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What Constitutes A Stolen Election? ( notes and a thread)
Stealing an election is more like fixing a deck of cards, where one player is guaranteed to come out on top. (Bertell Ollman) wrote soon after the Elections that made Bush the President.
I have been thinking about “stolen elections”, and the social conditions that make this possible since @ChandraUday first raised it
I am going to list some of the questions raised by B. Ollman, and paraphrase it
1) whether the process of voting, including the machines and methods used and the conditions that applied, lacked the transparency needed for everyone to see and to understand what was going on ?
2) whether large numbers of voters from groups likely to vote for the losing candidate experienced great difficulty in registering or voting, either at the poll or by absentee or provisional ballot;
3) whether most of the ADMITTED incidents of blocked or lost or changed or added votes favored the winning candidate;
👇🏾👇🏾 This is crucial — ; 4) whether key people in positions of power created these "problems".
Ollman ends his essay by narrating a painful scene in Michael Moore's "9/11", where several black members of Congress try to get at least one Democratic senator to sign a letter calling for a debate on the 2000 election. Without success.
And argues that the Democratic Party leaders, then & now, conceded so quickly only shows that they care more about legitimating the current governmental system&maintaining social stability than they do about the declared interests of their voters and the principles of democracy.
It’s frightening to see journalist and pundits do the same in India today, by legitimizing a deeply rigged political system that will eventually extract the country, it’s people and resources.
What we have to understand is this — the recent elections happened at the time of a great constitutional crisis, distrust of independent institutions like the Election commission.
The elections also exposed how deeply classist, castist, obsolete and dysfunctional all institutions are — from television networks to the Supreme Court there is a crisis of legitimacy.
(Globally) In majoritarian democracies elections are becoming not just a path to power, but a mandate to implement the most inhuman, unjust laws by first making a culture fertile for these impositions.
This is not just a political process, it’s a cultural project.
Brazen political thuggery, double speak, corrupting political systems, media, and culture in the process, all I ntensifies the crisis of democracy under way for the past few decades.
When elections is stolen, when there is a theft, what does it tell us ? Our democracy is under threat by forces that were heavily financed by corporate and rightwing groups, highly organized, and completely ruthless.
A friend today told me about the eerie silences on the streets of India from those who won. A discomfort , even among the followers.
What my friend observed was this This was electoral authoritarianism in full display — “the structural ambiguity electoral authoritarianism creates a degree of uncertainty for power holders.”
“It is difficult to strike a balance between the regime’s substantive authoritarian characteristics& its procedural democratic ones: When the regime acts openly authoritarian it risks appearing dictatorial,”but it becomes endangered if it takes democratic procedures too seriously
But even in the midst of a great victory, what is see is fear. Because a victory that is won at an immense cost will take far more to hold on to.... what will happen when this victory become unprofitable ?
But how do we understand what happened on the ground ?
We start by not listening to pundits, writers and those who hold court on television like it’s the last supper.
We start by not listening to pundits, writers and those who hold court on television like it’s the last supper.
Don’t listen anyone who justifies a narrative that is not what you have seen, witnessed or experienced.
The so call other, and marginal have far more political insight and clarity than children of privilege who will tell you to “introspect”.
The so call other, and marginal have far more political insight and clarity than children of privilege who will tell you to “introspect”.
As a friend recently noted; they have been “introspecting” since 2014.
It’s time we build anew. With new ideas, voices and those who have long wondered about what it means to live a good, just life. People who have imagined new political ideas and possibilities.
This is the time to build new communities and institutions.
This is the time to build new communities and institutions.
Linking more of @ChandraUday arguments here :
