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Rigged: How the Media, Big Tech, and the Democrats Seized Our Elections
Mollie Hemingway applies her talent—rigorous and thoughtful old-school journalism—to documenting the 2020 assault against America perpetrated by the evil alliance of the progressive movement, the entrenched bureaucracy, modern “journalism”, and big technology firms. Yes, the election was rigged. But the core of Rigged is the story of years of lawfare, private takeovers of election boards by well-funded progressives, ill-considered and/or uncontested consent agreements, the flouting of long-standing election law, and the shielding thereof by a twisted judiciary.
This book does not lay out specific proof that Trump won on November 3, 2020. It does show how the unprecedented surge in mail-in voting, and the suppression of the anti-fraud measures that are supposed to accompany it, made 2020 a perfect storm for untraceable fraud. Meanwhile, the media’s four-year campaign to oust Trump by any means necessary ground on, with regular assistance from an entrenched bureaucracy willing to do anything to avoid draining the swamp. Add in a huge assist by abrupt changes in the censorship practices of big social media firms, and you have the tools to lift a mediocre basement-dweller over the most energetic and energizing politician of my lifetime. (I’m 54, fwiw.)
My copy of Rigged, pictured, is festooned with Post-It flags for the statements and quotations that were new to me or struck me as particularly significant. I can’t possibly mention them all in this review—I placed 77 of these markers. But I can hit the highlights of each chapter.
Mollie sets the stage with a brief prologue, letting you know that you aren’t crazy if you think Trump’s victory was stolen.
The first chapter is a discussion of the changes in voting laws over the history of the United States, from pre-colonial times to the present. Some of this was completely new to me, especially that the secret ballot wasn’t really all that secret until late in the 19th century, with the introduction of “Australian-style” ballots printed by the government. Fully public and partially public voting practices prior to this were shockingly prone to coercion and fraud, especially in the form of vote-buying. The reforms of the time were particularly focused on abolishing voting by mail, and eliminating long time periods for voting. Election day was established by amendment to be the Tuesday after the first Monday of November to avoid influencing the outcome of states that voted later in the calendar based on reports of the outcome in other states. Mollie’s exposition shows how we (these United States) are going backward to known-abusive voting procedures.
The second chapter discusses how Trump’s enemies were strewn through the establishment, and included antagonistic Republicans. Trump’s policies are poison for big-government enthusiasts in both parties, and those policies’ successes across a variety of topics were embarrassing to the failures that preceded him. His foreign policy successes, like Peace in the Middle East, demonstrated the bankruptcy of the establishment’s own policy preferences. Meanwhile, Trump’s economic policies were so successful, across all classes and among minorities, that re-alignment of traditional Democratic constituencies was in full swing. The establishment desperately needed to stop Trump.
The third chapter lays out the impact Covid-19 had on the presidential contest. And how every twist and turn in the course of events was portrayed in the media in the worst possible light for Trump, and the best possible light for his antagonists (particularly Cuomo in New York), regardless of the hypocrisy. The politicization of science, already a grave problem in any topic that lives on public research funds, reached new heights in 2020 (and continuing today, I might add). Mollie doesn’t really dwell on the scientific details of Covid-19, as that isn’t really relevant to the theme of Rigged. Her presentation is focused on the excuse Covid provided for activists to push a huge expansion of mail-in voting—precisely the tool needed to enable untraceable fraud on a grand scale.
Chapter four moves on to the horrifying violence that engulfed major cities in the aftermath of the death of George Floyd at the knee of Derek Chauvin. The initial impressions of Floyd’s demise, now known to be not quite so simple, were seized by anti-police activists in the black community to advance their agenda. An agenda that is Marxist to its core, and contemptuous of American standards of justice. Mollie lays out point after point showing how the progressive movement’s vested interest in stopping Trump’s gains in minority communities led its politicians, media apologists, and social media censors to do everything they could to keep tensions simmering. And to hide the truth about Antifa and BLM activist behavior.
