How to Stop the Steal

And steal some hearts along the way

Hey, American Republicans! I hear you guys grousing a lot about how the Democrats are going to steal this election. I got a question:

What are you doing to stop them?

By which I do not mean forwarding grumbling memes on X about how the fix is already in, or preparing to storm the Bastille after the fact, so that on election day I have to get up in the morning again to see the kind of waking-dream dada shit with men in horns that was only previously experienced when your dealer put too much rat poison in the LSD.

Isn’t life close enough to a hallucination these days as it is?

No, I mean—and I hate to quote one of my evil liberal friends from old-people Facebook, but hey, the universe sends you reminders in craaaazy ways—are you going to do something? Like, in the world? Somewhere away from your computer, with all the left- and right- wing conspiracies our disembodied news-engorged brains are wont to spin—and on the ground making sure, you know, the ballot boxes don’t get stuffed?

This Facebook friend (my entire Substack has been demoted in the algo merely because I typed that; too late to change it now) asked, after the 2020 election, why more Republicans don’t volunteer at the polls, if they’re so worried about suitcases and sneaking and nefarious cheating?

She asked it rather snottily, rhetorically, and not necessarily with constructive intent, but so?

That’s a good question! Why were so many of the pieces of evidence for “the steal” in 2020 mere fuzzy video, rather than an insider leak? Why weren’t there enough conservatives on the inside to run the polls as they are supposed to be run?

Granted, I have NO idea whether the 2020 election was particularly clean or dirty. If you try to research election fraud, you’ll be reading for a while. There are thousands of claims and counter-claims per year, litigated in court and in the court of public opinion, falling thick like slightly brownish snow since the dawn of the Internet.

However, regardless of which of these blizzards of claims are true, the PERCEPTION that the 2020 presidential election was rigged or stolen—and, Democrats? You did a REALLY, REALLY bad job of not inflaming and cementing that perception! Maybe try not bragging about the barely-legal tip of the iceberg?—has caused our country quite a deal of chagrin.

What can we do to make sure that any real election fraud gets cleaned up, while simultaneously soothing any fears of election fraud that turn out to be baseless, yet remain damaging?

Lest Democrats forget (not that Democrats today remotely resemble themselves back then, but you should have guessed I’m addressing this for the sake of slaking tribalism anyway), our elections were disputed not least in 2000, when the unfortunate fact that Jeb Bush was governor of Florida ushered in what was arguably the most disastrous presidency in the history of history (GBII, who was in reality Reagan III, which reminds me that I need to lobby for a law against former VPs running for POTUS, unless they were #2 in the primaries the year they were nominated, but that’s a damn headache for another day).

Election fraud is so a thing. How much of it, and who is doing the most, are different questions, ones I don’t know if we have any hope of answering.

But in case you forgot, I can confirm that there’s a real world out there—a real world which often gives you more leeway to get what you want, and change what you want, especially as this electro-hut over here gets increasingly overcrowded.

In that real world, you can volunteer to watch the polls yourself, instead of depending on whatever fuzzy video you can find, or fishy announcements about broken pipes you can berate, to reassure yourself that this election was the fairest and most secure that you could possibly make it.

Granted… I’ve heard complaints that Republican pollsters are discriminated against in hiring, whether paid poll staff or volunteers. Georgia, I recall, used some particularly iffy, partisan-connected temp agencies last time. I’ve heard of Republican poll volunteers in key areas simply being kicked out or dismissed.

Well, boys, in that case, as much as I hate it, I guess your only choice is to go undercover. Register as an independent, keep your mouth shut, let them run theirs, and observe.

Of all the things I hate about the human race, the fact that you are forcing me to be the hippy in the room is the one I hate the most.

But if at all possible, it would be… snif… almost utopian if the polls could, you know, operate as they’re legally required to do, and mandate that votes be counted by teams of two, one red and one blue, working together to (forces a rhyme) keep our polls safe for YOU!

Because, as I’ve implied, I seriously do have friends on both sides, and you know what? They really are all human. Yeah, even the big idiots.

The Internet and anonymity and that thing where nobody can reach through the screen and show you how hard you’re running your b@tch mouth make us all into massive @ssholes. You probably don’t come off as your friendliest chipmunk self, any more than those jerks do. You might be sick of hearing Gen X reminisce about how we all used to be able to get along, but you know how we did that? We’re not natural hippies or anything; god no, the mere thought of a scraggly beard or pukka shells makes me need to put off lunch for another hour.

But because the Internet had not yet become a money factory, we all had to do shit jobs. Together. You’d see the young republicans and the young communists doing shots together after work, because everyone agreed the customers were dicks.

Maybe we don’t have that kind of easy, common enemy to unite us when it comes to politics, or at least none that is harmless to hate on. The days when you could hate The Hun or whomever without worrying you were going to nuke each other into armageddon are long gone. Sports aren’t quite powerful enough. The Powers that Be tried to form poor white people to the purpose, but unfortunately we have also turned out to be human beings, so we’re back to square one with that common enemy thing.

And if everyone is going to be plugged into an app obsessing over politics, what on earth is safe to use as a common enemy?

Maybe we could consider the enemy to be the worst, lying, jackass, slimy-weasel versions of ourselves?

Just a thought. I’m sure you’d rather do something stupid.