A Presidential Election is unlike a Congressional Election: Election Deniers, Conspiracy Nonsense, and Some Real Concerns Will Take on Greater Importance and, Hopefully, This Election Ends Well

February 1, 2023

There were indications that the 2022 Congressional elections could have been chaos across the country as election deniers continued to be vocal since 2020 when Donald Trump lost his re-election and pushed the issue of voter fraud.  But, for the most part (Kari Lake in Arizona may be the exception) elections went smoothly without much in the way of incidents.  In the case of a Congressional race in the Second District in New Mexico, Maggie Oliver, the Secretary of State noted that the race ran well with the incumbent Republican conceding defeat.  This is a Congressional seat that has switched parties several times over the past elections usually with around 1,000 votes separating the winner and loser.  Oliver stated:

It's been really nice to have a return to what I consider the norms of our democracy — you know, accepting election results, the peaceful transition of power.  And it makes me feel hopeful for the first time in quite a while.

I guess it was a good idea to ignore Solomon Pena, a Republican who lost a race for New Mexico’s 14th state house district, getting only 26 per cent of the vote and then he decided that the way to handle his loss, after calling the election “rigged,” was to up the level of his grievance: He is accused of hiring four men to shoot up the homes of four Democrats elected in the Albuquerque area. Well, that was for a seat in the state legislature not Congress, so it was nice of the Republican to concede her Congressional seat graciously, unlike Pena.

A Congressional election year is not necessarily the same as a Presidential election year.  It is no secret that election deniers continue to spread nonsense.  Dinesh D’Souza felt the need to tweet, “Major news,” and referenced an article from conservativebrief.com which carried the headline, “FBI Arrests Top Official in Democratic State Over Absentee Ballot Fraud Scheme,” only toward the end of the article is the former county elections commissioner, Jason Schofield, identified as a Republican.  A quick perusal of only the headline might lead to a different conclusion regarding which political party the culprit is affiliate with—maybe D’Souza was among those who only read the headline.  Misleading headlines, twitter feeds, as well as any assortment of questionable studies will continue to fuel the flames that voter fraud is real and, on a level, big enough to affect the outcome of an election. In addition, The Donald is back in the race to run for President, and he seems content to pick up where he left off regarding the 2020 election.  On his first trip to New Hampshire, the first primary election state, Trump sounded like he always did, he said he “won two general elections,” and Democrats are “great at stealing elections.”

Presidential elections get a great deal more attention than Congressional elections.  Even in states, such as Missouri, where voters vote for President and Governor in the same election, the Presidential election overshadows the race to win the governor’s mansion.  The stakes can be made to be seen as higher in a Presidential election than in Congressional elections.  No doubt Trump will play on trying to convince voters that he will get to choose nominations to the Supreme Court and point to the overturning of Roe v. Wade as an accomplishment.  For the voters he wants to reach, this will be a hot button issue.  I expect that he will fan the flames that without him in the White House, the Court case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization which overturned Roe will be challenged so they need him in the White House to make sure that does not happen.  In his New Hampshire appearance, he boasted that, if elected, once back in the White House he would end the Russian invasion of Ukraine within 24-hours, we can only speculate as to the number of foolish claims he will make as this 2024 election season develops.

A CNN poll leading up to the 2022 Congressional elections, stated that enthusiasm about voting in those elections was at 27 per cent, down from the 37 per cent that was there in the previous 2018 Congressional elections.  The poll pointed to most of the decline in enthusiasm among Democrats: in 2018 44 per cent of registered Democrats said they were enthusiastic about the then Congressional elections, leading up to the 2022 elections, it was 24 per cent.  While the election results turned out better than expected for the Democrats, this issue of enthusiasm will be a persistent feature of how both political parties look at motivating voters to vote.  A higher intensity creates more passion, more passion leads to anger, resentment, and all things bad—rational discussion about the future of America quickly goes out the window.

Increased passion plays into fear, which can become heightened during a Presidential campaign as the stakes are made to look as though the outcome of American civilization is on the line.  As one analyst put it:

Fear and anxiety get us to stop and re-assess. But often when we re-assess because of fear, we tend to seek out information that reinforces the idea that a threat exists—which is not necessarily the most accurate or objective information.

