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The 2020 Election – Time Mag Story and the Quest for Power
Like many, I read the Time Magazine story, ” The Secret History of the Shadow Campaign That Saved the 2020 Election.” by Molly Ball, and was astonished. The story unfolds a couple of years before the 2020 election. A key person in the orchestration of the “shadow campaign”, Mike Podhorzer, known as “the wizard”, began to essentially “war game” the outcome of the 2020 presidential election. Mr. Podhorzer is the Political Director of the AFL-CIO, the largest federation of unions in the United States, nominated and installed by AFL-CIO President Richard Trumpka.
Here are some of the highlights of the story:
” The pact was formalized in a terse, little-noticed joint statement of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and AFL-CIO, published on Election Day. Both sides would come to see it as a sort of implicit “bargain, inspired by the summer’s massive, sometimes destructive racial justice protests – in which the forces of labor came together with the forces of capital, to “keep the peace” and oppose “Trump’s assault on democracy”. The handshake between business and labor was just one component of a vast, cross-partisan campaign to “protect the election”.
What? It sounds like the Chamber of Commerce was afraid, and made a deal with the devil. No one kept the peace or came to the aid of the small businesses and stores that were being deliberately destroyed across the country, and continued even after the Biden victory.
It gets worse. “They got states to change voting systems and laws and helped secure hundreds of millions in public and private funding. They “fended off voter suppression lawsuits (?), recruited armies of poll workers and got millions of people to vote by mail for the first time. They successfully pressured social media companies to take a harder line against “disinformation and used data-driven strategies” to fight viral smears.” So who was in charge of the cancel lever? Remember the Hunter Biden laptop story successfully buried……?
They blatantly admit censorship: “That’s why the participants want the secret history of the 2020 election told, even though it sounds like a paranoid fever dream – a well-funded cabal of powerful people, ranging across industries and ideologies, working together behind the scenes to influence perceptions, change rules and laws, steer media coverage and control the flow of information”. Excuse me, but this sounds like Elections for Dummies, by Vladimir Putin…
To spare you indigestion and further depression if you haven’t read it, I’ll summarize it here.
Democratic strategists (I counted no less than 42 plus players and organizations in the article) met via Zoom and other methods, to ensure President Donald Trump was defeated. A lot of powerful people and millions of dollars poured into this effort. Many of the groups (and I’ll list them at the end) are Democratic Socialists – you can tell by visiting their websites. Many champion “disruption”, and support equal distribution of wealth. In the good memory of Dr. Martin Luther King who advocated that “we are not to judge anyone by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character”, this umbrella of activists seems to judge everyone by the color of their skin, their social and financial status, and dismiss American history as something to be abhorred and erased. While Trump wanted to lift up everyone, including funding black colleges and bringing industry to inner cities, hosting many roundtables of black clergy and industry, and begging the mayors of failing cities to clean them up and stop the violence, these groups were blinded to this message.
I’m not exaggerating their effort. I wish I was. There is a new race war and there are winners and losers. Trump lost, even though he championed the idea of Making America Great for everyone, regardless of the color of their skin, or their social and financial status. I challenge any of these groups to find otherwise. There are too many lines that shock and stand out in that story that are so disturbing – so why regurgitate such an indigestible banquet of poisonous rhetoric?
I do have to question AFL-CIO President Richard Trumpka, and Mike Podhorzer, who were part of the take-down of Trump. “On day one,” President Biden eliminated thousands of XL Pipeline jobs, within other states, including Joe Biden’s Pennsylvania, by the stroke of a cheap pen. All the towns with grocery stores, mortgages, schools – the things that make a town hum, will greatly suffer, adding to the challenges of a pandemic. Even Native American tribes that had signed deals with the Pipeline Initiative to receive help and funding within their communities are on the losing end. These were good paying “union” jobs, Mr. Trumpka and Mr. Podhorzer! Did not President Trump give incentives for major corporations to return from foreign shores, to set up plants here in the U.S., and gave us the best economy in our history? Why did you two work to sabotage his re-election?