Chapter five covers the convention season, and how the lackluster “virtual” convention held by the Democrats was outshone by a very unconventional Republican convention. Unconventional because all the usual players were unavailable, and the Charlotte host site was effectively sabotaged by North Carolina’s Democrat governor. The good news for Trump could not be allowed to stand, and the mainstream news media leveraged conveniently anonymous sources to gin up a controversy over a canceled visit to a military cemetery in France. That numerous eyewitnesses contradicted the “sources”, insisting that Trump did not defame any soldiers, was ignored. Corrections to the record were naturally held until they could help Trump anymore. No apologies from Fake News, of course.
Chapter six describes the debate season and the journalist malpractice that surrounded it. Mollie highlights the shameful conduct of the Commission on Presidential Debates and points out that it is likely to have no future.
Chapter seven is a deep dive into Big Tech’s assistance to the progressive movement, with a particular focus on the Center for Tech and Civic Life (CTCL), Mark Zuckerberg’s vehicle for buying elections. Specifically, CTCL gave huge sums, with strings attached, to election boards around the country. The strings were basically to push mail-in voting to the max, and eliminate the signature matches, address checks, witness requirements, and any other anti-fraud measure that normally accompanies mail-in voting. And “cooperate” with CTCL “advisors”. Mollie documents how that meant CTCL running some elections. Georgia was the biggest recipient, at $31 million. More on that in chapter ten.
Chapter eight is all about Hunter. And all the trouble he creates for the Biden family while leading the family’s worldwide grift. Trouble that reflects poorly on his father, and so must be suppressed. Especially the classic October surprise: Hunter’s abandoned laptop with oodles of embarrassing and incriminating content. The journalistic malpractice (or to be more honest, malice) was breathtaking. Major media, big tech, and bureaucrats closed ranks to silence all news about this event. At least until the election was safely in Biden’s pocket. Yes, anyone inclined to bypass major news media for more trustworthy sources knew all about it, but the general public doesn’t do this. Numerous polls, after the fact, show that earlier knowledge of this scandal would have changed many Biden voters’ minds. More than enough to flip the result.
Chapter nine is about the legal and judicial shenanigans used in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania to suppress the Green Party and candidates that would siphon voter support on the left, plus an account of similar legal and judicial misconduct to suppress poll-watchers and post-election challenges to signature verification misconduct. The election boards in both states flouted state laws with impunity, thanks to sympathetic judges. Mollie throws stones at Rudy Guiliani, too. He disrupted Trump’s legal efforts quite badly, as Mollie explains.
The tenth and final chapter focuses on Georgia’s Fulton County and Georgia’s Secretary of State, Brad Raffensburger. As a Georgia resident myself, much of this has been covered locally ad nauseam. However, one bit about Raffensburger’s stonewalling on FOIA requests, requests needed by Mark Davis, a local election integrity expert, for Trump’s legal challenges, left my jaw on the floor. I was already upset at Raffensburger for the outrageous consent agreement that changed mail-in ballot handling, but the sheer malice towards conservatism shown by the post-election conduct Mollie documents has me furious. Not to mention the mind-boggling revelation that Raffensburger’s right hand in the office is a clear Democrat activist.
Mollie adds a brief epilogue to tie it all back together.
I thoroughly enjoyed Mollie’s writing, and learned a few things I’d missed in the past year or so. I highly recommend you get your own copy.
Published in Elections
For my part, I know basically nothing. I don’t understand statistics. One thing that moves me towards believing in big-time fraud is that we’ve moved well past those charts based on news screenshots and one or two vote updates.
The nerds looked at the source data. They looked at the computer logs. They found strings of vote updates with the same ratio of new Biden to new Trump votes, down to 7-10 decimal points. They founds lots of disappearing Trump votes.
Something is rotten in the American states. Maybe it was electronic fraud.
(Hear this now, ye doubters. I have been one of you. I still am, sort of. But read the post on G. K. Chesterton and Dominion machines!)
And maybe it’s just that our journalists and experts are too corrupt and lazy to find the alternative explanation. That’s bad enough: It destroys trust, and so destroys the Republic. (And you can go read J. S. Mill and Confucius too!)