Seeking more information from disinformation sources pushing voter fraud can only serve to fuel more anxiety that this next election will, in fact, be stolen.  What percentage of the voters, particularly Republicans, will increase their level of belief in voter fraud, beyond where it currently is, we will have to wait and see what the polls say. Voter fraud will only be reinforced by Trump as well as disingenuous individuals such as D’Souza.  His film 2000 Mules (released in 2022) claims that organizations associated with the Democratic Party had “mules” going around illegally collecting and depositing ballots.  It probably does not matter how much fact checking has gone into challenging the accuracy of the movie—the movie will probably receive new life and add to anxiety and passions leading to election day 2024.  Mark Andrews is shown in the movie, his face blurred, but his identity later came out, placing five ballots in a drop box outside of Atlanta. D’Souza states in the movie, “What you are seeing is a crime.  These are fraudulent votes.”  The state of Georgia investigated this case and found he deposited ballots from family members, allowed in Georgia—nothing criminal here.  Andrews has a lawsuit pending against D’Souza, in addition to the organization True the Vote, which says its mission is to investigate voter fraud.  Andrews’s suit states:

Mr. Andrews and his family have faced threats of violence and live in fear. They feel intimidated to vote and have changed how they vote because of that fear. They worry that again they will be baselessly accused of election crimes, and that believers in the “mules” theory may recognize and seek reprisal against them, and that they may face physical harm.

In Arizona, leading up to the Congressional elections of several months back, D’Souza’s film had an impact on some people, and they felt the need to monitor ballot drop boxes—although in strange ways. Melody Jennings created an organization, Clean Elections USA, she said she was inspired to do so by 2000 Mules. She said her organization was simply monitoring the drop boxes to make sure everything was above board. One article, however, stated:

[V]oters at…locations reported feeling intimidated by people watching them at the drop boxes, taking photos and videos of them and photos of their license plates. In the last week, the Arizona secretary of state’s office reported five complaints to the FBI and the state attorney general’s office, and nine other complaints are under review. A few of those voters claim they have been harassed by groups watching the drop boxes. An ABC15 reporter interviewed one of the watchers and he said the watchers were with Clean Elections USA, although Clean Elections USA has said its members were not involved with any cases of voter intimidation.

One voter told the secretary of state’s office that the group was filming and photographing him and his wife, and “accusing us of being a mule.”

“They took photographs of our license plate and of us and then followed us out of the parking lot in one of their cars continuing to film,” the voter reported.

I expect Trump to also focus on the stock market, which did well while he was President.  As one article stated:

The Dow Jones Industrial Average returned 56% during the Trump presidency…. This represents an annualized gain of 11.8%, which is the best performance for any Republican president since Calvin Coolidge during the roaring 1920's.

Anyone with an annuity knows that the stock market has not done as well since the 2020 Presidential election.  There is probably little hope the stock market will take off and achieve the highs of the Trump years leading up to the election (although it seems like it is heading in the right direction).  As one report put it, “on average, both stock (equity) and bond markets showed more muted performance in the year leading up to a presidential election than they did at other times.” The anxiety that comes with the constant drum beat of economic issues, will only serve to heighten economic anxieties, particularly among older Americans who will be speculating about the future of the stock market and their nest eggs.  There is a Political Science issue raised that people pay more attention to the economy during a Presidential election, simply because of the constant attention focused on it by candidates usually reinforced through campaign ads.  Add heightened anxiety over the economy to the belief in voter fraud and we can expect more people running to disinformation sources that will only serve to reinforce what they think they already know.

This is only February and the Iowa caucus followed by the New Hampshire primary is this time next year, but what to watch for is how Trump (since as of now he is the only Republican in the race for the nomination to run for President) begins to adjust his sales pitch to caucus participants and primary voters. Any candidates entering the race will, no doubt, need to respond to Trump and whatever he is babbling about. A race with multiple candidates will include interaction where tit-for-tat is part of the process. I was thinking that assume DeSantis enters the race, he would be forced to respond to Trump saying he was “disloyal,” I assume disloyal to Trump. Politics is about responding and not letting statements go by the wayside, otherwise they can gain credibility.

An organization such as Moms for Liberty, which bills itself as non-partisan but is clearly Republican, will probably play a role in the Republican caucus/primary process.  The Vice Chairman of the Florida Republican Party stated of this organization:

I have been trying for a dozen years to get 20- and 30-year-old females involved with the Republican Party, and it was a heavy lift to get that demographic. But now Moms for Liberty has done it for me.

