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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
There were many legal attempts to stop the illegal procedure changes well in advance of the election. In Georgia, a suit against the consent agreement was filed before the primaries. Mollie covers this. They were dismissed for not having harmed the plaintiffs yet. With instructions to file after the election. Suits filed after the election were dismissed as moot. Surely, as a practicing lawyer, you heard about these at the time? I did, and I’m just an engineer.
In the 6th paragraph of Comment #73 I said,
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.
No, there were 17 candidates, Trump and 16 others.
No. But we need to grow up and stop being professional victims. The laws have been changed to provide for more protections in absentee voting. We have our own billionaires too.
Mark Elias is a clever lawyer. We need to have our own clever lawyers, instead of clowns like Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, and Lin Wood.
In 1955 Liberals owned the opinion magazines. And William F. Buckley, Jr. created National Review. In 1966 CNN, ABC, NBC and CBS had a monopoly over news tv channels. And Murdoch created the Fox News Channel. Create your own parallel tech company.
The media is strongly liberal. Unfortunately, instead of being conservative, the FNC has turned Trumpy. There is a huge market available for a conservative non-Trumpy news channel.
Why the heck didn’t the Heritage Foundation, or the Federalist Society launch lawsuits or organize others to file them.
DeWine is the Republican Governor who is taking COVID-19 seriously.
What am I missing here? The man just said/wrote that lawsuits were filed, and yet you ask “why the heck didn’t the Republicans file their own lawsuits”? What about “lawsuits were filed” was not clear to you?
They didn’t act illegally nor unconstitutionally. How do I know that? Because the Republicans never got their act together to have a Court declare what the Democrats did “illegal” or “unconstitutional.”
I don’t think that it is my head that is exploding.
It’s the ownership of these properties. They are in the pockets of the Democrat party for a variety of reasons.
You can’t create competition like you could in the days of newspapers and hand bills because of the first mover phenomenon and the network effect phenomena. They control the public square.
If you lose in the trial court, take it up to the appellate courts. Or to the state legislatures. At a minimum, stop being a victim.
“Corrupt”? “Corrupt?” So all of these Trump judges are corrupt?
If you fail to protect yourself before the election, that’s on you, not on the other side. The Court deals with cases and controversies that are brought to the Court. When only the Democrats go to Court, the Republicans have ceded the ground to them.
So get off of the ground and get going. Stop whining. It is unattractive and smells of being losers.
Just to be clear this is 2020?
Then get into the game before the election, instead of complaining after the fact.
When Clinton and the Democrats enacted “Motor Voter” to register voters at the MVD, the Republicans in the Arizona Legislature stuck back. Given that older voters favor the GOP, when someone gets a driver’s license in Arizona, it is valid until they turn 65 years old. Yes, we have a 47 year driver’s license if you get it when you are 18. Two can play at this game.
Once you turn 65, you have to be renewed periodically, and then have the opportunity to re-register to vote again!
My point is that complaining after the fact is for losers. Winners plan beforehand.
And you need to recognize the general nature of how the Democrat party wields power.
I cannot relate to how you think about this at all.
The Democrat party does not follow the Judge Learned Hand spirit of liberty speech so quit acting like they do.
And in 1980, the Networks called the election for Reagan before the polls closed in California.
Agreed.
I think that this picture says it all. This is one of the few times that Trump was photographed when he was not camera ready.
Phil did a good review. However, I have pointed out some weaknesses. I hope that he will respond to them.
After throwing a four year temper tantrum, the clown has the nerve to toss around faux-machismo like this now. Funny stuff, I tell you…
Then take it up to the appellate courts. And go to the legislature, which in Arizona and Georgia are controlled by Republicans and there were Republican Governors.
They should have taken it up to the appellate courts and the legislatures.
Yes. And I was amazed at the GOP incompetence.
Thank you for keeping this world working.
You wrote a great review here. Good job.
And if they lost in the trial court, take it up to the appellate courts, and go to the legislatures.
For now. Just as CNN owned the new network in 1996 when FNC was created.
Yes. See pages 42 and 43 of the book.
I don’t think so. We can’t keep going, year after year like this, either.
Plus the thing about Fox, is you were talking about 750,000 people during the day and 3 million during prime time. It’s nothing. Talk radio is 20,000,000 to 30,000,000 depending on how you analyze it. Each network news cast is 10 million. NPR is big but I don’t know what the figure is.
OK, and this is a crisis, why? Was there some scheme that got torpedoed by this?
They lost on most appeals and now that the last option is being exercised, you and others have said that Trump is trying to steal the 2024 election. From what I can tell, you’re just a whiner, or more likely are trying to distract from the fact that NTs supported Biden over Trump. Whatever. Another thread to unfollow.
“Clown”? The Code of Conduct prohibits the following:
It shows that the GOP manipulated the rules just as the Dems did in 2020.
Not a personal attack at all, just a perfect description of someone who alters their true character behind a Reagan costume:
Defamatory, gossipy, or rude comments.
By that standard, I violate the CoC every time I open up my yap.
It is uncontroverted that in 2020 I voted for a Democrat for President for the first time since 1972. That I contributed to his campaign should not be a surprise, nor that I helped Biden take on Sanders in Nevada. https://ricochet.com/725739/neverbernie-or-what-i-saw-in-las-vegas/
But you do so with a twinkle in your eye, and not malice in your heart.
I work very hard to not violate this part of the Code of Conduct, especially with my “special friends.” I am usually, but not always, successful.