by Melisaundra Welles
Many voters across the country will head to the polls this November determined to right a wrong. Their clear aim and mission will be to restore former president Donald J. Trump back to the seat of power, and, in their minds, to cure the injustice of the stolen 2020 election. The hitch with that endeavor, though, is that the election was never stolen.
Then, why had so many citizens believed that it had been? And believed it so strongly that they breached the U.S. Capitol—breaking doors, windows, and marble floors—and going as far as urinating and spreading feces in the halls and congressional chambers? How had they attacked Capitol and D.C. Metropolitan Police using flagpoles, fire extinguishers, bear spray, and other weapons? They threatened Congressmembers, defaced some of their offices, and stole items from the premises. They walked the halls, calling menancingly for then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. A gallows was erected, and some of the rioters chanted, “Hang Mike Pence,” referring to the former vice president to Trump.[i] All of these actions were taken to stop Congress from certifying the results of the 2020 election and to keep Trump in the White House. Why had those citizens so firmly believed the lie that they risked their families and freedom to defend it?
Part of the answer is that some people, by nature, revel in chaos. They like to challenge the status quo, pushing the proverbial envelope just to see what happens. But others don’t really like turmoil. They simply get caught up in the excitement of being a part of something big.
I’m not excusing any violent acts that occurred on January 6, 2021. I abhor violence. But I can admit that the hearts and minds of at least some of those people had been stolen. And ultimately, they had been betrayed by the purveyors of the election lie.
Supporters were primed to believe that the 2020 election would be stolen.
Regrettably, the biggest purveyor of the lie was the former president himself. A former television host and businessman, Trump became politically notable for his persistent lie that former president Barak Obama wasn’t born in the United States. Even after Obama produced his birth certificate, Trump pushed the birther lie often, gaining enough political traction for him to throw his hat into the 2016 presidential race. He won, and during his four-year presidency, he reportedly made over 30,500 “false or misleading claims.”[ii]
Like most things, it started small with a lie about the weather on his inauguration day. That was followed up the next day with a lie about the size of his inauguration crowd.[iii] The lies multiplied, becoming larger and more serious until the most lethal lie would come face-to-face with Covid-19.
Covid-19 began spreading in China in late December 2019 and quickly became a global pandemic. On February 7, 2020, Trump admitted to journalist and author, Bob Woodward, that he knew that the virus “was dangerous, airborne, highly contagious and ‘more deadly than even your strenuous flus.’” He had known since January 28, 2020, when National Security adviser Robert O’Brien informed him that the virus could be the “biggest national security threat of his presidency.”[iv] Yet, Trump never informed the American public. Instead, he downplayed the seriousness of the virus, assuring an anxious America that it was going to “go away,” and “One day—it’s like a miracle—it will disappear.”[v] It didn’t, and a catastrophic number of Americans died.
Things got worse as masks, school closures, business restrictions and vaccines became rallying cries for protests throughout the states. Mixed messages and misinformation flowed freely from the White House, and the division in the country grew wider.
Amidst all the Covid-19 turmoil, the 2020 election was looming. Trump and his team may have calculated that the use of mail-in ballots by Democrats would dramatically increase due to the pandemic. Whatever the cause, he began an attack on mail-in ballots, which he claimed would lead to fraud. Trump, himself, had used mail-in ballots in elections, so it’s unlikely that he believed they would lead to any widespread fraud. Nevertheless, in April 2020, during a White House daily briefing, he told reporters that "Mail ballots are a very dangerous thing for this country, because they're cheaters. They go and collect them. They're fraudulent in many cases."[vi]
Time and again, the
former president hammered home the lie that
the ballots would
be insecure; that they were a scam perpetrated by the Democrats; and
that they were out of control. He urged his supporters to vote in person. [CONTINUED ON PART 2]
[i] “Officers who defended the Capitol during Jan. 6 insurrection recall their experiences,” Shea, J., Virginia Commonwealth University News, https://news.vcu.edu/article/2023/01/officers-who-defended-the-capitol-during-jan-6-insurrection-recall-their-experiences, January 23, 2023. Retrieved September 27, 2024.
See also
“Yes, Capitol Rioters Were Armed. Here Are The Weapons Prosecutors Say They Used,” Heard on Morning Edition, NPR, WUNC, Dreisbach, T. and Mak, T.; Yücel, E. contributed, https://www.npr.org/2021/03/19/977879589/ yes-capitol-rioters-were-armed-here-are-the-weapons-prosecutors-say-they-used. March 19, 2021. Retrieved September 27, 2024;
“Rioters left feces, urine in hallways and offices during mobbing of US Capitol,” Campanile, C. and Steinbuch, Y., The New York Post, https://nypost.com/2021/01/08/rioters-left-feces-urine-in-hallways-and-offices-during-mobbing-of-us-capitol/. January 8, 2021. Updated June 30, 2021. Retrieved September 27, 2024; and
“Newly obtained video shows movement of group suspected of constructing Jan. 6 gallows hours before Capitol siege,” McFarlane, S., CBS News, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/jan-6-gallows-construction-new-video/. March 18, 2024. Retrieved September 27, 2024.
[ii] “In four years,
President Trump made 30,573 false or misleading claims,” Fact Checker, Washington Post, https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/trump-claims-database/?tid=ptv_rellink. Updated January 20, 2021. Retrieved August 21, 2024.
[iii] “The 15 most notable lies of Donald Trump’s presidency,” Dale, D., CNN, https://www.cnn.com/2021/ 01/16/politics/ fact-check-dale-top-15-donald-trump-lies/index.html. Updated January 16, 2021. Retrieved September 28, 2024.
See also
“The Facts on Crowd Size,” Robertson, L. and Farley, R., FactCheck.org., A Project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center, https://www.factcheck.org/2017/01/the-facts-on-crowd-size/. January 23, 2017. Retrieved September 28, 2024; and
“Trump versus the truth: The most outrageous falsehoods of his presidency,” Timm, J.C., NBC News, https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-versus-truth-most-outrageous-falsehoods-his-presidency-n1252580. December 31, 2020. Retrieved August 21, 2024.
[iv] “‘Play it down’: Trump admits to concealing the true threat of coronovirus in new Woodward book,” Gangel, J., Herb, J. and Stuart, E., CNN, https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/09/politics/bob-woodward-rage-book-trump-coronavirus/index.html. Updated September 9, 2020. Retrieved August 18, 2024.
[v] “Trump versus the truth: The most outrageous falsehoods of his presidency,” Timm, J.C., NBC News, https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-versus-truth-most-outrageous-falsehoods-his-presidency-n1252580. December 31, 2020. Retrieved October 10, 2024.
[vi] “Timeline: What Trump Told Supporters Months Before They Attacked,” Inskeep, S., NPR WUNC, https://www.npr.org/2021/02/08/ 965342252/ timeline-what-trump-told-supporters-for-months-before-they-attacked. February 8, 2021. Retrieved August 16, 2024. See also “Fact Check: Is Mail Ballot Fraud As Rampant As President Trump Says It Is?” Parks, Miles, NPR WUNC, https://www.npr.org/ sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/04/07/ 829323152/fact-check-is-mail-ballot-fraud-as-rampant-as-president-trump-says-it-isApril 7, 2020. Retrieved October 14, 2024.
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