Letters to the Editor
December 16, 2020

To the Editor:
I looked at the sources you offer to support your theory that the election was “stolen.” One source is a PhD who claimed the coronavirus was a hoax, one who mistook cities in Minnesota for cities in Michigan and screamed “fraud” when the election numbers didn’t add up (ya think?), and another who found "statistical anomalies" conclusive of fraud. Allegations, opinions, accusations, suggestions, and conspiracy theories require proof to be persuasive. Your citations fail meet that standard, as has Trump in the courts.
The Supreme Court has declined to hear several cases related to the election. The Cyber Elections Chief, Attorney General Barr, Matt Drudge, Erik Erickson, various elected Republican state officers, local and federal judges, have found no fraud in the election process which would effect a change in the electoral result. So, all these people are suddenly in league against Donald J. Trump, people in his own Republican Party, and that doesn’t inform your opinion on the validity of the election? I would say that you believe what you want to believe and no one, short of your choice of deity, directly and in person or possibly in a burning bush, could change that.
Democrats understand that the Republicans are disbelieving and disconsolate over the results of the election. We’ve been there. Twenty years ago, Al Gore lost the election in Florida, a state whose governor was the Republican candidate’s brother, Jeb. The Supreme Court, along party lines, ordered that the Florida recount stop, and awarded the presidency to W. on the basis of 537 Floridian votes, though Gore won the national popular vote by 500,000 votes. Al Gore conceded. He didn’t see dead people, everywhere, voting.
Recall the reaction to Hillary Clinton’s loss four years ago. She won the national popular vote by three million votes and lost by mere hundreds of votes in some places where Democrats had long held sway. She was shocked, many of us were, but we did not challenge the ultimate outcome, even though suspicions of Russian interference in the run-up to the election were rampant. Like it or not, Trump was president and she conceded, albeit unhappily, the next day.
Leaving aside Trump's emotional problems that make him unable to accept reality not in his favor, he believes that he IS the state and a challenge to him is a challenge to the republic. That, in and of itself, beyond all the repugnant things that Trump has done, all the grift he has practiced, all the malignancy with which he has processed his tenure, is enough to disqualify him. Presidents who revere our Constitution do not attack it. Disappointed despots do.
Kelly Scoles
Fillmore

***

To the Editor:
In 2016 Donald Trump ran a brilliant campaign. He bullied and bulldozed his way through the Republican primaries. His “Make America Great Again” un-filtered populism galvanized support from disaffected Americans -- primarily high school-educated, white (88%) conservatives. (Source: www.pewresearch.org)
Republicans should be proud of their party’s performance in the 2020 elections. They picked up seats in the House, and will likely retain a small margin in the Senate. In gubernatorial and state legislative races, Republicans fared better than Democrats. There was no “blue wave.”
If the 2020 election was “rigged, fixed, a massive fraud,” then it was a poorly executed operation. Perhaps the next time that “Crooked” Hillary Clinton, George Soros, Warren Buffet’s chauffer, Chairman Mao’s grandson, the ghost of Hugo Chavez, and Bill Gate’s Cuban pool boy spy meet in the basement, sex-slave dungeon of the Baskin-Robbins on 42nd Street and 5th Avenue to plot their next act of world domination (and enjoy a two-scoop hot fudge sundae), they will do more than conjure up a “statistically impossible” victory for the Democratic presidential nominee.
If there were evidence of massive fraud, why doesn't his legal dream team present it in court? Because they’re lackeys, but they’re not stupid and, as officers of the court, they don’t want to end up in jail or get fined by a judge. “Despite Trump’s allegations to the contrary, his lawyers have acknowledged that they are not claiming that dead people voted or that occasional computer glitches were part of a deliberate conspiracy.” (Source: www.snopes.com)
In 2016 Trump defeated Clinton 304-227. In 2020 Biden beat Trump 306-225. That’s politics in a democratic republic with a federalist system. Trump lost the 2020 election. Time to move on. Time to work together. Time to stop indulging the ego-maniacal fantasies of a spoiled, petulant, vindictive, autocratic, erratic, and soon-to-be ex-president.
Art Sandford Sr.
Fillmore