The 2020 presidential election fiasco holds a warning about central planning.

Elections are a nasty business, but sometimes they can be clarifying.

We don’t yet know who won the US presidential election, and we may not for days or weeks to come. This stems largely from the ineptitude Americans witnessed on Election Tuesday.

It wasn’t just the fact that pollsters once again failed disastrously, or that networks fumbled their election coverage.

The bigger issue is that America’s governing bodies look incapable of managing something as simple as a vote, something Americans have managed to do efficiently for centuries without the benefit of computers, digital communication, and mass transportation.

As an American, I find this a tad embarrassing. As the journalist Glenn Greenwald observed Wednesday, countries with far fewer resources and less advanced technology regularly manage to hold speedy, efficient elections. This is something the US failed to do on Tuesday, Greenwald noted.

The richest and most powerful country on earth — whether due to ineptitude, choice or some combination of both — has no ability to perform the simple task of counting votes in a minimally efficient or confidence-inspiring manner. As a result, the credibility of the voting process is severely impaired, and any residual authority the U.S. claims to “spread” democracy to lucky recipients of its benevolence around the world is close to obliterated.

At 7:30 a.m. ET on Wednesday, the day after the 2020 presidential elections, the results of the presidential race, as well as control of the Senate, are very much in doubt and in chaos. Watched by [the] rest of the world — deeply affected by who rules the still-imperialist superpower — the U.S. struggles and stumbles and staggers to engage in a simple task mastered by countless other less powerful and poorer countries: counting votes. Some states are not expected to [finish] their vote-counting until the end of this week or beyond.

This, to be blunt, is unacceptable.

The most prosperous country in the world cannot manage to do something as simple as collect and count ballots. Think about that for just a moment.

Unfortunately, this incompetence carries consequences that are quite real. Americans are beginning to lose faith in the integrity of elections. I’m not just talking about voters in the fever swamps of Twitter.

Many impressive journalists, thinkers, and students of various political stripes have expressed alarm at what they witnessed in the last 24 hours.

Many readers can probably relate to some of these concerns.

The reality is, the inability of election authorities to do something as simple as gather and count votes is undermining Americans’ faith in the constitutional system. As Greenwald notes, this is dangerous; but it’s also rational.

Because of the power and breadth of the federal government, there is a great deal at stake in presidential elections—too much at stake. Americans sense this, and when they see mail-in ballots missing, precincts that can’t get votes counted, voting delays, errors in data feeds, and other problems it naturally creates a feeling of uncertainty. Uncertainty in turn breeds distrust.

One could argue that this year’s election was unique. Turnout was unprecedented (at least in raw numbers), perhaps in part because of the coronavirus pandemic and the record number of mail-in ballots.

Perhaps that’s true. But the fact remains: how hard is it to collect and count ballots? I don’t wish to disparage the people working these elections. The process is probably far more complicated than many Americans realize. But this is true of most systems, which brings me to a key point.

Is collecting and counting ballots more difficult than running a vast health care system that involves pricing, insurance, medication, billing, and the very lives of individuals? The answer is no.

Is collecting and counting ballots more difficult than attempting to manage the spread of an invisible virus without ruining the livelihoods, spirits, educations, and very lives of hundreds of millions of people? Again, the answer is no.

In some ways, we should not be surprised to see governing bodies fail to manage something as elementary as an election. For decades we’ve watched the United States Post Office bungle something as simple as collecting and delivering mail. The USPS bleeds billions of dollars every year doing something a private company would make a profit doing, while delivering substandard service. (This is why libertarians have been arguing for more than a century that the Post Office should be subjected to competition.)

It’s no coincidence that the election debacle of 2020 happened in the year the Post Office played its largest role ever. It was bound to happen.

As the economist Ludwig von Mises observed in his 1944 book Bureaucracy, government agencies can never be anywhere near as efficient as private businesses. The competitive market compels entrepreneurs and their employees to competently and efficiently serve the buying public or go out of business. And profit-and-loss accounting enables them to figure out exactly what’s working and what’s not. In contrast, as Mises wrote:

“Public administration, the handling of the government apparatus of coercion and compulsion, must necessarily be formalistic and bureaucratic. No reform can remove the bureaucratic features of the government’s bureaus. It is useless to blame them for their slowness and slackness. It is vain to lament over the fact that the assiduity, carefulness, and painstaking work of the average bureau clerk are, as a rule, below those of the average worker in private business. (…) In the absence of an unquestionable yardstick of success and failure it is almost impossible for the vast majority of men to find that incentive to utmost exertion that the money calculus of profit-seeking business easily provides. It is of no use to criticize the bureaucrat’s pedantic observance of rigid rules and regulations. (…)

All such deficiencies are inherent in the performance of services which cannot be checked by money statements of profit and loss.”

That isn’t to say that bureaucracy is inherently evil. Mises clarified that, “bureaucracy in itself is neither good nor bad.”

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“There is a field,” he continued, “namely, the handling of the apparatus of government, in which bureaucratic methods are required by necessity.”

Elections, for example, are necessarily a bureaucratic affair, even if that means they often get bungled.

The big problem is when governments bureaucratize things that don’t need to be bureaucratic. The evil lies in, as Mises said, “the expansion of the sphere in which bureaucratic management is applied.”

For example, health care does not need to be bureaucratic. It can and has been provided through the market. To the extent that it has been, market forces and signals have made it better.

But if health care were to be socialized—as in a single-payer scheme—it would have to be managed bureaucratically and would inevitably suffer all the deficiencies of a bureaucracy: ineptitude, slowness, neglect, etc.

Just imagine having to depend on the DMV or the USPS for your medical treatment. (If you’ve ever had to deal with the Veterans Administration, perhaps you don’t have to imagine.)

One may object that our health care system already suffers from those failings and is already quite bureaucratic. But that is because the government is already so heavily involved in it. As Mises wrote, “Every kind of government meddling… breeds bureaucratism.”