This does not even cover the Dominion Voting Machines story, or the hundreds of sworn affidavits from poll workers of threats, intimidation and outright manipulation on voting day. That subject entirely is being censored on social media. The Time story just confirmed that a huge, well-funded network used social media, threats, and censoring to make sure this election went their way.
The most astonishing part to me is the level of fear and hatred of Trump, and Trump supporters. What happened on January 6th at the US Capitol was not a representation of either, and they know it. “Election night began with many Democrats despairing. Trump was running ahead, winning Florida, Ohio, and Texas easily, and keeping Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania too close to call. The Liberal Alliance gathered for an 11 p.m. Zoom call. Many were freaking out. Podhorzer presented data to show the group victory was as hand. “We wanted to be mindful of when was the right time to call for moving masses into the street. So the word went out: Stand down. Protect The Results announced that it would not be activating the entire national mobilization network today, but remains ready to activate if necessary“.
They were prepared for a meltdown, with a push of an app, if Trump was re-elected. Why? I, and seventy-five million voters want to know why?
For four years, conservatives were intimidated in restaurants and other venues, attacked and censored on social media, while we watched a summer of burning, looting, and destruction in major cities, attacks on law enforcement and rejection of a civil conversation and a return to law and order. Now the concerted effort to erase anything and anyone associated with the last president. This is nuts. I underestimated the level of rage and hate that permeated our culture and the effort underway to make sure the target of all this animosity was removed. I and most Americans thought we all just went to the polls and voted. We thought that campaigns championed their causes by tirelessly stumping city by city, and town by town. I wondered why Biden steered clear of the campaign trail for the most part. The cheering, and honking horns, the hats and yard signs meant nothing, because behind the scenes, in the shadows, money, power and intimidation bought this election.
Here are some of the organizations and people that participated in the shadow campaign, cited in the Time Magazine story:
U.S. Chamber of Commerce
AFL-CIO
Norm Eisen – Attorney / Obama Official – created the “Voter Protection Program”
Ian Bassin, co/founder of “Protect Democracy”
Mike Podhorzer / Sr. Advisor to President of AFL-CIO / created Analyst Institute and The Catalyst
The Fight Back Table
Democracy Defense Coalition
Planned Parenthood
Greenpeace
Indivisible (resistance group)
Move On.Org
Working Families Party
Chan Zuckerberg Initiative
National Vote at Home Institute
The Voter Participation Center
Brennan Center for Justice @ NYU
Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights
Twitter / Jack Dorsey
Dick Gephardt
Issue One
The Voting Rights Lab
In To Action
TikTok
Protect Democracy
Shenker-Osorio
Black Lives Matter
Women’s March
Sierra Club
Color of Change
Democrats.com
Democrat Socialists of America
Protect the Results
Business Roundtable
National Association of Evangelicals
National African American Clergy Network
Art Reyes III
Richard Primus
Published in General
TikTok drives a lot of cultural energy for the benefit of China. They promoted rioting all summer.
I bet you could make a list of anti-Trump “Republican” organizations just about as long. It is not just the Dems that are creatures of the Swamp.
Exactly. Look no further than McConnell and his wife.
I really don’t pray vengefully or for others’ harm, but reading this, and surmising the future I really feel like praying imprecatory prayers against every Never-Trumper, and every member of the above-mentioned groups. Maybe it’ll come to that.
I don’t see the DNC in that list.
Mark Zuckerberg sent one of his favorite henchmen in to have the center seat on this interview conducted in June 2020 by CNN.
It is important to look into these statements of Facebook’s Cybersecurity Chief, as he represents the company that put 300 million bucks into the voting processes across the USA.
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/09/01/business/zuckerberg-300-million-voting/index.html
Much of the interview of Nathaniel Gleicher, Cybersecurity Chief of Information for Facebook centers on this fact: In June 2020, Trump tweeted that there would be tens of millions of mail in ballots due to Dem party leaders insisting that COVID virus requires it. Trump then claims this will lead to unfairness in the voting process and that that will end up being the “scandal of the decade.”
