Critical Election Theory
How the cult of the rigged election functions like wokeness and the illiberal left.
A line from the film Batman: The Dark Knight has been playing in my head over and over in the last week: “You either die a hero or see yourself become the villain.” In some circles of the cultural and political right, these words are becoming true: The right has thus far escaped death, but may, in the end, become a villain.
The past year has made it easy the criticize the Democrats and the left. They’ve nurtured, preached, and wholeheartedly embraced a totalizing ideology that doubles as a sort of quasi-religion. They’ve painted their political opponents as enemies, as inherently reprehensible figures. They’ve called all who stand in their way racists, homophobes, transphobes, bigots, and any other pejorative associated with the postmodern analysis of Western culture. They’ve instilled within their ranks a cult-like culture, a poisonous religious environment wherein outsiders and dissidents are treated as anathema.
This gives the right, of course, plenty of political fodder – and rightfully so. (I myself have written on multiple occasions about this woke culture and its ramifications on society and religion.)
But now, in the wake of the election and the slew of lawsuits by President Trump that allege widespread voter fraud, the right has created a cult of its own: the cult of the rigged election.
Because of its religious features, and the personal religion of many of its members, this cult, in many ways, mirrors the behavior of the woke and the critical theorists.
In October, the writer Andrew Sullivan highlighted six functions of wokeness, and why, culturally speaking, it has gained such widespread acceptance: it plays on the emotions; it’s easy to understand; it’s tribal; it gives one a sense of “social aspiration”; it functions as a religion; and it’s ruthless.
If we, point by point, compare this analysis of wokeness to the cult of the rigged election, it passes the eye test.
First, it plays on the emotions. Both in 2016 and 2020, one of the many Trumpian tactics has been to strike fear in the hearts of voters. When he ran against Hillary Clinton, Trump emphasized the former secretary of state’s corruption and her ineptitude for office. If she couldn’t keep her emails protected, how could she be trusted as commander in chief? In 2020, Trump played on old American apprehensions toward socialism: “The Democratic Party is the party of socialists and Marxists!” has been one of his claims. Another one has been that the left “wants to take away your constitutional rights!”
And now, the Trumpian right, facing the prospect of a Biden presidency, which they have been told will surely bring about the end of America as we know it, is in a full-blown panic; they don’t know what to do. The memory of the Red Scare and McCarthyism haunts their dreams, and the horrific “S” and “M” words bring to the fore long repressed PTSD. The right, having been fed a diet of fear, now believes the entire world is against them; their bogeyman is the entirety of progressive politics.
To be fair, I share many of their concerns. I worry about a Biden presidency and the extent to which he will make woke politics manifest; I, too, am concerned with the growing radicalism of the Democratic Party. Those are major reasons why I voted for Trump in November. But as things stand now, based on the staff picks Biden is making, we’re looking at four years of Obama 2.0 – which isn’t a good thing, but it is a far cry from the socialist revolution we were promised by the Trump campaign.
Second, the cult of the rigged election is easy to understand. The logic, roughly, goes something like this: Republicans love America. Democrats hate America. Republicans want to play by the rules. The Democrats are willing to do anything to win. It’s a very simple binary. Anything the right wants to uncritically believe about itself, it does; and the left, then, become whatever is the opposite of that thing.
The cult is also tribal. If you don’t believe in it, you are castigated. Unless you believe there was a unified, top-down conspiracy to ensure that Donald Trump could never win reelection, you are, in this instance, considered to be complicit in a system of electoral and political thievery – never mind, of course, that Democrats lost significant traction in the House and are not guaranteed to win the Senate.
Fourth, it gives members a sense of “social aspiration.” That is, believing in a rigged election makes one a patriot, a fighter, and thus morally virtuous. Unlike many GOP leaders, and anchors on Fox News, those who still vehemently maintain that Donald Trump won the election label themselves as heroes; those who have “given in” to the left, on the other hand, are “servile.” Some even say that conservatives who refuse to publicly decry this self-evident election fraud — or even worse, the Christian never Trumpers who didn’t vote for him in 2016 — are in fact trying to save themselves from the gulags when the “Great Reset” occurs.
Fifth, this cult functions like a fully fledged religion. Donald Trump is their metaphorical savior, sent by God to “own the libs” and take back the country in the name of Christ. “God is on our side,” says Eric Metaxas, a popular pro-Trump voice. “This is a cause I’m willing to die for,” he claims. The tone of religious superiority is soaked in the garb of sacrificial martyrdom.