It is the absence of market forces and signals that makes governments inefficient. The normal mechanisms in markets that lead to efficiency, productivity, and prosperity simply cannot be replicated in a government system. Ever.

This is not to say some government systems cannot be managed more effectively than others. Naturally, they can. Just as many countries manage to hold elections and quickly get reliable results instead of the fiasco Americans witnessed this week.

The point is bureaucracy is inefficient by nature. We saw that Tuesday night.

And we should all be asking ourselves an important question: If government cannot manage something as simple as an election, how can it possibly make rational decisions about health care and pandemics that affect hundreds of millions of people?

Jonathan Miltimore is the Managing Editor of FEE.org. His writing/reporting has been the subject of articles in TIME magazine, The Wall Street Journal, CNN, Forbes, Fox News, and the Star Tribune.

Dan Sanchez is the Director of Content at the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE) and the editor-in chief of FEE.org.

 26RepublishOpen Comments

Further Reading

The Problem with Government Is Not Poor Management

Douglas French – 7/1/2016

A Nobel Prize for Contract Theory

D.W. MacKenzie – 10/11/2016

Bureaucracy Buries the Human Spirit with Paperwork

Jerry Kirkpatrick – 12/8/2016

Bureaucracy: Hopeless From the Start

Nicholas Snow – 12/27/2011

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Ayn Rand referred to the “malevolent universe” metaphysics, the theory (in her words) that man, by his very nature, is helpless and doomed—that success, happiness, achievement are impossible to him—that emergencies, disasters, catastrophes are the norm of his life and that his primary goal is to combat them.

This, actually, is the psychology of the welfare state, of socialism and of Communism. When enough people become afflicted with this depressing view of life, they’re more vulnerable to things like socialism, Communism, or (same thing) a Harris-Biden presidency. That’s what happened in America, in 2020. Honest historians, if any exist, will record it that way. At the start of 2020, America was buoyant and expanding as never before. Trump was headed toward a possibly landslide victory and a probable flipping of Congress away from Nancy Pelosi. Reforms were needed (e.g., privatization of health care, privatization of education, further tax and regulation cuts), but for the most part things were quite good and had the capacity to get better. First COVID fascism and then the dark absurdity of defunding the police so left-wing, sociopathic maniacs could run wild had the effect of breaking enough spirits that Biden — with the help of more than a little fraud — could eke out a victory. I know it’s not over until it’s over, but we’re only in this predicament now because of the faulty thinking and depressing emotions that have literally driven most people crazy over the past year.

American history has known some pretty difficult times, but the nation of the Enlightenment has always come out on top in the end. This current situation has the scent of something that could go either way. I suppose crisis is always like that, while you’re in the middle of the crisis. It’s certainly the gravest period of American history in my lifetime, which goes back (in adult years) to around 1980. I must admit that this unspeakably unjust and insane election fiasco does have the feel of a vigil over a terminally ill patient, where the “patient” is literally our freedom. If we don’t get through all this with a good outcome, we’ll enter a “darker winter” than anything Joe Biden talked about, and with more sobering consequences than even a much worse virus could have inflicted on all of civilization. Pray, hope, fight … do whatever you have to do. As anyone who has fled a dictatorship will tell you, the stakes are bigger than you or I could even imagine.

Michael J. Hurd, Daily Dose of Reason

International Man: The decline of Western Civilization is on a lot of people’s minds.

Let’s talk about this trend.

Doug Casey: Western Civilization has its origins in ancient Greece. It’s unique among the world’s civilizations in putting the individual—as opposed to the collective—in a central position. It enshrined logic and rational thought—as opposed to mysticism and superstition—as the way to deal with the world. It’s because of this that we have science, technology, great literature and art, capitalism, personal freedom, the concept of progress, and much, much more. In fact, almost everything worth having in the material world is due to Western Civilization.

Ayn Rand once said “East minus West equals zero.” I think she went a bit too far, as a rhetorical device, but she was essentially right. When you look at what the world’s other civilizations have brought to the party, at least over the last 2,500 years, it’s trivial.

I lived in the Orient for years. There are many things I love about it—martial arts, yoga, and the cuisine among them. But all the progress they’ve made is due to adopting the fruits of the West.

International Man: There are so many things degrading Western Civilization. Where do we begin?