If Moms were truly concerned about being non-partisan, they should have immediately denounced this remark.  I keep wondering how the IRS handles something such as this where non-partisan appears to be laughable.  While Republicans came up short in their expectations for the 2022 Congressional elections, about 61 percent of the candidates that Moms for Liberty endorsed in races in Florida won, the next step is state caucus and primary races.  Trump seems to understand that education is an issue he needs to address, although, as with his usual approach toward addressing issues, expect this one to go off the rails and become huffing and puffing with little substance.  His proposal to elect school principals may be the only one that might end up having a spark of interest beyond the 2024 election.  The reason is because there are school superintendents who are elected as well those who are appointed by school boards.  The havoc this proposal, if implemented, could have on grade school education is another thing, but no reason to consider that in the heat of a campaign.  Trump’s comments about teachers, “if we have pink haired communists teaching our kids, we have a major problem,” will certainly contribute to teachers feeling good about the work they do.  This sounds like the 1950s Communist conspiracy thinking all over again.  I am still not sure why if Moms had grievances or more generally concerns, they did not just join the school’s parent-teacher organization (PTO) and learn how to work in a civic-minded way with other parents.  No doubt the culture warrior mentality is more suitable to screaming and agitating, than learning how to work well with others.  Moms for Liberty seems more like it wants a slash and burn approach toward addressing their grievances.  

Moms for Liberty grew quickly and has somewhere around 195 chapters in 37 states with over 100,000 members.  Since it began in Florida with three moms who are all registered Republican, it developed ties with Governor Ron DeSantis and his education policies which nicely align with Moms. DeSantis is doing his worst to create a climate of intimidation aimed at Florida teachers. No doubt Trump is quite aware of Moms and has to wonder if, or when, DeSantis enters the race how Moms can help DeSantis in different states. As a result, Trump feels the need to try to cut into any support Moms can give DeSantis.  If DeSantis enters the race, I expect that Trump, DeSantis and whoever else enters the race will try to out-trump each other regarding how outrageous they can get regarding education and what they intend to do.  The long-term impact to quality education can lead to serious damage since I cannot see the type of outrage that would develop, dying once the election is over.  

I suspect that part of Trump seeing DeSantis as disloyal is Trump’s feeling that DeSantis stole the education-as-a-culture-war issue from him, after all when Trump was President, he created the 1776 Commission to push the notion of “patriotic education.” Now, Trump is trying to build on that by promoting the idea of “certifying” patriotic teachers. At this point this is just a vague notion that Trump is throwing around, however, if it is ever given any substance by him, it carries serious implications: Are we to believe that only certain teachers in schools are patriotic and the rest are something else. Culture wars create a mentality of us versus them and this patriotic teacher stuff just adds to that. Again, once this election is over, what type of climate around education will be carried over from the campaign season, probably one that can adversely affect schools.

I expect some of this fear, paranoia, just plain overblown hype will be aimed at what are called Confucius Institutes on some college campuses and seeing them as manipulating students. Students always seem easily manipulated, a usual culture war fear among Republicans, somehow the influence of years of being raised by parents who taught them right and wrong and normal values, go quickly by the wayside once they enroll in their first semester of college. How many students actually take Chinese language, culture, politics, and history courses seems like the logical place to start. Probably in the case of politics and history courses, they are more likely being taught by faculty with no relationship to a Confucius Institute. After taking a set of courses as part of a college or university general education program and after taking courses for a major, in addition to inter-related courses, how many elective courses are left. Forget rational thought, Senator Marco Rubio (R, TX) declared, “For years I have raised the alarm about the threat posed by Chinese government-run Confucius Institutes, and the FBI has warned that the Communist Party uses these entities to infiltrate American schools.” One study that looked at students taking courses associated with a Confucius Institute stated:

The combined results [of my study] suggest that Confucius Classrooms at…two schools did not produce the “pro-China” viewpoints that critics such as Rubio warned about. Regardless of whether students at these schools were taking Confucius Classroom classes, on average, they developed less favorable views of China over the academic year.

It is safe to say, Rubio’s fears will carry more weight than any carefully balanced study. I expect this issue to become part of the Republican campaign season approach toward education. It sounds like it is a good idea to get rid of any of these programs, but that is beside the point—the issue is the belief that students are being manipulated (or brainwashed?) and that is what will be used by Republicans as the campaign season progresses.

It always amazes me, all this manipulating and convincing student to “hate their own country” (Trump’s words) yet Trump, DeSantis, Rubio, even D’Souza, and all those Republicans in Congress, even Marjorie Taylor Greene, have college degrees (minus Lauren Boebert who has a GED and George Santos, I assume he has no degree or maybe not even two degrees). According to the Congressional Research Service, 17 members in the House of Representatives only have high school diplomas and 6 have associate ‘s degrees. Nevertheless, all these fine conservatives made it through college and managed to hold on to their conservative beliefs with no problem, so much for indoctrination.

