This won’t turn out well for the Republicans
We have been hearing about the election fraud nonsense since well before the 2020 election. Most assumed this erroneous information came from Donald Trump, but according to WaPo, the real culprit is Russell J. Ramsland, Jr., whom WaPo revealed he has “sold everything from Tex-Mex food in London to light therapy,” but he was most successful in selling the big lie.
Ramsland began selling his story more than two years ago following midterm losses by Republicans. Ramsland and his associates held a clandestine meeting with Republican lawmakers, activists, and donors, showing them presentations on electronic voting and claiming that voting machine audit logs revealed vote manipulation. The problem for Ramsland was that no one was buying what he was selling — until Trump came along. Trump and his allies took Ramsland’s information and ran with it. WaPo interviewed 12 people with direct knowledge and spoke to former Trump officials and aides, who all confirmed the story. Allied Security Operations Group, Ramsland’s previously fledging business, thus became a Washington insider, spreading false claims to any Republicans who would listen and sign on to this myth, including Louie Gohmert of Texas. In fact, Gohmert was so on board with the lie that he filed a lawsuit to expand Mike Pence’s authority to reject the election results (the Hill) and voted to challenge the results following the January 6 insurrection. He was wrong on both counts, but Republicans are not new to lying about anything having to with Trump.
According to Business Insider and WaPo, the National Republican Congressional Committee (“NRCC”) withheld internal polling data that revealed that Trump’s numbers were “dismal” in key swing districts. This information was willfully withheld — even as some members of Congress asked directly — to disprove Liz Cheney’s claims that Republicans would be better off moving away from Trump. It is little wonder that the numbers were withheld, as they revealed that Trump’s unfavorable ratings are 15 points above his favorable rating in critical swing districts. Breaking that down further, WaPo reported that almost twice as many people had an unfavorable view of Trump than those with favorable views. It turns out that Liz Cheney was right that the Republican party cannot grow with Trump, though his close sycophants continue to claim the opposite.
Cheney was, not surprisingly, alarmed at these findings. Her party leadership was willing to hide this information just to keep lying about the power Trump has when he obviously has little. Despite this information having been revealed, they are moving forward with removing Cheney from her leadership post, even though she was right about Trump. If the party wants to save itself at all, instead of punishing Cheney, they need to start listening to her. As outlined earlier, Trump’s stand on voting irregularities is based on the imagination of a great salesman. Now, the Republican party wants to base their future on a loser over one who has consistently served the so-called ideals of their party. This is a classic case of not being able to see the forest for the trees, and it is not going to turn out well for Republicans.
Shirley is a former entertainment writer and has worked in the legal field for over 25 years