Doug Casey: It’s been said, correctly, that a civilization always collapses from within. World War 1, in 1914, signaled the start of the long collapse of Western Civilization. Of course, termites were already eating away at the foundations, with the writings of people like Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Karl Marx. It’s been on an accelerating downward path ever since, even though technology and science have been improving at a quantum pace. They are, however, like delayed action flywheels, operating on stored energy and accumulated capital. Without capital, intellectual freedom, and entrepreneurialism, science and technology will slow down. I’m optimistic we’ll make it to Kurzweil’s Singularity, but there are no guarantees.https://googleads.g.doubleclick.net/pagead/ads?guci=2.2.0.0.2.2.0.0&client=ca-pub-9106533008329745&output=html&h=280&adk=2293711810&adf=1497828010&pi=t.aa~a.2348288116~i.20~rp.4&w=649&fwrn=4&fwrnh=100&lmt=1604688270&num_ads=1&rafmt=1&armr=3&sem=mc&pwprc=8684081392&psa=1&ad_type=text_image&format=649×280&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.lewrockwell.com%2F2020%2F11%2Fdoug-casey%2Fdoug-casey-on-the-end-of-western-civilization%2F&flash=0&fwr=0&pra=3&rh=163&rw=649&rpe=1&resp_fmts=3&wgl=1&fa=27&adsid=ChEIgIWU_QUQwte748CO7KupARJMAHX9LxLIhDqANFtWaJDAXYP_SRXm5yk4o7KLdXVplZQ1xNGzU18jWPAHHmwDisFShjHCGwV68cFdJdTyknS_DW-HCt75AC8u0f-f-w&tt_state=W3siaXNzdWVyT3JpZ2luIjoiaHR0cHM6Ly9hZHNlcnZpY2UuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbSIsInN0YXRlIjowfSx7Imlzc3Vlck9yaWdpbiI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXR0ZXN0YXRpb24uYW5kcm9pZC5jb20iLCJzdGF0ZSI6MH1d&dt=1604688591923&bpp=7&bdt=1165&idt=-M&shv=r20201103&cbv=r20190131&ptt=9&saldr=aa&abxe=1&cookie=ID%3D7e035107d994f3bb-22c82fc0acc4004f%3AT%3D1604688558%3ART%3D1604688558%3AS%3DALNI_MbehMCAceq4peZNXzU5yjerv_bokA&prev_fmts=0x0&nras=2&correlator=4125167149808&frm=20&pv=1&ga_vid=1905934101.1599339146&ga_sid=1604688591&ga_hid=1269363145&ga_fc=0&iag=0&icsg=35385148870592&dssz=50&mdo=0&mso=0&u_tz=-300&u_his=4&u_java=0&u_h=1138&u_w=712&u_ah=1138&u_aw=712&u_cd=24&u_nplug=0&u_nmime=0&adx=16&ady=1332&biw=712&bih=970&scr_x=0&scr_y=0&eid=21067422%2C44730556%2C21066973&oid=3&pvsid=2215117557265081&pem=653&ref=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.lewrockwell.com%2F&rx=0&eae=0&fc=1408&brdim=0%2C0%2C0%2C0%2C712%2C0%2C712%2C970%2C712%2C970&vis=1&rsz=%7C%7Cs%7C&abl=NS&fu=8320&bc=31&jar=2020-11-06-18&ifi=12&uci=a!c&btvi=1&fsb=1&xpc=75wT55Pv4Y&p=https%3A//www.lewrockwell.com&dtd=41

Things also changed with the creation of the Federal Reserve in 1913. Before that, the US used gold coinage for money. “The dollar” was just a name for 1/20th of an ounce of gold. That is what the dollar was. Paper dollars were just receipts for gold on deposit in the Treasury. The income tax, enacted the same year, threw more sand in the gears of civilization. The world was much freer before the events of 1913 and 1914, which acted to put the State at the center of everything.

The Fed and the income tax are both disastrous and unnecessary things, enemies of the common man in every way. Unfortunately, people have come to believe they’re fixtures in the cosmic firmament. They’re the main reasons—there are many other reasons, though, unfortunately—why the average American’s standard of living has been dropping since the early 1970s. In fact, were it not for these things, and the immense amount of capital destroyed during the numerous wars of the last 100 years, I expect we’d have already colonized the moon and Mars. Among many other things…

But I want to re-emphasize that the science, the technology, and all the wonderful toys we have are not the essence of Western Civilization. They’re consequences of individualism, capitalism, rational thought, and personal freedom. It’s critical not to confuse cause and effect.

International Man: You mentioned that the average American’s standard of living has dropped since the early 1970s. This is directly related to the US government abandoning the dollar’s last link to gold in 1971. Since then, the Federal Reserve has been able to debase the US dollar without limit.

I think the dollar’s transformation into a purely fiat currency has eroded the rule of law and morality in the US. It’s similar to what happened in the Roman Empire after it started debasing its currency.

What do you think, Doug?

Doug Casey: All the world’s governments and central banks share a common philosophy, which drives these policies. They believe that you create economic activity by stimulating demand, and you stimulate demand by printing money. And, of course, it’s true, in a way. Roughly the same way a counterfeiter can stimulate a local economy.

Unfortunately, they ignore that, and completely ignore that the way a person or a society becomes wealthy is by producing more than they consume and saving the difference. That difference, savings, is how you create capital. Without capital you’re reduced to subsistence, scratching at the earth with a stick. These people think that by inflating—which is to say destroying—the currency, they can create prosperity. But what they’re really doing, is destroying capital: When you destroy the value of the currency, that discourages people from saving it. And when people don’t save, they can’t build capital, and the vicious cycle goes on.

This is destructive for civilization itself, in both the long term and the short term. The more paper money, the more credit, they create, the more society focuses on finance, as opposed to production. It’s why there are many times more people studying finance than science. The focus is increasingly on speculation, not production. Financial engineering, not mechanical, electrical, or chemical engineering. And lots of laws and regulations to keep the unstable structure from collapsing.

What keeps a truly civil society together isn’t laws, regulations, and police. It’s peer pressure, social opprobrium, moral approbation, and your reputation. These are the four elements that keep things together. Western Civilization is built on voluntarism. But, as the State grows, that’s being replaced by coercion in every aspect of society. There are regulations on the most obscure areas of life. As Harvey Silverglate pointed out in his book, the average American commits three felonies a day. Whether he’s caught and prosecuted is a subject of luck and the arbitrary will of some functionary. That’s antithetical to the core values of Western Civilization.

International Man: Speaking of ancient civilizations like Rome, interest rates are about the lowest they’ve been in 5,000 years of recorded history. Trillions of dollars’ worth of government bonds trade at negative yields.

Of course, this couldn’t happen in a free market. It’s only possible because of central bank manipulation.

How will artificially low interest rates affect the collapse of Western Civilization?

Doug Casey: It’s really, really serious. I previously thought it was metaphysically impossible to have negative interest rates but, in the Bizarro World central banks have created, it’s happened.

