Disinformation is Meant to Destroy our Democracy

Recently, the Arizona Capitol Times held one of its “Morning Scoop” series of webinars on the “2022 Midterm Elections.” Gary Grado, the Executive Editor, had pulled together highly credible election professionals from the AZ Secretary of State, the Maricopa County election offices, the AZ Clean Elections Commission, and the private sector.

Before they uttered the first words on the 2022 elections – about the candidates, issues, and integrity of the elections process – the 2020 elections deniers were posting in the webinar’s chat box how corrupt the Arizona election for President was.

Disinformation before the facts

Their organized disinformation campaign was filled with unproven accusations of thousands of fraudulent ballots being counted, non-citizens voting, and condemnation of Dominion Voting Systems’ machines. Yet, even while the webinar panelists of experts were voicing – sometimes simultaneously to the chat lies — credible facts and information to the contrary.

If the election deniers had looked up from their keyboards and listened, they would have heard the truth from elections experts. But as has been all too evident in Arizona of late, they hear only what they want to hear from a twice-impeached and disgraced former President. They hear what they want to hear from a Republican Arizona legislative “hearing” that only produced the false banner of “election integrity” to be waived as justification for their illegitimate cause.

Thankfully, during the webinar, the depth of their delusional propaganda was replied to equally and forcefully by other chat box scribes that countered with unequivocal facts about the integrity of Arizona elections past and future. The panelists called our elections the “gold standard” of state elections for the entire nation.

The parallels between the disinformation about the election deniers, the explosion of right-wing school board agitators, and the anti-vaxxers fueling the Covid pandemic have one simple dogma. If they sow enough distrust in these most visible institutions of our democracy – fair elections, quality public education, and competent health care – they can weaken our faith democracy. And if accomplished, they can impose their Christian nationalist white supremacy against all others, and autocratic governance no matter the actual outcome of future elections.

The goal: destroying trust in democracy

As Barton Gellman wrote in The Atlantic in the December 6, 2021 issue, “For more than a year now, state Republican operatives have been building an apparatus of election theft. Elected officials in Arizona and other states have studied Donald Trump’s crusade to overturn the 2020 election. Some of them have rewritten statutes to seize partisan control of decisions about which ballots to count and which to discard, which results to certify, and which to reject. They are driving out or stripping power from election officials who refused to go along with the plot last November, aiming to replace them with exponents of the Big Lie. They are fine-tuning a legal argument that purports to allow state legislators to override the choice of the voters.”

Like Brian Williams, the now-retired host on MSNBC put it in his final farewell, “The truth is I’m not a liberal or a conservative. I’m an institutionalist. I believe in this place and my love of country I yield to no one.”

“But the darkness on the edge of town has spread to the main roads and highways and neighborhoods. It’s now at the local bar, and the bowling alley, at the school board, in the grocery store. And it must be acknowledged and answered for.”

“Grown men and women who swore an oath to our Constitution — elected by their constituents have decided to join the mob and become something they are not, while hoping we somehow forget who they were. They’ve decided to burn it all down with us inside. That should scare you to no end.”

A call to action

We must:

• Fight to protect our smoldering institutions by registering others to vote.
• Turn out massive numbers of Democrats, Independents, and enlightened Republicans to vote no on Proposition 307, which will be on the 2022 ballot, to oppose the “flat tax” and thereby support public education.
• Vote out the Republican majority in the Arizona legislature that went along with Doug Ducey’s pandemic inaction and frivolous policy arguments that cost thousands of Arizona lives.
• Call out the disinformation efforts wherever and whenever they rise to harm our democracy.