Molly Ball's "Secret History of the Shadow Campaign that Saved the 2020 Election" has left many readers scratching their heads as to why a Trump opponent would reveal so much about the unsavory alliances that colluded against his re-election.  Like Breitbart's James Delingpole, I am inclined to believe that it is a damage-limiting exercise to pre-empt compelling evidence of voter fraud that could might turn up in the next few days.

Midway through the article, Ball describes a social media campaign to convince voters that "a prolonged count wasn't a sign of problems."  She justifies this with the following passage (emphasis mine):

"We knew exactly what Trump was going to do: he was going to try to use the fact that Democrats voted by mail and Republicans voted in person to make it look like he was ahead, claim victory, say the mail-in votes were fraudulent and try to get them thrown out," says Protect Democracy's Bassin. Setting public expectations ahead of time helped undercut those lies.

You see what she just did?  She used liberal/progressive attitudes over the pandemic to convince readers that most Democrats would be voting by mail.  Since ballots postmarked up to Election Day were still valid, the counting process extended beyond November 3.  Hence, concerns over manufactured or backdated ballots were nothing but "lies" designed to disenfranchise the party that disproportionately voted by mail.  Delingpole is probably right in his analysis of Molly Ball's motives because readers following this interpretation are more likely to ignore future evidence of fraudulent ballots that may show up as these cases go to trial.  Ignorance is strength!

After an extensive search, I found a website with some of these ads generated for the "Count Every Vote Project."  The best ad is a three-minute video generated in mid-October catering to African-Americans.  The video reminds voters to "be patient" while poll workers apply a "thorough verification process."  The narrator then goes full Orwell by proclaiming that delays lasting "a week or longer" mean that "our democracy is working."  This paved the way for CNN to reiterate later on November 5 that "[t]he delayed election results prove the system IS working" (original emphasis).

Not unmentioned and no doubt related is the ad campaign that praised the role of the U.S. Post Office.  This included posters, coffee mugs, and yard signs promoting the USPS as a means to "save" the 2020 election.  Groups sponsoring related images included "Moms Rising" and the SEIU.  The most egregious poster is one by the American Postal Service Union that includes "fascism" among the challenges that "can't stop the postal service."  This lends credibility to allegations of post offices backdating mail-in ballots mailed past the due date.

The narrative that paved the way for stealing the election is alive and well, and even though Molly Ball's "exposé" provides useful intelligence to Trump-supporters, we must recognize it as part of this gaslighting process if we are to develop an effective counter-narrative to the ruling class's web of lies.

Antonio Chaves teaches biology at a local community college.  His interest in economic and social issues stems from his experience teaching environmental science.  His older articles with graphs and images are available here.

Image: Pixabay.