Negative interest rates discourage saving. Once again, saving is what builds capital. Without capital you wind up as an empty shell—Rome in 450 A.D., or Detroit today—lots of wonderful but empty buildings and no economic activity. Worse, it forces people to desperately put their money in all manner of idiotic speculations in an effort to stay ahead of inflation. They wind up chasing the bubbles the funny money creates.https://googleads.g.doubleclick.net/pagead/ads?guci=2.2.0.0.2.2.0.0&client=ca-pub-9106533008329745&output=html&h=280&adk=2293711810&adf=2184464255&pi=t.aa~a.2348288116~i.50~rp.4&w=649&fwrn=4&fwrnh=100&lmt=1604688270&num_ads=1&rafmt=1&armr=3&sem=mc&pwprc=8684081392&psa=1&ad_type=text_image&format=649×280&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.lewrockwell.com%2F2020%2F11%2Fdoug-casey%2Fdoug-casey-on-the-end-of-western-civilization%2F&flash=0&fwr=0&pra=3&rh=163&rw=649&rpe=1&resp_fmts=3&wgl=1&fa=27&adsid=ChEIgIWU_QUQwte748CO7KupARJMAHX9LxLIhDqANFtWaJDAXYP_SRXm5yk4o7KLdXVplZQ1xNGzU18jWPAHHmwDisFShjHCGwV68cFdJdTyknS_DW-HCt75AC8u0f-f-w&tt_state=W3siaXNzdWVyT3JpZ2luIjoiaHR0cHM6Ly9hZHNlcnZpY2UuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbSIsInN0YXRlIjowfSx7Imlzc3Vlck9yaWdpbiI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXR0ZXN0YXRpb24uYW5kcm9pZC5jb20iLCJzdGF0ZSI6MH1d&dt=1604688591923&bpp=5&bdt=1164&idt=5&shv=r20201103&cbv=r20190131&ptt=9&saldr=aa&abxe=1&cookie=ID%3D7e035107d994f3bb-22c82fc0acc4004f%3AT%3D1604688558%3ART%3D1604688558%3AS%3DALNI_MbehMCAceq4peZNXzU5yjerv_bokA&prev_fmts=0x0%2C649x280%2C649x280%2C649x280&nras=5&correlator=4125167149808&frm=20&pv=1&ga_vid=1905934101.1599339146&ga_sid=1604688591&ga_hid=1269363145&ga_fc=0&iag=0&icsg=35385148870592&dssz=51&mdo=0&mso=0&u_tz=-300&u_his=4&u_java=0&u_h=1138&u_w=712&u_ah=1138&u_aw=712&u_cd=24&u_nplug=0&u_nmime=0&adx=16&ady=4020&biw=712&bih=970&scr_x=0&scr_y=0&eid=21067422%2C44730556%2C21066973&oid=3&pvsid=2215117557265081&pem=653&ref=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.lewrockwell.com%2F&rx=0&eae=0&fc=1408&brdim=0%2C0%2C0%2C0%2C712%2C0%2C712%2C970%2C712%2C970&vis=1&rsz=%7C%7Cs%7C&abl=NS&fu=8320&bc=31&jar=2020-11-06-18&ifi=15&uci=a!f&btvi=4&fsb=1&xpc=8MZamnVc6Q&p=https%3A//www.lewrockwell.com&dtd=87

Let me re-emphasize something: in order for science and technology to advance you need capital. Where does capital come from? It comes from people producing more than they consume and saving the difference. Debt, on the other hand, means you’re living above your means. You’re either consuming the capital others have saved, or you’re mortgaging your future.

Zero and negative interest rate policies, and the creation of money out of nowhere, are actually destructive of civilization itself. It makes the average guy feel that he’s not in control of his own destiny. He starts believing that the State, or luck, or Allah will provide for him. That attitude is typical of people from backward parts of the world—not Western Civilization.

International Man: What does it say about the economy and society that people work so hard to interpret what officials from the Federal Reserve and other central banks say?

Doug Casey: It’s a shameful waste of time. They remind me of primitives seeking the counsel of witch doctors. One hundred years ago, the richest people in the country—the Rockefellers, the Carnegies, and such—made their money creating industries that actually made stuff. Now, the richest people in the country just shuffle money around. They get rich because they’re close to the government and the hydrant of currency materialized by the Federal Reserve. I’d say it’s a sign that society in the US has become quite degraded.

The world revolves much less around actual production, but around guessing the direction of financial markets. Negative interest rates are creating bubbles, and will eventually result in an economic collapse.

International Man: Negative interest rates are essentially a tax on savings. A lot of people would rather pull their money out of the bank and stuff it under a mattress than suffer that sting.

The economic central planners know this. It’s why they’re using negative interest rates to ramp up the War on Cash—the push to eliminate paper currency and create a cashless society.

The banking system is very fragile. Banks don’t hold much paper cash. It’s mostly digital bytes on a computer. If people start withdrawing paper money en masse, it won’t take much to bring the whole system down.

Their solution is to make accessing cash harder, and in some cases, illegal. That’s why the economic witch doctors at Harvard are pounding the table to get rid of the $100 bill.

Take France, for example. It’s now illegal to make cash transactions over €1,000 without documenting them properly.

Negative interest rates have turbocharged the War on Cash. If the central planners win this war, it would be the final deathblow to financial privacy.

How does this all relate to the collapse of Western Civilization?

Doug Casey: I believe the next step in their idiotic plan is to abolish cash. Decades ago they got rid of gold coinage, which used to circulate day to day in people’s pockets. Then they got rid of silver coinage. Now, they’re planning to get rid of cash altogether. So you won’t even have euros or dollars or pounds in your wallet anymore, or if you do, it will only be very small denominations. Everything else is going to have to be done through electronic payment processing.

This is a huge disaster for the average person: absolutely everything that you buy or sell, other than perhaps a candy bar or a hamburger, is going to have to go through the banking system. Thus, the government will be able to monitor every transaction and payment. Financial privacy, even what’s left of it today, will literally cease to exist.

Privacy is one of the big differences between a civilized society and a primitive society. In a primitive society, in your little dirt hut village, anybody can look through your window or pull back the flap on your tent. You have no privacy. Everybody can hear everything; see anything. This was one of the marvelous things about Western Civilization—privacy was valued, and respected. But that concept, like so many others, is on its way out…

International Man: You’ve mentioned before that language and words provide important clues to the collapse of Western Civilization. How so?