Sixth, the cult of the rigged election is ruthless. Granted, it may not be as ruthless as the looting, rioting mobs of Antifa, but it’s ruthless nonetheless: it holds no punches, and it plays dirty. It’s hard to think of another time in recent memory where religion has become so inextricably linked to the politics. It doesn’t matter if someone’s a conservative; if they disagree with you about the election, they’re your enemy. It also doesn’t matter if they’re a Christian; if they believe Trump lost the election, fair and square, they are servile, backstabbing snakes only intent on saving their own skin.
But there’s also one last area in which the cult of the rigged election mirrors the behaviors of wokeness, which has also been articulated by Sullivan and others: it’s entirely unfalsifiable. The American Conservative blogger, Rod Dreher, has recently reported a conversation he had with an acquaintance who is a member of the cult:
There are a lot of conservative Christians in America who dream. They cannot bring themselves to accept that Donald Trump lost this election. I was on the phone the other day with a friend who insisted that Trump had this election stolen from him. What’s the evidence? My friend had none. I pointed out that I sort of know through Orthodox church circles Judge Stephanos Bibas, the Philadelphia federal judge who authored the opinion dismissing the Trump legal team’s challenge to the vote there. I told my friend that Judge Bibas is a brilliant man, profoundly conservative and morally upright. If he says there is no evidence to back Team Trump’s claims, then you can take that to the bank.
My friend insisted that no, Biden stole the election.
“But why?” I said, exasperated.
“It’s just a feeling.”
Sound familiar? It does to me. It reminds me of the conversations I have with my woke friends: When I press them for specific evidence proving deeply entrenched, “systemic” racism and oppression, their responses, under criticism, basically boil down to subjective “lived experiences” and encounters with “microaggressions,” which perhaps amount to genuine racism – but only on the individual, not systemic, level.
Before I totally lose all my readers who believe that Donald Trump truly and legitimately won the election, and before you all unsubscribe from my newsletter and never read a word I write ever again, let me qualify a few things: I, first of all, expected Trump to file lawsuits if it appeared that he was going to lose – Trump said as much himself; and second, I suspected – and still do – that there was, indeed, voter fraud, though, in all likelihood, not enough to overturn the current results. I also believe that it is within Trump’s every legal right to pursue any and all allegations of suspicious behavior.
However. Normally, when a lawsuit is filed, evidence is found prior to going to court – it is usually only in the cases of fraudulent litigation that evidence is acquired after the initial legal submission.
If the allegations of fraud are as strong as the Trump legal team and Sidney Powell claim, Trump’s success rate should be higher; a measly 1-46 record simply isn’t convincing enough for me to believe that there is enough evidence in virtually every close swing state that would be necessary to guarantee Trump a narrow electoral victory.
A traditional core tenet of the conservative philosophical position is to be reasonable, and to deal with facts fairly. This principle carries with it an inherent responsibility – a responsibility to rise above the irrationalism of the left since it embraced postmodernism in the 1960s and 70s, critical theory in the 1990s, and violent social activism in 2020.
Furthermore, the responsibility to be rational and clear-minded is compounded by the fact that the leaders of the cult are largely Christians. As people of faith, they should carry an inherent understanding of the witness they show to the world. Reckless rhetoric and blind faith should not be given – ever. The Christian faith offers evidence and doesn’t demand baseless commitment; why, then, should Christians act differently when their circumstances are misaligned with their preferences?
There is no problem with Trump voters holding onto hope that the president will pull off a miraculous legal victory that would ensure him another four years in the White House. But there is an inherent, hypocritical element to their behavior when they (rightfully) accuse the left of embracing radical, postmodern theories, while denying every shred of electoral evidence before them.
Having narrowly escaped execution in the 2020 election, the right must not become the thing it has sought to combat: an irrational, unfalsifiable, totalizing theory in which no one but true believers are deemed righteous.
PODACAST EPISODE 1: Last week, I announced a four-part podcast miniseries that would reflect on the year. Originally, I had planned for the first installment to be a solo episode. But, after some thought, I’ve decided to save that episode for last, and instead begin by releasing three conversations I had with people from my small corners of the world.
This week, I’ll be talking with Robert Powers, a PhD student in the history department at Louisiana State University. You can find our conversation on Spotify here, and on Anchor here. Later this week, this episode will be released on Apple podcasts, which I will provide the link for when it becomes available.