The mail-in changes were one side of the same fraud coin.
Side A) set the table to allow massive mail-in ballots and destroy the signature envelopes.
Side B) run the algorithm on the voting machines to keep sleepy joe ahead in the walk in totals by just enough of the banked mail-in ballots.
That’s how it was supposed to play out with nothing out of the ordinary. The problem was that Trumps walk-in total was unexpectedly so much more massive than the banked mail-in ballots that Joe lost Florida. At that point they had to slam on the brakes, stop counting and run blank ballots thought the machines to make up the difference by adjudication process (Plan B).
It’s a shame she only got to the first side of the coin. The juicy stuff is on the other side and they’re inseparable as far as the story goes.
And you’ve done some fine work arguing such.
Better than my work, at least for the most part. But I did some real working logicing up Wisconsin. And I checked up on “AVCBs” or whatever they’re called before running too far with the idea of 173,000 votes without corresponding registrations in Michigan.
(All in the big post. The interested reader can CTR-F for key words.)
No, there aren’t. These vote spikes (and margins) are counter to all data, trends, registrations, historical records, common sense, and mathematical probabilities. They’re so simply evidence of fraud that one has to imagine creative ways to try and explain them away.
The second you begin accepting vote tabulation as being anything other than an additive process you’ve already been duped. There is a remedy: forensic audit, which is something they’re flat out refusing to allow. Again, evidence of wrong doing in and of itself.
Frankly it would be more helpful to me for you to say what allegations remain, instead of all of the ones that you have disproved. I suggest that you create a smaller post about where there still are grounds to argue.
Another issue. Given the statistics involved with the butterfly ballot in Palm Beach County with the massive vote for Pat Buchanan, would you agree that a majority of voters in Florida intended to vote for Al Gore? Should Al Gore have been our 43rd President? See the article from the Stanford Graduate School of Business that concludes that 2,000 votes for Buchanan were meant to have been cast for Gore. Bush won by 537 votes. It there any question that Gore “really” won Florida, and thus “really won” the 2000 election? https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/faculty-research/publications/butterfly-did-it-aberrant-vote-buchanan-palm-beach-county-florida
I’m doing what I can. I have another intro post in the works. But I also have one wife, seven kids, 170 students, and hours of videos to watch just to look for responses to the Maricopa Co. response to the audit there.
But that stuff you want is already in the big post. Scan the intro for the table of contents to see what sections you want to look at. You want the one on claims that are merely still standing, and (especially) the one on claims that have survived some level of fact-checking.
Then CTR-F for key words in the titles of those sections, and you should jump right to where you need to be. (Pro tip: If you see a Captain America GIF and you’re looking for the just-still-standing section, you’re in the right place; the next section is down a bit.)
I haven’t the slightest idea.
No.
Is there some reason I should care? I’m not interested in what voters wanted but failed to request through confusion or incompetence. I am very interested in illegality.
I do: NO! (Since no one knows how many voters in the western part of the state went home when the media called the state before the polls were closed, it is impossible to know what the voters of FL wanted in this extremely close election. And since the Gore team did not allow the legal, timely certification they ruined their chance to follow the proper processes to even make their case. Was there really a point to this stupid topic here?)
I got a copy on Kindle from Amazon (I must say I was a little surprised that Amazon is selling the book). I’ve read the first two chapters and my take home thus far is that fraudulent elections are the norm, clean elections are virtually nonexistent in America since the Founding. Amazing that the Republic has survived. I’m also a Georgia resident and don’t believe I will ever be able to believe again that a Georgia election is legitimate. I always vote, and always will vote, but have no confidence that my vote is of any significance in a system that is rigged to the hilt. Both in the voting systems, those who administer the elections, and the court system that supposedly hears challenges. Just the information on the consent decrees that lasted for decades barring Republican poll watchers from being actual poll watchers impresses me as such a flawed system that I can never have any confidence in it. But that’s just me. Knock yourself out, America, defrauding yourself. electorally. And, yes, I see the Democrat Party as a criminal organization, that would require the extensive applications of RICO statutes to come anywhere near ferreting out the corrupt behavior inherent in the Party. Republicans, as exemplified by Raffensperger in my State, are not far behind. Cry, the beloved country.
