Harris campaign image. Facebook
Harris campaign image. Facebook
Some of Elon Musk's comments in his catfight with Trump have resurrected the question lurking in the minds of many.
Republished with permission from John Pavlovitz
For a brief moment, watching Donald Trump and Elon Musk in a petty, posturing social media catfight was amusing; a welcome bit of schadenfreude seeing the unholy marriage of two of the most reprehensible human beings on the planet go south so spectacularly, so quickly. For a timeline so bereft of good news, their squabbling briefly lifted our emotional sails and took our minds away from the Category 5 shitstorm that is America lately.
But when you remember that this drug-addled, delusional billionaire who infiltrated our government and this vile, traitorous, felon-r*pist are responsible for such rapid destruction to our nation’s systems of governance and agencies of care for our citizenry, and when you begin to inventory the suffering and unrest they’ve triggered throughout the world—suddenly the tragedy comes into full view: neither of them should likely be here at all.
I’ve long suggested that the Democrats’ most grievous error (among many) was not calling for a recount or forensic audit of the election results in at least a single swing state, especially with the highly unlikely scenario of Trump winning all seven. It would have been a simple effort to ensure that the voting machine tabulation reports reflected the actual results, and with so much hanging in the balance for our nation, it seemed the very least they could and should have done.
In the Late fall of 2024, Kamala Harris’ rallies were the stuff of legend: with massive, exuberant overflow crowds showing up in every single stop of the campaign to hear a bold, eloquent, unifying message of America’s possibilities, while Trump was teetering around half-filled venues a third of the size, nonsensically mumbling out rambling word salads and personal grievances. Harris so thoroughly dismantled Trump during their first debate that he refused another.
One candidate was surging and vital, the other lumbering and listless.
Dems were canvassing in numbers they hadn’t seen in years, thanks to a passionate groundswell of support on the ground from energized voters.
News coverage of early voting, often seen as favoring Democratic candidates, showed overwhelming turnout throughout the country.
As election day approached, the national polls were close, but several of the critical swing states were favoring Harris, and it was widely believed that she had numerous possible electoral paths to the presidency, while Trump had very few.
It would have taken a near-perfect storm of Trump turnout, Dem ambivalence, and Independent apathy to hand Trump victory, and, well, you know the rest.
In one of his recent petulant, scorned-lover X posts, Elon wrote: “Without me, Trump would have lost the election, Dems would control the House, and the Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate.”
And yes, we might interpret that as Musk publicly reminding Trump of the difference his financial contributions, campaign appearances, and social media interference all made in the 2024 outcome, but it’s also as likely that he is saying all he can without implicating himself in a crime, one that he, if anyone, was completely capable of.
Is it so difficult to believe that the richest and most powerful man on the planet, whose technological reach is unmatched, didn’t leverage that to alter the results of an election, given that back in June of 2024, he tweeted, “Anything can be hacked”?
Several times during the campaign, Trump asserted that he “already had the votes,” and for some reason, no one in the mainstream media batted an eye. And while it’s far too late for a nation already being swallowed up by authoritarianism to course-correct, maybe it’s time Democrats and members of the media perform the due diligence necessary to ensure that the election results were sound. As America teeters on the edge of fascism, we deserve that much.
Requesting such verification in no way means that we’re “just like the other side,” as many even on the Left suggest. Following the 2020 election, Republicans received recounts and brought 60-plus court cases, all of which showed zero evidence of election interference or voter fraud. Yet, they still claim to have won that election, now going so far as to move to have this taught in history classes.
This isn’t that.
No one is saying for certain that the 2024 election was rigged, but I and others are saying that with the stakes as high as they were, with Musk’s abrupt pivot to Trump during the campaign, and with the more than dubious statements by each of them both during and after the election, the bare minimum should have been done to protect America from the farcical sideshow drama surrounding a sitting president and his billionaire-ex that we’re currently enduring, and the irreparable harm both of these men have done to our nation and to the world.
Without question, we would be a far safer, more diverse, more stable, more economically viable nation with Kamala Harris at the helm, and given all that we’re witnessing, it’s not unreasonable to believe that perhaps that is where she should be.
Do you believe the 2024 election results were sound? Do you believe Elon Musk’s interference was within the bounds of legality? Should the Democrats have done more to verify the results? Let me know in the comments.
John Pavlovitz is a writer, pastor, and activist from Wake Forest, North Carolina. A 25-year veteran in the trenches of local church ministry, John is committed to equality, diversity, and justice—both inside and outside faith communities. When not actively working for a more compassionate planet, John enjoys spending time with his family, exercising, cooking, and having time in nature. He is the author of A Bigger Table, Hope and Other Superpowers, Low, and Stuff That Needs to Be Said.
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