Kanye West’s plot to help Donald Trump is falling apart already
There’s just over 90 days between now and Election Day, and the significant lead Joe Biden has over Donald Trump has many in the Resistance ecstatic. It’s even better news that Democrats have a good chance at finally taking back the Senate and will likely gain seats in the House. There are also, however, those among us – and we all know at least one – who are confident that in some way or other, Donald Trump will magically triumph like he did in 2016, that he’ll somehow or other cheat his way to victory even if the specifics are a bit foggy.
One thing that’s provoked paranoia among these types is third party candidates. It’s also not an unwarranted fear, as the Montana GOP was caught backing Green Party candidates in state races to help them qualify for the ballot. Anyone with bitter memories of 2016 is aware that Green Party candidates typically demonize Democrats because they don’t have a chance of swaying Republican voters to their platform.
Getting enough Democrats to defect to a candidate with a narrow platform and no chance of winning should be enough for the GOP to win – or so they thought. In this particular case, a judge removed Green Party candidates from the ballot after 560 people objected to their names being on the petition. This news comes after Kanye West was removed from the ballot in several states.
While voting third party is a waste of a vote, and a position of privilege that none of us have the luxury of being in right now, these candidates are irrelevant if enough of us come out to elect Democrats down the ticket – and it’s hard for Republicans to even recruit spoiler candidates without making fools of themselves. While the GOP excels at cheating, stories like this are a reminder about how much cheating is needed to alter an election even slightly. Over the last two years, Democrats have built a coalition that wins elections – both on local and state levels – and we need to build it even bigger to defeat Donald Trump by the highest possible margin on November 3.
James Sullivan is the assistant editor of Brain World Magazine and an advocate of science-based policy making