Research shows 2020 election ‘bought by Mark Zuckerberg’
Tuesday, October 12th 2021, 7:28:02 pm
Research reveals that Mark Zuckerberg handed over a total of $419.5 million to the Center for Technology and
Civil Life and the Center for Election Innovation and Research leading up to the 2020 presidential election,
and the two groups used it to buy Democrat votes.
####
Those monies got broken up into various centers in many states, where the election officials or other politicians handing out the monies saw that these centers were up and operating as a way to train election officials of the “D” variety.
It would be nice if Democrat election officials could be trusted, but they’ve shown time and again that they can’t be.
Thanks for the quick read and detailed review.
If you don’t want to wait for book, you can listen to Molly on the latest Federalist podcast. That is the Ricochet link.
I have now had the chance to review “Rigged,” Mollie Hemingway’s new book. Mollie is a good writer, I reviewed her 2019 book, “Justice on Trial, The Kavanaugh Confirmation and the Future of the Supreme Court” in a favorable post that was elevated to the Main Feed: ‘Justice on Trial’: A Great Book About the Kavanaugh Confirmation.
Unlike Phil who has 77 yellow post-it notes on his issue of “Rigged,” I have only 19, plus a page of notes. There are several points that I’d like to make.
First, Mollie is a skilled polemicist. This is not an insult, this is a compliment. She is an advocate. In my brief review of the book where I did not read each and every word, I did not perceive that she ever stated a misstatement of fact, however, she did a good job of stressing all of the strengths of her side, and the weaknesses of the other side, not unlike a good lawyer would do. This is being misleading, but it is not lying. Her book reminds me of the book “Battle for the Soul” where my review https://ricochet.com/980722/book-review-battle-for-the-soul/ stated: “Do you believe that Trump is uniquely evil? Do you believe that only Democrats are concerned with the future of the nation? Do you believe that all Republicans are inconsequential, and have nothing useful to offer? Do you like catty gossip? If so, this is the book for you!” Likewise about Mollie’s book, I could say, “Do you believe that the Trump was unjustly and wrongfully treated? Do you believe that all Democrats are dishonest and want to steal elections from Republicans? Do you want incomplete statistics to reinforce your point of view? Is so, this book is for you!”
On page 32 and 33, Mollie states that Arizona has a reputation for counting accurately, and running elections cleanly. Thank you for noting that after all the mud thrown on Arizona by the so-called Arizona Audit.
Mollie points out that the Trump campaign did it best to rig the Republican nomination to discourage any candidates from taking on Trump. She notes that in 2016, Trump received 44.9% plurality of the vote; what she doesn’t acknowledge is that Trump, was the first Republican nominee in memory to not win a majority of the primary vote as Romney had done in 2012, McCain had done in 2008, George W. Bush had done in 2004 and 2000, Dole had done in 1996, George H.W. Bush had done in 1992 and 1988, Reagan had done in 1984 and 1980 and Nixon had done in 1972 and 1968. It is remarkable that Trump could never break 50% of the Republican Primary vote. Previously, if a Republican received votes in a MA presidential primary, he or she would receive a proportionate share of delegates. Now this was changed to a requirement that that delegate had to win 50% of the vote. Page 42. There used to be a requirement in Florida that a candidate get nominating signatures or pay a ballot access fee; however now if the candidate was the incumbent president, he or she would automatically qualify. Page 42-43. In Kentucky, a delegate could not be nominated unless they had previously supported the last presidential nominee. Page 43. And in the Soviet States of Arizona and others, the Arizona State Republican Party simply did away with primaries.
As for COVID, there was a complete lack of appreciation by Mollie that this was a once in a hundred years pandemic that required a modification of voting rules. Democrats frequently sued and sought consent decrees to expand voting by mail. My question for Mollie is why the heck didn’t Republicans frequently sue, and seek to intervene in lawsuits? That the RNC and/or Trump campaigns were incompetent does not mean that Democrats cheated, only that the RNC and/or Trump campaigns were flat-footed and, yes, frankly stupid.
