Saturday, November 12, 2022

We're Lucky to Live in Maryland

For some reason, this throwaway story from the Washington Post has been bugging me for a couple of days.

A guy ran for Attorney General of Maryland and lost by 300,000 votes. The people did not select him to manage the state's legal processes. It wasn't close. The voters of the state wanted Anthony Brown to be Attorney General, and that's who they chose.

But this guy doesn't accept that. The day after the election he sent an email to his supporters that said "many odd and suspicious incidents were reported by poll watchers, and more reports are being gathered today." Uh huh, pretty wild times here in shoot 'em up, Wild West Maryland, where outlaws roam the land.

On the other hand, this just in: The Maryland State Board of Elections said it "works with the local boards of elections to determine whether referral of reported activities to the Office of the State Prosecutor is warranted. At this time, SBE is not aware of any such incidents. Marylanders can be confident in the integrity of the state’s election processes and that any potentially inappropriate activity will be thoroughly investigated."

So if there have been any "odd and suspicious incidents," nobody bothered to tell the election board about them.

What do you think? Do you believe there really were "odd and suspicious incidents," or is this just what Republicans say now? Oh, by the way, the candidate, Michael Peroutka, is a Republican, did I mention that?

Peroutka’s extreme positions on a number of issues would have made it difficult for him to win in a state where Democrats hold a 2-to-1 registration advantage over Republicans. He opposed abortion without exceptions, was against same-sex marriage, said that public schools were part of a socialist plan to indoctrinate children against their parents, and would not disavow his association with the League of the South, which the Southern Poverty Law Center has categorized as a hate group.

Peroutka also once shared debunked conspiracy theories about who was responsible for the 9/11 attacks. When Peroutka’s false claims surfaced again earlier this year, Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) blasted him, saying, “These disgusting lies don’t belong in our party.”

Peroutka says he will not concede Maryland attorney general race

Yeah, well our outgoing Republican governor Hogan is living in a dreamworld. These disgusting lies are his party. There is nothing else left.

I think what got me is that this guy wants to be Attorney General, of all things. He wants the responsibility to make decisions about prosecuting people for breaking the law. His office would be the contact point between the government and the people, the fulcrum where the force of law is applied to individuals, and yet he does not seem to believe that the laws apply to him, or, we presume (since trashing democracy is a current rightwing fad), those who share his sense of privilege. We have laws about election procedures, with layers of people appointed to implement the procedures and to monitor them, double-check everything, report any irregularities, investigate odd and strange stuff, and nobody reported anything. This guy is pulling whiny victimhood out of ... thin air.

Imagine living in a state where the majority of people actually accept Peroutka's views as normal American life. Your neighbors are walking around thinking that everything is being controlled by secret conspiracies behind the scenes and people like themselves never get a fair deal -- when they vote, dark forces (maybe even BLM and ANTIFA, or at least somebody paid by George Soros) manipulate the ballots and switch their vote to a radical leftist candidate. You can't trust the government, and if you follow the law you're just a big sucker. And so you elect an Attorney General who will enforce the law based on those premises, that everything is rigged against white people and everybody is cheating all the time. Do you think the citizens of such a state can get a fair trial, when government lawyers believe it's okay to lie in court and distort evidence, because they just know that the other side is doing it? Is it possible to enforce the law fairly when you start from these assumptions? There are a lot of states that would have elected this nut to administer the law.

We are lucky to live in Maryland.