Doug Casey: Many of the words you hear, especially on television and other media, are confused, conflated, or completely misused. Many recent changes in the way words are used are corrupting the language. As George Orwell liked to point out, to control language is to control thought. The corruption of language is adding to the corruption of civilization itself. This is not a trivial factor in the degradation of Western Civilization.

Words—their exact meanings, and how they’re used—are critically important. If you don’t mean what you say and say what you mean, then it’s impossible to communicate accurately. Forget about transmitting philosophical concepts.

Take for example shareholders and stakeholders. We all know that a shareholder actually owns a share in a company, but have you noticed that over the last generation shareholders have become less important than stakeholders? Even though stakeholders are just hangers-on, employees, or people who are looking to get in on a shakedown. But everybody slavishly acknowledges, “Yes, we’ve got to look out for the stakeholders.”

Where did that concept come from? It’s a recent creation, but Boobus americanus seems to think it was carved in stone at the country’s founding.

We’re told to protect them, as if they were a valuable and endangered species. I say, “A pox upon stakeholders.” If they want a vote in what a company does, then they ought to become shareholders. Stakeholders are a class of being created out of nothing by Cultural Marxists for the purpose of shaking down shareholders.

Reprinted with permission from International Man.

For the past 12 years I have seen decent Republicans be maligned by Democrats (mostly lies) lose primaries and elections and people on FR spout the reasons for the loss using the same talking points as democrats, or saying they were bad candidates for whatever reason (weak, no ground game whatever)

So here we have a man who, despite his imperfections, has done what he said he would do, given the constraints of a democrat House. Has endured every imaginable attack of the liberals and media and shown them to be frauds. Who has the most enthusiastic support of any president in my lifetime. Who worked harder than what seemed humanly possible. Who got out the vote. Who restored American faith in the greatness of what America was and could be again. He managed to bring unions,wealthy, blue collar workers and minorities into the fold with the highest Hispanic and black vote ever. Who did all this for free, just because he loves America. No ulterior motive, not being bought by any special interest…

What more can any human do?

If a man like this, who has done everything we have asked of him, cannot get a fair vote in our country, then our country is done.

He has poured his heart and soul into us and the least we can do is fight for him. This is it. No bowing out. No regrouping. No giving in to the democrat fraud machine. This man fought for us, and we need to stand up and fight for him.

Li’l Farmer

United States Air Force Lieutenant General Thomas McInerney explains a special software developed by the National Security Agency that can be used to alter vote counts in elections. He explains the software and its use in this 7 minute video: https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/international-news/politics/the-cia-ability-to-hack-the-vote/

In this article, the Off-Guardian explains the use of the software to alter the outcome of the vote in Wisconsin and Michigan: https://off-guardian.org/2020/11/03/discuss-election-day/

In this article the Fake News Site, CNN, attempts to explain away the obviously altered vote: https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/04/politics/why-mail-in-ballots-were-counted-late-in-states-like-pennsylvania-and-michigan/index.html

Voting by mail greatly facilitates the use of the vote-altering software and the use of ballot dumps. One reason for the mask mandate and Covid fear was to justify mass voting by mail.

The media speaks with one voice. The print, TV, NPR, social media, and the anti-Trump Internet sites exercise censorship and control the explanations.

We are experiencing a well designed and successful coup against American democracy and accountable government.

No, this is not a conspiracy theory. It is a revolution against red state America.

Republicans are too establishment to effectively fight back. They fear that exposing and resisting a stolen election would discredit American democracy. In effect, patriotism makes them impotent.

Republicans should think instead what it means to be governed by a President covered in criminal scandal who also seems to be suffering mental confusion and is likely for one or both of these reasons to be moved aside. If Kamala Harris becomes president, we will have in the Oval Office a female of color who hates white people and is vindictive against them.

The Democrat Party is now in the hands of indoctrinated leftists who despise the working class and champion “oppressed minorities.” Immigration floodgates will be thrown open. Red states will be cut out of the federal budget. Gutsy Republicans such as Devin Nunes and Jim Jorden will be falsely investigated, and Trump will be falsely prosecuted. The rest of us will be silenced in one way or the other.

Think about how unlikely the Biden/Harris ticket is for success. Everyone knows that Biden suffers mental confusion. His campaign events were barely attended. Harris had so little support in the Democrat primaries that she was the first to drop out. Even the Democrats didn’t want her; yet she ends up the Democrat VP choice. Americans watched as Democrat regimes in Minneapolis, Seattle, Portland, Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, Atlanta, and other cities responded to rioting and looting by hampering and defunding the police.

How can such an unattractive party whose elected officials refused to enforce law and order win the presidential election?

The answer is fraud.

Whether or not you believe this report from a US Postal Service employee that he was ordered to backdate late mail-in ballots in Michigan, it serves as an example of how easy voting by mail makes vote fraud:https://www.rt.com/usa/505653-project-veritas-whistleblower-mailin-ballots/

The threat posed to democracy by the software described by General McInerney is devastating. With such software in the hands of intelligence services, every election in every country can be decided behind the scenes.

This makes it easier for elites to rule. The vote altering software turns democracy into a cover for self-interested rule. Yes, elites have always tried to purchase elections, but now they can program them.

I have often written that the digital revolution was the greatest threat humanity faces. Proof piles up every day.

Press Prostitutes Make Fools of Themselves Trying to Cover Up Vote Fraud for Democrats

It is amusing to watch the press prostitutes try to cover-up vote fraud for the Democrats. Here is an example from the bought-and-paid-for BBC whose “Reality Check Team” has undertaken to “fact check” the “rumor” of a 138,000 sudden ballot dump for Biden in Michigan during the early hours of morning when no one was watching:https://www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2020-54811410

The BBC claims this was a “data entry error” that was corrected. The “data entry error” was not corrected, if it was, until it became an issue. How does the BBC know that the sudden jump in votes for Biden wasn’t fraud that when exposed was explained away by crooked officials as a “data entry error.”