Unfortunately, much of this seems to be a race to the bottom.  Play on people’s fears, anxieties, and throw around culture war issues with little regard for the consequences and hope everything turns out well.  I am sure the Drag Queen Reading Hour will receive its share of attention, perhaps even more than pressing issues like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, or infrastructure.  Why tackle difficult issues with no easy solutions when proposing that parents need to be prosecuted if they take their kids to see drag queens read books, will get the applause.  That is a long way from when I took my kids to have Bunnicula entertain them at the public library.

I do not see any conservative thinking, or substantive conservative ideas in any of this—just a Republican campaign season where Trump is setting the tone and diatribe and vitriolic are what we will see in big doses.  As other candidates enter the race can they suddenly appear to be moderate and reasonable and say something in a thoughtful way?  I doubt it.  There are good conservative writers, and it would be nice to somehow have their ideas creep into the campaign (David Frum, David Brooks, Mona Charen, Jennifer Rubin, Bill Crystal just to a name a few), but do not hold your breath.  Reading thoughtful people who you do not always have to agree with, but at least challenge you to see things differently should be part of your reading diet.  The point is that this will be the type of Republican campaign where conservative thought goes to die.

Finally, that old belief that after the national conventions the party candidates tack toward the middle or moderate ground to win lots of voters, I do not see that happening.  One of the problems with believing in voter fraud, and elevating it to an article of faith, is a feeling of confidence (false though it may be) that your side had already won, but the rug was pulled from under them.  If you firmly believe that you actually won, then there is no reason to reach out and create a big umbrella where diverse opinions are welcome. Please, I hope everything is well with the world after this election.

NOTES

Jennifer Agiesta and Ariel Edwards-Levy, “CNN Poll: Republicans, backed by enthusiasm and economic concerns, hold a narrow edge ahead of next week’s congressional election,” CNN Politics (November 2, 2022): https:// edition.cnn.com/2022/11/02/politics/cnn-poll-gop-congressional-election/index.html

Mark Andrews v. Dinesh D’Souza, True the Vote, Inc., Catherine Engelbrecht, Gregg Phillips, D’Souza Media LLC, Salem Media Group, Inc., and John Does, United States District Court, Northern District of Georgia, Atlanta Division (filed October 26, 2022): https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.gand.308676/gov.uscourts.gand.308676.1.0.pdf

Paul Bond, “Moms for Liberty Ride Wide of ‘Anti-Wokeness’ to School Board Victories,” Time (November 9, 2022): https://www.newsweek.com/moms-liberty-ride-wave-anti-wokeness-school-board-victories-1757693

Shannon Bond, Miles Parks, and Huo Jingnan, “Election Officials Feared the Worst:  Here’s Why baseless Claims Haven’t Fuel Chaos,” NPR (November 14, 2022): https://wusfnews.wusf.usf.edu/2022-11-14/election-officials-feared-the-worst-heres-why-baseless-claims-havent-fueled-chaos

Jen Fifield, “Drop box watchers in Arizona connected to national effort from “2000 Mules” creators,” Votebeat Arizona (October 28, 2022): https://arizona.votebeat.org/2022/10/27/23427525/clean-elections-usa-drop-box-watchers-voter-intimidation

Matthew Fox, “Here’s how the stock market performed under President Donald Trump, and how it compares to previous administrations,” Markets Insider (January 21, 2021): https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stock/stock-market-performance-under-president-donald-trump-dow-jones-sp500-2021-1-1029987163

Naima Green-Riley, “The State Department labeled China’s Confucius programs a bad influence on U.S. students. What’s the story,” Washington Post (August 25, 2020): https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/08/24/state-department-labeled-chinas-confucius-programs-bad-influence-us-students-whats-story/

“How presidential elections affect the stock market,” US Wealth Management/U.S. Bank/U.S. Bancorp Investments (2023): https:// www.usbank.com/investing/financial-perspectives/market-news/how-presidential-elections-affect-the-stock-market.html

Jennifer Manning, “Membership of the 116th Congress: A Profile,” Congressional Research Service (Updated December 17, 2020): https://sgp.fas.org/crs/misc/R45583.pdf

Dinesh D’Souza, “Major News,” (January 26, 2023): (19) Dinesh D'Souza on Twitter: "Major news. https://t.co/IIPW8BOr0B" / Twitter

Martin Walsh, “New York County Elections Commissioner Pleads Guilty To Ballot Fraud,” Conservative Brief (January 26, 2023): https://conservativebrief.com/guilty-arrest-70326/

Kurt Waldroff, “Fear: A Powerful Motivator in Elections,” APA.org (October 13, 2020): https://www.apa.org/news/apa/2020/fear-motivator-elections