instance, Democrats care a lot about gun control. Republicans have similar views on a lot of gun issues, they just don’t rank them as high in their issue set.

The real difference in viewpoints is in who we elect as leaders. Party leaders have almost no issues in common. That’s making it very difficult to govern. (emphasis mine)

Here’s a brief video of Kleinfeld talking about the polarization problem, as well as potential solutions.

For you TL;DW folks, at the end of the video Kleinfeld says research shows “the best way to move countries on the brink — like America is right now — out of this form of stasis and gridlock and polarization is to form unlikely alliances in which the goal is not to just talk about our differences but to look at something we want to get done together that makes a difference, to work together to create positive change ... and as we build that muscle memory of cooperative work across barriers we start to recognize where those barriers are real — and we just have to agree to disagree and vote the way that we wish to vote to bring about the country we want — and where those barriers might fall away for something we care about more, like a functional government, a more safe society with less violence, or a country that just picks up the trash and works a little better than we’re getting right now.”

Be still my heart.

Let’s Talk Solutions. Better Yet, Let’s Act

The good news on the issue of election legitimacy is that The Carter Center is doing that kind of work right now. The better news is it dove right into the deep end of the pool by doing that work in Arizona, a hot spot for election looniness.

Arizona has been a focal point for election deniers ever since Fox News made the early (and correct) call on election night 2020 the state was going for Joe Biden. What followed was an “audit” of the Grand Canyon State’s presidential election results.

“Nothing was more emblematic of the hollowness of charges that the 2020 presidential election was ‘stolen’ than the unorthodox audit the Arizona Senate authorized, paid for mostly by election conspiracists and led by one,” writes Carl Smith in an Oct. 30 article for Governing. “The audit’s assumptions dissolved when its work actually revealed a slightly bigger margin of victory for the certified winner.”

You would think a sham audit that revealed Biden actually won by more votes than initially certified would put the matter to bed. Nope. The loser of Arizona’s 2022 Governor’s race continues to make baseless charges her election was stolen as well.

Equally depressing to me is “the audit findings weren't enough to prevent harassment and threats against public officials who had done their jobs with commitment and skill,” Smith writes. “A recent investigation by the nonprofit Issue One found that 80 percent of the chief election officials in Arizona counties have left their jobs since 2020.”

Be still my fist.

What I found really surprising is that solid majorities of Arizonans believe there’s nothing cockamamie going on with ballot counting in their state. Here’s the receipt:

Chart: Governing Source: Center for the Future of Arizona.

But thinking about Kleinfeld’s findings above — that our politicians are polarized while regular folks are not — it shouldn’t be surprising at all. Which gives me some hope that The Carter Center’s approach to restoring trust in elections will make a difference.

They are getting leaders from both parties to tackle the problem. Those leaders — Republican Dan Henninger, a veteran journalist, along with Congressman Ron Barber, a Democrat —have created the Arizona Democracy Resilience Network (ADRN), which is comprised of 300 members made up of leaders from business and faith groups as well as ordinary citizens.

Here’s what ADRN stands for:

The ADRN welcomes dedicated leaders and community members who want to improve the quality of our democracy and who agree with our three commonsense principles:

1. Committing to truth in our politics.

2. Engaging peacefully with our fellow Americans, and

3. Supporting our electoral democracy.

Voters and organizations can participate in the network, telling candidates to lead by example to help restore trust in elections. Network members will promote peaceful resolution of disputes and differences through constructive engagement, share proactive messaging that promotes accurate information about our elections, and counter acts of intimidation through dialogue, conflict-sensitive communication, and rapid response planning.

Love it.

Here are the principles the group is embracing:

Arizona DRN members will help mobilize support for the Candidate Principles for Trusted Elections. Launched in 2022, the nationwide, cross-partisan initiative asks candidates and citizens to uphold five core principles of democratic elections:

Integrity
Nonviolence
Security
Oversight
Peaceful transfer of power

As 2024 approaches, our aim is to push back on partisanship by getting every candidate in every race in every state to commit to these principles. Leaders from across Arizona's political spectrum are collaborating with the Arizona DRN to support these principles.

I love that, too. Of course, it’s easier said than done, no doubt. The distrust runs in America runs deep.