Right off the bat, this young blond Talking Head claims it is a lie. In response,
Zuckerberg’s spokesperson describes his own feelings by telling the young CNN Talking Head that this tweet holds “no truth whatsoever to the claim the president made.”
Gleicher claims that the tweet will most likely remain readable throughout posterity and so on into the future, so at least the American public can look back at the tweet and realize how wrong Trump was.
The amount of invective thrown the President’s way for his statement is beyond the pale. Gleicher then goes on to state that when a citizen creates social media statements, then that “information that is false information” happens to be especially heinous if – like the President’s tweet- the disinformation might possibly suppress the election process.
Full article and video available at link above. (And Saul Alinsky realizes that his work with the Left in the US was fully accomplished by June of 2020, in terms of blaming the victim, and accusing an opponent of what they on the Left are planning on doing.)
It seems that the “conspiracy theorists” lacked imagination.
I know what you mean – I don’t want to turn into what they are.
In response to comment #5, those in the shadows pressed heavily on the mail in ballot initiative. Millions were mailed out unsolicited. I know people that received multiple ballots in the mail, even to people that didn’t live at the address anymore. This was the back pocket insurance policy that, as I read it in the story, secured their plan, after the 11:00 PM Zoom meeting on election night as Trump was ahead. Remember how they suddenly halted voting after 11:00 in the swing states and sent poll workers homes. Then ballots appeared from under desks in suitcases, sworn statements that large trucks showed up with “trash cans and boxes” full of paper ballots!
Sworn statements of running ballots through multiple times – this pick up accelerated after midnight into the early morning hours. The article also talks about buses of “poll workers and observers” arriving who were monitoring the monitors! They had the cell phone numbers of the Republican watchers who were gathered by those in charge of the stations where reports of fraud took place. The “shadow crowd” texted messages out to these Republican observers cryptically saying, “We’re Watching You”! Can you imagine? The deception and intimidation tactics were unprecedented. Those certifiers in Michigan attested to that.
“National Association of Evangelicals” was in on it, huh? Does this explain all the shrieking among “celebrity evangelicals” about how one was in danger of going to hell if one voted for President Trump? Does this explain the hard-left/”woke” editorial shift of Christianity Today?
It’s funny, because David French has been vote-shaming evangelicals for four years, saying that they’re wrecking their witness, I can think of a few well-known evangelical leaders who have pretty much wrecked their witness by forgetting their calling and going all-in on the vote-shaming.
Hey I remember talking about this stuff after the election, and I was called a conspiracy theorist. Now its in Time Magazine and on the front page of Ricochet.
I dont know what to say beyond that.
I do, but RedactoBot would nail me.
Is this article able to be used as evidence of fraud? Seems to me the RICO act us due for a heavy workout, or us this just wishful thinking?
You mean like “unlawful interference in elections”?
Exactly! The bypassing of state legislatures, scattering vote drop boxes all over the country, unsigned ballots, mismatching signatures, birthdates 01-01-1900, same signature on multiple ballots, running the same ballots through the machines several times, after hours ballot dumps, ballots delivered across state lines, the schemes are mind-boggling!
When it is done in the way you describe an election is nothing more than a phony exercise to create an impression on those who don’t pay attention.
That one baffled me – but they were named in the story. There was already fear in the air a week before the election. To keep it in context, the story reads: “The summer’s racial justice protests had sent a signal to business owners too – the potential for economy-disrupting civil disorder. from Neil Bradley, The Chamber of Commerce Exec VP and chief policy officer. These worries led The Chamber to release a pre-election statement with The Business Roundtable as well as manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers, to show patience and confidence while the votes were being counted. Bradley released a joint statement, carefully timed, and as it was finalized, Christian leadership signed on.” It was released on Election day. So to be fair, they thought they were doing something to promote peace.