By May 2021 the Democrat’s strategy of relying on early voting and absentee voting became clear. Page 67. Why the heck didn’t the Republican Party wake up? Instead, all they can do now is whine.
On page 85, Mollie notes that the liberal press were mean to Trump about COVID-19. Big surprise. Call the Waaaaambulance! The press has been hostile to Republicans as long as I have been aware of politics, starting with Barry Goldwater in 1964. However, there have been Republican Presidents who have been able to reach beyond the press and make their cases to the nation, such as Ike, Reagan and George W. Bush. It is easy to be part of the Party of Santa Claus like Democrats; it is harder to earn respect by being a Dick Cheney, or a Margaret Thatcher.
Little is made of Trump’s disastrous rally in Tulsa. It appears that Mollie does not note how the Trump campaign initially set this rally for June 19th, or “Juneteenth,” or was completely unaware of the horrific Race Riot by whites in Tulsa, in May 31, 1921 and June 1, 1921 killing dozens of blacks and burning down their business district. I also note that Mollie does not mention 2012 Republican Candidate Herman Cain who died of COVID-19 after going to this rally and refusing to wear a mask. Mollie does not note the iconic picture of Trump after the rally where Trump looks disheveled.
Mollie devotes only a little over a page to the Democrat’s Convention on pages 145-146. But contrast, she waxes poetically about the Trump Convention on the White House Lawn for four pages on pages 146 to 150.
I remember the first debate very, very well, and I remember it quite differently than Mollie. I posted “I refuse to be led by Donald Trump, the bully, the blowhard, the rude, the infant.” https://ricochet.com/806912/i-refuse-to-be-led-by-donald-trump-the-bully-the-blowhard-the-rude-the-infant/. Trump’s invitation for the Proud Boys to “stand by” was disgusting. Mollie never mentions the Proud Boys in her book and they are not in her index.
A great deal is made of Mark Zuckerberg funding a group to promote absentee voting. What, we don’t have any billionaires ourselves? Two can play the same game. Again, Mollie fails to appreciate the once in a century experience of the pandemic.
Let’s talk about Pennsylvania. Trump won in 2016 by 44,292 votes, and he lost in 2020 by 80,555 votes. To listen to Mollie, you would think that why Trump lost was massive fraud in Philadelphia. Nope. Trump lost Philadelphia County by 475,277 votes in 2016, and then by 471,305 votes in 2020. In other words, Trump lost by 3,966 votes less in 2020 than 2016. So where did Trump lose the 2020 election? Trump lost the 2020 election in the middle-class, college educated suburbs of the “Collar Counties,” the four counties ring Philadelphia County, Bucks, Chester, Delaware and Montgomery Counties. In 2016, Trump lost these four counties by 188,353 votes; in 2020, Trump lost them by 292,273 votes, an astonishing 104,920 votes more! Trump lost Pennsylvania in the suburbs among the college educated, just as he lost in Arizona suburbs among the college educated, and he lost Georgia, Michigan and Wisconsin in the suburbs among the college educated.
I am glad that Mollie did not call her book “Hacked,” the title of her book is “Rigged.” But who rigged the game against Trump? The press has always been hostile to Republicans, but Trump’s firehose of falsehoods caused the press and public to not believe a word that he said. The Democrats pressed for advantage in lawsuits before the election, and Trump whined, but did precious little to file his own lawsuits or to intervene in Democratic lawsuits. COVID-19? This was a once in a century pandemic, and Trump could not deal with it, just as Biden is now doing a poor job of dealing with it. (The moral to that story might be that it would make sense in future years for Democrats and Republicans to not nominate such old people who are slow on their feet.)
Again, an entertaining book, but please do not think that you are getting anywhere near a balanced point of view.
Who wants to refute him this time?