There’s a quote from Henninger in the Governing article about ADRN’s development that I found telling.

“It’s turning into more of a grass-roots effort, because we have discovered that your most trusted messengers are your neighbors and your coworkers, not so much the institutions that we have relied on in the past,” says Henninger.

I applaud — hell, I give a standing ovation — to anyone making a good-faith effort to restore faith in our democratic systems. I hope and pray the good folks at The Carter Center and those fighting the good fight in Arizona see success. It’s too early to draw any conclusions as to whether the approach is working, but lord knows I’m pulling for them.

And lord knows they’ve got their work cut out for them.

I have friends who 100 percent believe the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump. They are not stupid people. They are not uneducated people. They are the people Henninger referred to above who have lost all trust in the “institutions we relied on” in the past, i.e., government officials and the mainstream news media.

My Trump supporting friends recall that for nearly two years after the 2016 election, there was a steady drumbeat of reporting that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia. Former FBI chief Robert Mueller was appointed special counsel, investigated hither and yon and handed down zero indictments related to collusion. Which was a total shocker to anyone who followed mainstream media. For a rundown of media failures on Russiagate, here is reporter’s Matt Taibbi’s Master List of Official Russia Claims That Proved To Be Bogus. (Warning: It’s a 33-minute read.)

Then there was the Hunter Biden laptop story that broke late in the 2020 race. The media narrative, sourced from former intelligence agency leaders, was that the story had “all the hallmarks of a Russian disinformation campaign.” Turns out, that was total hogwash peddled by experts who by their own admission — after the fact, under oath, in testimony to Congress — did it at the urging of the Biden campaign because they wanted Biden “to win.” Lest you think this is something from an Alex Jones Infowars segment, I urge you to follow the link above and see for yourself the transcript of the testimony of Michael Morell, former deputy director of the CIA. The news media failed in their job to vet the information, because it sure looks they, too, wanted Biden to win.

That was followed by Covid-19, and, again, there was willing deception put forth, this time by scientists regarding the origin of the virus. And, once again, most mainstream media outlets lapped it up and failed do real reporting that would have gotten them crossways with the official narrative coming from the powers that be in Washington D.C.

If you’re being honest, you’ve got to admit there are plenty of reasons why a significant percentage of Americans don’t trust the news media.

Which leads me back to the Big Lie and the effort underway in Arizona (and other states) to combat the distrust in our elections. I wonder if those grass-roots efforts can really move the needle. I understand folks not listening to politicians and mainstream media. But in my conversations with my friends — and they know I’m a former journalist, and as enumerated above they also know I have serious problems with the way some major stories have been reported — I’ve been unable to raise doubts in their minds about the Big Lie. They are absolutely convinced.

I’ve tried to get them to budge, believe me. I mean, facts are facts, right? If there was evidence of election fraud, that evidence would be presented in a court of law and judges and juries would decide whether the facts proved beyond a reasonable doubt that votes were stolen, shredded, changed, whatever. Their response is that judges don’t want to meddle in elections. I countered with, “Really? In all 64 cases filed by the Trump campaign?” They nod, knowingly. To which I reply, “Even judges that Trump appointed?” Yep, comes the assured response. So, we’ve pretty much agreed we'll never change each other’s minds on this topic.

Maybe I’ll try again, what with the first presidential primary coming up in 45 days. Doing research for this post I came across a report titled Lost, Not Stolen: The Conservative Case That Trump Lost And Biden Won The 2020 Presidential Election. It was put together by a group of distinguished conservative jurists, lawyers and retired lawmakers. Super impressive. It looked at “every claim of fraud and miscount put forward by former President Trump and his advocates.” Here’s what they found:

(T)here is absolutely no evidence of fraud in the 2020 Presidential Election on the magnitude necessary to shift the result in any state, let alone the nation as a whole. In fact, there was no fraud that changed the outcome in even a single precinct."

So I refuse to give up hope. That’s not the GGF way.

If nothing else, the persistence of the Big Lie should make us govies double down on our commitment to be truth tellers, even when it hurts or is embarrassing. Stay committed to being the first and best source of information about your agency, good news and bad. Do what you can do, in your corner of the world, to inspire faith in the public.

In other words, don’t become part of the problem.

Onward and Upward.