There still seems to be a large swath of voters that feel the 2020 election was stolen.  Even though every challenge to the results was deliberated in the courts and found to be baseless.  There were about 50 of them.  The biggest concern that I have had about the challenge to the process is that I am a part of that process.  As an election judge, I resented the inference that those in my position didn’t know what they were doing or were doing things wrong, purposefully or not.

Then there were those that began to repeat the phrase “stop the steal”.  Is everyone repeating that phrase because they really feel that way or simply because our former President reminds us constantly?  Then does this cause us to begin to feel it is true?  What surprises me about this phrase is that it was coined and registered in 2016 before any vote had taken place that had Trump as nominee.

If you go to the New York Times magazine site at the URL https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/19/magazine/stop-the-steal.html, you will see the following quote from the author:

“Stone seems to have coined the phrase ‘Stop the Steal’ — not in 2020, but in 2016. The URL www.stopthesteal.org was registered on Feb. 24 of that year — the day after the Nevada Republican caucuses, and the approximate moment when it began to sink in that Trump could actually win the nomination”.  (The Stone mentioned in this quote is Roger Stone, a longtime associate of former President Trump.)

So, what does this mean?  Why would someone go to the trouble of registering this site before anyone knew if it would be needed?  Were they worried about the 2016 election?  Were they prepared to use it then?  What about the word “steal”?  A very negative word to use for what they would be calling voting irregularities, voting machine problems, etc.  After all, if they knew of some problem prior to the election, why not bring up the specifics to be reviewed at that time?

Now, for the 2024 election, we have actions that could also be touted as moves to skew this election.  The Senate recently put together a bi-partisan bill that had the needs of the Republicans and Democrats, that was hammered out by both parties, and was to be presented for a vote in the Senate.  Even Republicans were saying this was the most significant border bill in decades and there wouldn’t be any trouble passing it.  But even before the bill was finished, the Speaker of the House said it would be dead on arrival.  The former President Trump was saying in the news the bill was not good (though Republicans had a significant voice in its preparation) and telling the House to make sure it doesn’t get voted on.  It appeared this was the reason it would be DOA.

In an article by the Associated Press at the URL concerning this bill, “https://apnews.com/article/congress-ukraine-aid-border-security-386dcc54b29a5491f8bd87b727a284f8”, the following was included, “In a speech on the Senate floor just before the vote, Republican Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma, who crafted the proposal, said it was a chance for the Senate to decide ‘if we’re going to do nothing, or something.’”

“It’s an issue that’s bedeviled, quite frankly, this body for decades,” Lankford said. “It’s been three decades since we’ve passed anything into law to be able to change border security.”

Independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona blamed Republicans for not giving the bill a chance.

“Finally, it seemed, we had the opportunity to solve the nightmare my state has lived for over 40 years,” she said, scolding Republicans for using the border for “campaign photo ops” but rejecting the chance to enact law.

“Turns out they want all talk and no action,” she said. “It turns out border security is not a risk to our national security. It’s just a talking point for the election.”

So how does this happen that one person, not even in government, can have control over part of the House and the Senate?  Does this person even need to run for the Presidency?  Maybe this is why a lot of us think that our government is dysfunctional. Yet is it?  When I think of the word I think of a group that does not have the where-with-all to operate.  In the case of our government, it feels as if this dysfunctionality is being manufactured.  Why else would a group put so much effort and time into creating something they can feel good about only to throw it away?  Then there was really no reason to even start this project.

Now we have the Supreme Court working on a decision to determine whether Colorado can keep former President Trump off the ballot in that state.   There is the thought that only the voters can keep someone off the ballot.  I don’t agree with this.  But in the case of Colorado, or any other state trying to eliminate someone from a ballot, once the state has accepted the application for a place on the ballot, the applicant is locked in.  I am not sure of the status of the application in this case.

According to the National Archives at https://www.archives.gov/ Amendment 14 Section 3 reads as follows:

“No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.”

Some people have asked if this has anything to do with a President in the first place or, if it does, only applies after a person has been found guilty in a court of law.  The words “or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States” in the Amendment say yes to the first part in my estimation.  As for it applying only if someone was found guilty by a court, the wording “given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof” to me answers that one.  We’ll just have to wait and see what the Supreme Court determines in this case. 

When you put this all together, it seems as if we have a long way to go to bring the functionality back to our government.  But we really only have to make sure that this country is governed by a group of people, from different walks of life, who can come to a consensus and get the job done.  We must also remember that the President is but one third of the Government and does not hold all the power and control in their hands only.