My comment #73 is 14 paragraphs long. If you have the book, start anywhere you want. If not, take your best shot.
Actually for once Gary has done us a service. If Gary thinks poorly of it (the George Castanza rule) then maybe it’s better than I suspected. Maybe I will check this one out.
Good point, in that sense. But there’s so much NON-sense in what he wrote, it should be refuted. But a) I don’t have that kind of word limit, and b) I’m sick of it happening over and over.
Mollie’s last book, “Justice on Trial, The Kavanaugh Confirmation and the Future of the Supreme Court” was great. See my favorable post, ‘Justice on Trial’: A Great Book About the Kavanaugh Confirmation.
You can become a Reagan member, or you can take me on one paragraph at a time. Your choice.
If I were channeling you, I would just point out that you don’t get to decide what choices I have. For now, maybe I’ll just suggest that you liked her other book because you didn’t disagree with it. You don’t like this new book because you DO disagree with it. Your “analysis” is pointless in both cases.
I don’t have that kind of time, but I can dabble.
Did she say the GOP was managing things well? I thought the book was about other people rigging the election, not about whether those guys did a good job trying to stop it.
Right. So the press has always rigged elections, and this time they did it worse. How is that an objection to Hemingway?
That’s fair. I apologize.
I think that you will like both books. I think that most people at Ricochet will like both books. However, I have pointed out some weaknesses in her reasoning. And I am relieved that she is not arguing that Trump was “cheated” only that the rules were rigged against him, perhaps due to his own negligence before the election. As for the pandemic, both Trump and Biden have shown themselves unable to distinguish themselves with this rare event like Republican Governors DeSantis or DeWine.
That is a fair point. Both Trump and Biden have done poorly with managing COVID-19.
I think that I wasn’t clear. The press has been liberal forever. They like to throw government money at problems. But this is not the rigging of an election. On the other hand, I used to see the Fox News Channel as being far minded and even handed. But ever since Sean Hannity knee-capped Ted Cruz, the fix has been in for Trump. I used to watch FNC three to five hours a night, then I dropped their shows one at a time. Special Report went last to go. I only watch Fox News Sunday at this point.
Who “rigged” the election were the Democrats who figured out the rules and strategy quickly and adapted to the pandemic. The blame should be put at the feet of the state, and national parties and the Trump campaign for not adapting to the pandemic and filing their own lawsuits.
I doubt anyone said it was.
Did Hemingway say the press rigged the election? How did she say they did it? Focus on how she says they did it.
And, Gary might think the “pandemic.. required a modification of voting rules” but that doesn’t make it legal/Constitutional. It just means he agrees with the the Democrats who did the rigging. Gary wanted Trump out, and the Democrats made his wish come true.
And, remember how well Ike, Reagan, and George W. Bush were able to counter Facebook, and Twitter, and the hundreds of millions of dollars they spent on getting elections set up their way?
Neither do I.
Last I heard, more people have died since Biden took office than all of last year.
“Shut down the virus,” my… foot.
Hosted by AntiTrumper Chris Wallace.
And illegally changed them.
You must work very hard to keep ignoring things that have been pointed out to you over and over. Lawsuits WERE filed, and dismissed for lack of “standing.” Because no “damage” had yet occurred. After the election they were dismissed as “moot.”
And, you voted for the guy who has been bashing DeSantis and making a mess of things himself.
Nice going.
What year are you talking about? What are you talking about?
There were 16 candidates.
Total lawyer argument defending a client. You really endorse billionaires renting the election system in a way that skews it for their favorite candidate?
Mark Elias created the conditions that we had worse ballot controls than ever. You are seriously for this?
It’s worse than that. The four tech companies control the public square.
I would also say that the media is far more Democrat now than what you are describing.
I wish you would elaborate on this. I don’t think the heritage foundation would put it this way and they were the ones raising the alarm.
The response to the lawfare is not 100% trump’s problem. The RNC and the legislatures were involved as well.
Do you think the GOP acts in bad enough faith like the Democrats?
The way you talk, it’s just more evidence that the GOP needs to get rid of the idealism.