Note also that the exact same thing occurred in neighboring Wisconsin at about the same time. So we had two simultaneous “data entry errors” in two critical contested states that wiped out Trump’s lead? How likely is that?

Note also that correcting the “data entry error” did not result in the reappearance of Trump’s lead. So how was the error corrected?

It shows how utterly stupid the presstitutes are that they report that a data entry error that erased Trump’s lead was “corrected” but the lead remained erased!

Why does a British news service have a “Fact Check Team” to protect an American political party? Is the campaign against red state America organized globally?

Note two other anomalous vote patterns. In the critical swing states, the Democrat votes for senators do not match the votes for Biden, and despite what seems to be a record Democrat turnout the Democrats lost house seats in the election! What explains the absence of “down the ticket” voting in Democrat House and Senate voting? Fraud in the Biden vote is an obvious answer.

Paul Craig Roberts, UNZ Review

Further reading:

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/11/trump-legal-adviser-jenna-ellis-discusses-magical-138000-michigan-biden-votes-appeared-nowhere-middle-night-video/

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/11/breaking-michigan-county-discovered-omitting-votes-trump/

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/11/going-minnesota-wisconsin-89-90-turnout-something-highly-unlikely/

“This election is not over. The false projection of Joe Biden as the winner is based on results in four states that are far from final. Georgia is headed for a recount, where we are confident we will find ballots improperly harvested, and where President Trump will ultimately prevail. There were many irregularities in Pennsylvania, including having election officials prevent our volunteer legal observers from having meaningful access to vote counting locations. We prevailed in court on our challenge, but were deprived of valuable time and denied the transparency we are entitled to under state law. In Nevada, there appear to be thousands of individuals who improperly cast mail ballots. Finally, the President is on course to win Arizona outright, despite the irresponsible and erroneous ‘calling’ of the state for Biden by Fox News and the Associated Press. Biden is relying on these states for his phony claim on the White House, but once the election is final, President Trump will be re-elected.”

Imagine, for a moment, that the night of November 3rd, 2020, had gone a bit differently, with the circumstances reversed. 

Imagine that the media was champing at the bit to call several states early for Trump, while refusing to call those states in which Biden was comfortably winning, giving the false perception of the comfortable lead that had been suggested by months of Trump’s leading the polls.  Then, imagine it had become clear that Joe Biden was surging to a comfortable lead in several closely contested swing states.  Now imagine that, after having stopped the counting of legal ballots in those states (due to the lateness of the hour and logistical challenges, we are told), hundreds of thousands of ballots mysteriously appeared in these states, and counted behind the curtain, with limited Democrat oversight, thus shifting the tide in Trump’s favor by the next day.

You don’t have to ponder that scenario long before concluding that the Democrats and the media would be claiming that the outcome of that election is illegitimate, and calling for investigations at the highest levels to audit the results, ensuring that each and every vote was verified as having been legally cast, with appropriate registration, postmark dates, signatures, etc.

I don’t think it’s possible to understate the following assertion: If it is proven that Democratic Party operatives illegally introduced hundreds of thousands of illegitimate ballots in order to swing an election in their Party’s favor, it will have been the single most dangerous crime in modern American history.

What are we talking about here, after all?  We aren’t just talking about the oftentimes phantom “voter suppression” that Democrats notoriously peddle, suggesting that requiring a photo ID or having to stand in line to vote amounts to it.  No, we are talking about disenfranchisement of the purest form, and the dissolution of trust in the most fundamental institution of the American republic. 

an almost prophetic moment after states stopped counting votes in key battleground states where he had a significant lead, Trump proclaimed: “We want all voting to stop. We don’t want to find any ballots at 4 A.M. in the morning.”

As expected, the Biden team, enjoying complete and total mainstream media support (interestingly, finding Fox News to be its most steadfast ally in this election), immediately began to lie and spin, suggesting that Trump was trying to “shut down the counting of duly cast ballots.” 

That is, in fact, the precise opposite of what Trump said.  Trump wanted these states to continue counting the votes that had been duly cast.  He said that voting must stop, since the polls had closed, and he did not want any ballots that were “unduly” cast to mysteriously appear.

The examples of this happening are too numerous to list here.  But for the sake of time, we’ll limit this discussion to Michigan, where, indeed, hundreds of thousands of new votes appeared overnight, overwhelmingly votes for Biden.  As poll watcher and attorney Kelly SoRelle reports from Detroit, three vehicles arrived at around 4 A.M., with “at least 130,000 ballots” which “were not delivered to the precinct before the cut off time” and that “literally 100% of those ballots” were votes for Biden. Amidst all of these allegations, rather than ramping up transparency, efforts have been made to limit access for GOP observers to the process.  Nonetheless, there are several reports of ballots being counted despite having no names on them.  James O’Keefe has released video of a whistleblower who reports that U.S. postal workers in Michigan were issued directives to back-date late mail-in ballots as received November 3rd, 2020, so they are accepted.”

There are so many crimes suspected to have occurred here that the severity of each of them may be lost in the deluge.  But I cannot help thinking about this in the appropriate context, despite the media efforts to downplay the high-level political crimes that are being alleged. 

I think about this as it directly relates to the everyday American.  My wife and I, for example, aren’t anybody special. Chances are, neither are you.  We’re just regular Americans who work hard to provide for our families and raise our children to be good and productive citizens of this free nation, where our lives and liberty are protected as we pursue our own individual happiness.  You know, what we used to call the American Dream.

We do not riot in the streets to effect the change we want.  We vote.  And because we want the American Dream rather than promises of a socialist utopia administrated by government bureaucrats, we voted for Trump. 

And if you are a Trump voter living in Michigan, the Democratic leadership of your state, if the above allegations are true, disenfranchised you and at least 129,999 of your political allies that supported the presidential candidate of your choosing. 

