It’s time for SLO County Republicans to face facts. Joe Biden is the president-elect
Nearly four years ago, millions of people in cities across the nation — including San Luis Obispo — took to the streets in a show of solidarity for women’s rights.
The Women’s March, the largest one-day demonstration in U.S. history, wasn’t billed as a protest of Donald Trump’s election, but that’s what inspired many to take part.
Four years later, supporters of President Trump are just as appalled by the outcome of the election as Women’s Marchers were back then.
We respect their right to wave their Trump flags, wear their MAGA caps and caravan down the main streets of our Central Coast communities — just as we respected the rights of Trump’s opponents to march in opposition four years ago.
What we don’t respect, though, is the party’s general insistence on undermining the electoral process by making outlandish claims that the election was “stolen” and pleading for donations to finance the president’s legal battles — some of which have already been tossed out of court.
It’s one thing for members of Team Trump to express anger and disappointment. It’s another to deliberately make outrageous claims that undermine one of our most sacred institutions — our elections — as well as the dedicated officials in charge of running them.
A few Republican leaders have shown their maturity and strength of character by stepping up and facing reality and acknowledging Biden’s win — perhaps none more effectively than Utah Sen. Mitt Romney.
“I don’t think there’s a widespread conspiracy of some kind,” he said on CNN. “Those things just don’t happen the way people would anticipate they might. You’ve got several state, a number of states, that have come out in favor of Joe Biden’s election and so you might get a change in one state, but getting enough to change the outcome I think is pretty difficult at this stage.”
Other GOP leaders, particularly in California?
Not so much.
Not that we’d expect Trump acolytes like Devin Nunes or Kevin McCarthy to acknowledge Biden’s win, but we’d hoped that of our more moderate local GOP leaders, like Assemblyman Jordan Cunningham, might come out more decisively and urge their followers to face reality.
When contacted by The Tribune, Cunningham said, “Every vote should be counted, and the democratic process should be respected,” while stopping short of commenting on the local “Stop the Steal” MAGA drag.
Others either haven’t spoken out publicly — including county Supervisors John Peschong, Lynn Compton and Debbie Arnold — or have bought into the whole farce — like Randall Jordan, chair of the San Luis Obispo County Republican Party.
“We must fight back and help President Trump expose election fraud,” Jordan wrote in an email to Republican Party members.
He warned that Democrats “are trying to destroy this election and our great nation with the socialist election agenda.”
Jordan offered no examples of “election fraud” in San Luis Obispo County or even in California, though he did share a Fox News interview with attorney Sidney Powell, whose clients include Gen. Michael Flynn.
She alleges dead people voted in “vast numbers” and says computers were used to “flip” votes from Trump to Biden.
And here’s the money quote: “We’ve identified at least 450,000 ballots in the key states that miraculously only have a mark for Joe Biden on them and no other candidates.”
That’s no miracle. That’s simply an indication that some voters weren’t particularly interested in other races. And it’s not unusual, according to a Washington Post analysis.
“Americans have a long and demonstrated history of voting for president and skipping all or much of the rest of the ballot. It’s a practice known as undervoting,” writes Aaron Blake, a senior political reporter.
He also did the math and calculated that only 2% of voters in those key states voted only for president. That’s not evidence of a “stolen” election.
If any local GOP leaders have real evidence of widespread voter fraud, we invite them to come forward and share it.
If not, we’d encourage them to help begin the healing process by accepting the election results and moving ahead in a bipartisan way.
If they can’t do that, they are best saying nothing at all while the vote recounts and legal challenges play out, rather than feeding the flames of the ugly partisan war that’s not only turned neighbors, friends and even family members against one another, but also has made it impossible to compromise on the most basic issues at every level of government.
To adapt a line from President-Elect Biden’s speech, let this grim era of demonization in America begin to end here and now — including in our own communities on the Central Coast.