The New York Election Disaster

      "Democrats are the party that says government can make things better. That gives us the responsibility of being good at governing."

Ted Kulongoski, governor of Oregon, circa 2006

The New York election mess feeds a dangerous idea at a dangerous time.

Ted Kulongoski

I put the words of then-governor Kulongoski in quotation marks, but it probably isn't an exact quote. It is the gist of what he said in my living room in a campaign visit with supporters. Democrats, he said, make an implied promise to voters. Elect us and we will tackle problems; we are competent to fix them, and will do so. We break that promise when we screw up. Republicans have the easy path, he said. When they run things, and government screws up, it just proves their point. We have the hard job, he said. We have to perform.

The 2020 election campaign started off with a debacle in Iowa. Memories fade, but readers who think that only Republicans get crazy-deep in conspiracy nonsense are mistaken. Democrats, too, can believe the impossible if it fits a desired outcome. On election night in Iowa we saw a showdown between Bernie Sanders and an array of candidates who were Bernie-influenced, but more moderate in tone and policy. Bernie was the adamant change agent; Elizabeth Warren was more traditional, saying she was a capitalist reformer and not a socialist. Pete Buttigieg had a moderate message--keep your health insurance if you were happy with it. Biden was an afterthought.

The software failed on election night. Precinct leaders who tried a telephone work-around were on endless hold. News people had no story to present other than of election night frustration and Democratic incompetence. 

There was an easy, visible, way to see approximately what the vote would be because the crowds at the Sanders and Buttigieg gathering spots were the largest and were approximately equal.  In the long night of frustrating uncertainty Buttigieg went to the TV cameras, and declared his joy at his apparent win. 

He what? He claimed victory? Outrage!!!

We saw an eruption of conspiracy theories voiced by Sanders' supporters. The election mess was planned. Buttigieg knew he would tie Sanders, so he, in league with Hillary, the DNC, and the Iowa Democratic Party, secretly arranged with the computer company for the application to fail. Hundreds of people were in on it. They predicted Sanders would be slower to claim victory in a moment of ambiguity than would Buttigieg. The conspiracy's complexity just showed how clever and diabolical Buttigieg could be. The Atlantic wrote about it: Click

So did I. Click: Cluster****  Eric Trump weighed in. He agreed that Democrats rigged this.  Click: Rigged In this post I quote from Sanders' support groups. I quote "Marie": 

The DNC allowed this Bull. They knew about the App that Buttigieg's company made and Hillary's people worked, What kind of App only counts Pete Buttigieg. We are still Bernie or Bust period.

The comment of "Thanatos" is an early warning: 

It's time to declare the election illegitimate and boycott it. The US can either give us a new fair election, or we can make Bernie president by force.

The Iowa mess reminds us that election losers look for external causes for an election loss. The Trump Big Lie is unique not for existing, but because his claim of a landslide win became political orthodoxy within his party. It is possible because Trump continues to claim it, despite evidence to the contrary, because friendly media echoes it, and because Republican officeholders and civic leaders give it silent consent. Within the tight circles of Sanders' supporters, it was unthinkable that a candidate they considered an unqualified corporate suck-up could beat their beloved Bernie Sanders. It had to be rigged. Trump was so polarizing a figure, that a critical mass of Trump supporters simply cannot believe that a senile socialist puppet like Biden could possibly get seven million more legitimate votes than Trump. 

New York handed election skeptics confirmation. Republicans jumped on it. Tom Cotton called it "a corrupt scam" and "a disaster." Donald Trump spoke at an event in Texas:

We had an election where we did much better than we did the first time, and amazingly, we lost. Check out the New York election today, by the way. They just realized it's a disaster. They're unable to count the votes. Did you see it? It just came out. Their missing 135,000 votes. They put 135,000 make-believe votes in. Our elections are a disaster.

We are at a dangerous point in America, where Republicans are open to the idea that elections are not dispositive, not when a result is disappointing. After all, they are run by error-prone government.

Democrats messed up an election in New York. It was a bad mistake at a bad time. Ted Kulongoski warned us.