Here’s another question worth pondering.  Did you also vote for Republican Senate candidate John James, who also saw his lead disappear after these thousands of new ballots were introduced under the shroud of darkness?  At 3 A.M., James was up by about 60,000 votes.  By the following day, the Democratic incumbent had secured the votes needed to represent Michigan in the Senate.

There may be reasonable explanations for all of this. But to say that it isn’t a suspicious set of circumstances suggesting potential corruption can only be a lie, and, again, if the roles were reversed, the media and Democrats would be sparing no time or digital ink in screaming for a fair and thorough investigation. 

And that’s all that we Trump supporters and Republicans now demand — a fair and thorough investigation to discern the truth.

This is not just about Michiganders, to be clear.  This crime, if it is proven to be a crime, would have the potential to swindle every American people of their rightfully-elected president, in accordance with the United States Constitution, and possibly shifted the balance of power in Congress.  It would be nothing short of a conspiracy to destroy America.

Trump won Michigan by a slim margin of just over ten thousand votes in 2016. If Democratic operatives, colluding with the media and the leadership of the United States Postal Service, conspired to introduce hundreds of thousands of illegitimate votes in battleground states like Michigan, it is quite possibly most dangerous crime in modern American history, and the word “sedition” does not seem too strong a word to describe it.  The objective moral chasm between such a crime and Watergate is as vast as the space between mass murder and jaywalking.

Time and evidence will tell, you may be assured.  President Trump has beaten back the many other attempted coups that the Democrats and media have foisted upon the American people over these past four years, and if you think he’ll do any less than exploring every nook and cranny for the potential evidence of a crime of this magnitude, you haven’t been paying attention.

William Sullivan, American Thinker

Never Trumpers, Democrats, the Big Media, Big Tech, and progressive government officials government officials have all been unanimous in criticizing President Donald Trump for insisting state election officials do their jobs, which is to enforce election law fairly and equitably. With his willingness to fight, Trump once again shows why his voters remain so intensely loyal.

It’s becoming clear that the 2020 election will take weeks, if not months, to sort out. Trump is demanding that we “make every legal vote count,” and is seeking recounts and going to court to make it happen.

“If you count the legal votes, I easily win. If you count the illegal votes, they can try to steal the election from us,” the president said. “I’ve already decisively won many critical states.”

Meanwhile, the Democrats have urged Joe Biden to get out ahead of the count and set up a transition, as the New York Times and other media outlets suggest they will tell Americans who actually won and who lost.

The problem is, this election, which has only been delayed because of vote-by-mail rules put in place by Democrats trying to take advantage of the COVID-19 panic, isn’t over by a long shot.

Legitimate questions have been raised about the integrity of vote counts in both Michigan and Pennsylvania. In Wisconsin, a sudden trove of Biden votes miraculously appeared early Wednesday, erasing a comfortable Trump lead.

Even before the election, the Democrats were working with their eager partners in the media to slant the news against Trump, and ignore Biden’s highly unusual non-campaign.

Big Tech — primarily Twitter and Facebook — have engaged in blatantly unfair censorship of a major American political figure and presidential candidate, not for cause but for entirely spurious reasons. Having been on the receiving end of such censorship ourselves, you’ll forgive us if we don’t believe the lame excuses offered by the social media giants for their behavior.

According to the conservative-leaning Media Research Center, Facebook and Twitter censored Trump and Trump campaign social media posts at least 65 times. Biden got off with none censored at all.

“Twitter is the worst, accounting for 98% of the censorship,” notes a recent piece in the Washington Times. “Which should be no surprise. Open Secrets, which tracks campaign donations, reports that Facebook and Twitter have given more than 90% of their federal-level political contributions to Democrats for the 2020 cycle, according to Newsbusters.org. The top recipient? Joe Biden.”

The three major networks showed absolutely no attempt to be objective this election season, with 92% negative coverage of Trump, but 66% positive coverage for Biden. That includes a virtual lockdown on any news about Biden’s China, Ukraine and Russia scandals, despite mountains of convincing evidence and no denials even by Biden himself.

Those are the reasons why Trump fights now for every vote. He feels that his voters, and Americans in general, have been ill-served by a biased media and a Democratic Party that have condoned election cheating and trickery as long as it serves their increasingly far-left ideological leanings.

In 2000, Democrats tried to steal the election by rigging the recount rules in Florida in their favor. In 2016, an even-more brazen Hillary Clinton enlisted the aid of the CIA, Justice Department and FBI to spy on her opponent, a blatantly illegal act that remains unpunished.

Today, using the far-left Democrats’ control of elections in most major cities, Biden’s campaign hopes to use vote-counting legerdemain to eke out a win where both Al Gore and Hillary Clinton failed.

So fight on, Donald Trump. Don’t give in, not an inch. Election rules and laws must mean something, or our republic will not survive. That’s something to fight for.

— Written by the I&I Editorial Board

Many of you have witnessed the abject fraud and manipulation taking place across the country over the past few days. It began in Michigan and Wisconsin after President Trump had significant leads in the state. It then moved to Pennsylvania, where he had an even more significant lead. After they began to chip away there, we had the news media attempt to sway the election by calling the state of Arizona for Joe Biden before a huge swath of the votes were counted, and refuse to call Florida, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Georgia for President Trump, as they rightly should have.

Now, they are miraculously “finding” ballots all over states where the President was significantly leading in the vote tally, and they are blocking windows and removing Republican poll watchers from polling locations, while wearing “Biden/Harris 2020 Masks” as they do it.

I do not have to tell you that there is an ongoing coup to steal the country right now. That much is clear. We know the media and social media companies are complicit, if not participants.

However, they don’t ever count on the overwhelming will and resolve of American patriots.

Many are feeling hopeless right now, and I completely understand. They are not even trying to hide it this time. Independent researchers have already identified a number of ballots in MI cast by people who died in the ’80s. Already we are seeing Joe Biden pick up scores more votes than his down-ballot counterparts. It is nearly statistically impossible that all of this is true.

