Republicans have been quick to try to claim partisan advantage and stir up conspiracy theories after Monday night’s debacle at the Iowa Democratic caucuses. But it wasn’t that long ago that Republicans had serious counting issues in Iowa themselves.
The big Republican push is to bolster conspiracy theories that there’s something suspicious about what appears in reality to have been incompetence. Both Eric Trump and Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale suggested the caucuses were “rigged.” Donald Trump Jr. tweeted that “The fix is in...AGAIN.”
“What are the odds,” Sen. Lindsey Graham tweeted, that “most anticipated poll of the year (@DMRegister) is cancelled” and “voting system completely crashes.....and it has nothing to do with a Bernie blowout and a Biden crash?”
Because a massive conspiracy involving not only Iowa Democrats but the nation’s most respected pollster is a lot more likely than that an untested app put in the hands of thousands of people of wildly varying tech competence might have some issues? Yeah, no.
If Republicans thought back any further than the last time something irritated them or forward any further than Donald Trump’s next temper tantrum, they might not be so quick to encourage conspiracy theories that could well sweep them up the next time around. After all, back in 2012, Mitt Romney was declared the winner of the Iowa caucuses by eight votes. Then, eight days after he followed that up by winning New Hampshire, Iowa Republicans announced that whoops, Rick Santorum actually finished ahead by 34 votes. Probably. They couldn’t be 100% sure, because they had lost some votes. Whoops again.
In fact, in 2016, Trump tried to whip up doubt about Iowa’s Republican caucuses. Rather than admit he could possibly have lost, he tweeted “Based on the fraud committed by Senator Ted Cruz during the Iowa Caucus, either a new election should take place or Cruz results nullified.” So maybe he’ll be perfectly happy to encourage conspiracy theories in 2024 … if, say, it’s Don Jr. on the losing end of Iowa.
For now, Democrats spreading the very same conspiracy theories as Lindsey Graham and the Trump offspring and campaign manager should stop and consider what that says about them.
Posted with permission of Daily Kos