For years, Trump fans have touted how he fights, how he’s not afraid to make waves, how he antagonizes the left, refuses to play their game, how he doesn’t show weakness, how he’s eager to call out their BS, willing to call them enemies, how he doesn’t worry about such naive things as decorum and all those niceties.
And now, trump folks are “astonished” that this conduct led to highly motivated opponents organizing against him and trying to ensure, in perfectly legal ways it seems, that they get every vote they can against him. Of course that’s what they did. He did nothing to try to win over the opposition, or even dampen their enthusiasm to oppose him. To the contrary, he just constantly provoked them. Of course they organized against him. Of course they sought to join like-minded groups together to make a concerted effort. Why is this not expected? Why is this astonishing?
Why weren’t Trump and the Republicans out there trying just as hard? If your whole shtick is being a big jerk to the other side, you better bring it when the rubber hits the road. He didn’t do enough of this kind of organizing. He whined about the unfairness of mail-in ballots and set up conspiracy theories on how they were going to cheat. And then, after the election, he more or less proved all these people right that he was going to try to pull out a win from election chaos.
He’s left his side of the political aisle fractured, in turmoil, embarrassed, and out of power. It’s a terrible failure of leadership.
The fact that so many powerful people are willing and able to conspire to subvert our republican form of government is frightening and discouraging at the same time. It is hard to hold onto hope sometimes.
Well, to be fair, I don’t know how Trump could have worked any harder as an individual. He was holding rallies constantly. But I will grant you that Trump’s blind spot about retail campaigning with volunteers on the ground was probably his downfall. And the Republican Party should have had Trump’s back to fill in that shortcoming for him. But they weren’t willing to do that, sadly.
Moderator Note:
We're not going to have death wishes or prayers for other people's death on Ricochet,[redacated]
Good gravy- the conspiracy nuts can’t get off Mitch. Almost every group listed opposes the GOP every SINGLE election- nothing new here. If you don’t think they have coordinated in the past I have a great deal on a bridge in Brooklyn for you. It’s not like green peace and the Democratic socialists et al have ever supported a Republican Presidential candidate. As newsworthy as water is wet.
Trump gained with every voting block except white males. So either there was massive voter fraud in target areas to beat Trump, or the “Never Trump” white males were the most offended by his antics and especially “virtuous” in getting an escapee from Madame Tussauds, who likes to sniff children, kill the most vulnerable (abortion), and “campaigned”incoherently from his basement, gathering rallies of “tens” vs tens of thousands. I wonder which Occam would pick?
https://beingbeliefbehavior.blogspot.com/2020/11/the-voter-fraud-is-strong-with-this-one.html
U. S. Chamber of Commerce?
This is what generates the big $ from the big techs. And Mitch is really tight with them.
President Trump was. I can’t speak for the rest of the Republican Party. At least not politely.
They never wanted him to win in the first place. They certainly weren’t going to start helping him win now.
If this had been W, they would have fought like Lions for him. But he was an outsider without a movement.
Somehow his shtick managed to get a lot more support from the African American and Hispanic voters. His honesty and brash demeanor at times rubbed many the wrong way – like the leaders of China and Iran. He wasn’t fairly portrayed anywhere so he took to tweeting. I didn’t vote for him in the run offs, and way back then, we could clearly see the biased slant toward Clinton. So his shtick produced an economy that surpassed expectations. It takes more than huff to produce actual results correct?
I put the failure on the NT’s and associated Republican elected officials with Georgia and Arizona being prime culprits. Donald Trump was pummeled throughout his Presidency from inside government with little assistance from Republicans who were unhappy that he was elected.
Does it make it right? You can oppose an idea but illegal tactics are still illegal.
Occam would look at the election returns, take a glance at the court challenges which went nowhere, and the pre-election approval ratings and say, “Yep, Biden obviously won.” That is, by far, the explanation that requires the fewest assumptions and inferences.
Elections are won by raw vote totals, not percentages of various identity groups.
“Whatever it takes!” has been the motto since 2017.