Remember, Remember, the Third of November

Or would it be the 4th?

Today, November 5th, is Guy Fawkes day. A commemoration of an attempt to overthrow England’s constitutional order by force. It was the inspiration for the ditty: “Remember, remember the Fifth of November, gunpowder, treason and plot.”

There was no gunpowder to speak of on 3 November, 2020. Plot, tantamount to treason, however, cannot be precluded.

Or maybe I should say on 4 November. When I went to bed late on the night of the 3rd, Trump was comfortably ahead, with a large fraction of the vote counted, in Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Georgia. When I awoke less than 6 hours later, the leads had disappeared in Michigan and Wisconsin, and narrowed dramatically in the other two.

The flips in Michigan and Wisconsin were highly irregular, to say the least. Michigan updated its results around 0400 EST by adding 128K votes–100 percent for Biden. At almost the same time, Wisconsin added similarly lopsided totals.

Indeed, “lopsided” is not the right word. Wildly improbably imbalanced is closer to the mark.

In Wisconsin, turnout is allegedly approximately 90 percent. Something that has never happened in that state, or in any other state.

What, because Joe “Calling a Lid” Biden is such an inspiring candidate?

Those are Soviet- or Nork-style turnout numbers. Not even remotely credible.

Indeed, the whole exercise appears Soviet (or Russian). Some parts of these states allegedly had near 100 percent (over 100 percent in some Milwaukee areas!), with 100 percent votes for one candidate. Hell, even Stalin would accept 99 percent.

So which is it? Are they so incompetent that they can’t commit a convincing fraud? Or was the gap so large that they had to go for the gusto and produce large numbers of votes in favor of a single candidate, and fight to defend them in the courts? Or maybe this is just an in-your-face act: yeah, we’re faking it, and we know you know we’re faking it, but you can’t do anything about it, chumps.

It’s also odd that whereas Trump overperformed relative to other states in 2016, he underperformed in these two states–which just happened to be the closest then and now. (You leverage fraud by concentrating on the states with the narrowest margins. Who cares about national election fraud in California?)

These results are facially implausible. Farcically implausible too. So what’s the recourse?

I don’t know the ins and outs of election law. Who has standing to sue? On what grounds? What are the remedies?

Recounts are pointless. Recounting fraudulent ballots just would validate a fraudulent result. The ballots would have to be challenged. How that would work, legally, I don’t know.

What I do know is that social media and the media are censoring anyone who raises these concerns, and moreover, is painting anyone who raises them as a “conspiracy theorist,” and hence to be disregarded. (Censored, actually.)

I note in passing this video which provides a very provocative explanation of the origin of “conspiracy theory” as a term in modern political discourse. In a nutshell, the Deep State, with the connivance of the media, uses these allegations to discredit those who question the government.

When thinking about these things, I’m reminded of Nirvana. The band, not the place: “Just because you’re paranoid, Don’t mean they aren’t after you.”

All of this is oh so Russian. The voting irregularities. The relentless propaganda demonizing and censoring anyone who dares question those irregularities.

And of course, the Deep State chimes in. The execrable head of the FBI, Christopher Wray, stated: “the agency has “not seen, historically, any kind of coordinated national voter fraud effort in a major election, whether it’s by mail or otherwise.” Not the weasel’s weasel words: “historically”; “coordinated”; “national.” Straw men. These things have not been alleged, or don’t matter (we’re talking about now, not history): but Wray knows knocking down straw men will provide Democrats with an allegedly authoritative endorsement of their view “move along, nothing to see here.”

That’s pretty Russian too.

I note in passing that Wray would be fired if Trump wins.

We are in the worst scenario that I painted in my pre-election post. A close, contested outcome that will wend its way through the courts.

Regardless of the outcome, half the country will believe that the outcome is illegitimate. This will exacerbate the national divide, and move the country from a pre-revolutionary situation to a revolutionary one.

The only way in a close election to avoid such a terrible outcome is for election officials to make every endeavor to ensure that the outcome was fair, and that the process adhered to the law–and in particular, ensured that only legitimate ballots were counted, and counted correctly. Not just ensure these outcomes, but ensure that these outcomes were perceived by the voting public.

The transparently absurd results in Michigan and Wisconsin, the suspicious interruptions of the counting process in other states, and the potential for abuse with mail-in voting all mean that this definitely did not happen. Instead, we have a concatenation of curious coincidences that support a conclusion of corruption. All of the “coincidences” going one way, of course. All of the coincidences occurring in Democrat-controlled jurisdictions. Which, of course, cuts against a theory of random errors, due, say, to mere incompetence. It instead supports a theory of deliberate partisan action.

On January 20, half of America will believe an illegitimate president is being inaugurated. If Biden assumes the office, 50 percent will believe he did so as the result of fraud. If Trump does, 50 percent will believe that he used the courts to override a democratic outcome.

Meaning that there will be civil war. The only question is: how will it be waged?