The Trump campaign and its legal team must immediately mount challenges and demand an audit of all votes that are being tallied and counted in any state where there has been evidence of fraud.

If a ballot was cast by a dead person, it is invalid.

If a ballot was cast after Election Day and had its postmark altered in any way, it’s invalid.

If a ballot was cast by someone who isn’t a legally registered voter? It’s invalid.

If a ballot was cast in one person’s name more than one time? It is invalid.

We must demand election integrity. Republican poll watchers must flood every precinct and do their civic duty. They must know their rights. They must request to review the ballots.

In states like PA, where President Trump just this morning won an amazing legal victory, Republican watchers must demand they be allowed to see EACH and EVERY single vote counted while they were locked out of the building and 100 feet from where these shenanigans were going on.

If when challenged a counted ballot cannot be reproduced? We have a problem. It should be fairly easy to do this—there should be an army of certified people ready to audit the rolls and the votes.

I think once you do that, you will find that the suddenly “found” tranche of 23,000 ballots that ALL went to one candidate aren’t as sturdy as they would like. The problem with fraud this rampant? They aren’t employing their best to carry it out.

I will bet they haven’t covered their tracks with receipts the way they should have. I bet they rushed through their scam. And I think it’s a safe bet that if President Trump sticks this out—if he keeps fighting for the American people, this will be exposed.

The time is now to hold your republican representatives to the fire. The time is now for you to make sure they make the noise they need to make. For far too long we have accepted this. We haven’t infiltrated our local polling locations. We have not volunteered. We have not played their game better than they have.

Everyone in the United States should want FAIR elections. Everyone should want the law to be followed. There should not be a push to abandon the rules when the rules don’t suit you.

I fear that if we are not successful in this push to save the nation, we are not going to have a nation left to save. Get involved. It’s the 2nd American Revolution, and we have to win again.

Tracy Beanz is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of UncoverDC. You can follow her on Twitter @TracyBeanz

Democrats planned a blue wave election the likes of which have not been seen before. Bigger than Obama. They said they would win the Senate, the White House, and increase their lead in the House and rule for 10,000 years.

Two of those things did not happen and likely the third one as well.

They poured a whopping $315 million into Senate races in Iowa, Kentucky, Maine, Montana, South Carolina, and Texas — and lost every one.

Mini Mike Bloomberg spent $100 million to stop President Trump in Florida and Ohio. The president won those states by 3 and 8 points, respectively.

In the House, Republicans added members despite Democrats spending more money. This has led to many unhappy campers.

The Politico story said, “Some corners of the party were also beginning to question the message and tactics at the top, with several Democrats predicting — and some even demanding — a significant overhaul within the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, including possibly even ousting chairwoman Cheri Bustos, whose Illinois race has yet to be called.

“Just 24 hours earlier, Democrats including Bustos and Speaker Nancy Pelosi were boasting about the opportunity to expand their majority, with some even predicting they could win as many as a dozen seats in the House by clawing back GOP territory in the suburbs of Texas, Ohio and Illinois.

“But by Wednesday morning, party officials and the rank and file were in panic mode as they awaited the results of nearly 20 members of the Democrats’ historic freshman class that handed the party control of the House just two years ago. And already they were saying goodbye to at least a half-dozen of their centrist Democratic colleagues, who were stunned by GOP challengers on Tuesday, including Abby Finkenauer in Iowa and Donna Shalala in Florida.”

OK, I must write it: Na na na to Shalala, hey, hey, hey, goodbye!

The squad won big-time buoyed by Hollywood money, and since Red China owns Hollywood, I mean yuan. Hey, whatever happened to that Free Tibet movement anyway?

But other first-termers were left to rot because they are not woke enough. Shalala? Yesterday’s heroine is today’s ew, yuck, a Clintonite. Hillary and company now have all the relevancy of Joe Lieberman in the party.

The story said, “Meanwhile, GOP lawmakers — overjoyed after they unexpectedly padded their ranks — were beginning to shore up their leadership teams, including House GOP campaign chair Tom Emmer, who began making calls Wednesday morning to lock up support to serve another term.

“Democrats were already engaging in rapid-fire finger-pointing about who is to blame for Tuesday’s embarrassing showing, with the private angst likely to spill out into the public in the coming days as the full House landscape becomes known. Several centrist Democrats blamed their more progressive colleagues, saying moderates in Trump-leaning districts couldn’t escape their socialist shadow.”

Which raises the question of if The Donald lost, how did all these Republicans win?

Not all the races are decided, of course. But enough are to undercut the media narrative of a blue wave.

Politico said, “So far, House Democrats have flipped just two seats — and they were guaranteed pickups created by court-ordered redistricting in North Carolina. They had not ousted a single GOP incumbent or won a single open-seat contest as of Wednesday morning. Instead, they suffered a string of demoralizing losses.

“Some of those falls were expected: Reps. Collin Peterson of Minnesota, Xochitl Torres Small of New Mexico and Kendra Horn of Oklahoma all faced tough reelections in Trump-won districts. But the others shocked Democrats. The DCCC never bothered to place Shalala in its front-line program for endangered incumbents. And private polling from both parties had Democratic Rep. Joe Cunningham with a large lead in his South Carolina district, but he fell to GOP state Rep. Nancy Mace.

“Texas was a massive disappointment for Democrats, who invested millions in targeting 10 seats and even opened a satellite DCCC office in Austin. They failed to flip the massive West Texas seat held by retiring GOP Rep. Will Hurd — a district that Hillary Clinton carried in 2016.”

What happened to turning Texas blue?

I’ll have to ask Governor Wendy Davis and Senator Beto.

Given how well Republicans did in House and Senate races, and how the president breezed through Florida and Ohio, the idea that he suddenly lost Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin makes no sense.

Democrats know voters spanked them hard on Tuesday. Wait until President Trump takes back the states they have stolen. This will be fun.