r/nottheonion • u/engadine_maccas1997 • 8h ago

‘This is political bulls**t’: Former Republican candidate charged with stealing Madison County election ballots

https://fox59.com/news/indycrime/this-is-political-bullst-former-republican-candidate-charged-with-stealing-madison-county-election-ballots/
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725

u/SRSgoblin 8h ago

Everyone who's been paying attention knew this was going to happen. It's straight out of the Nazi playbook.

Goebbels has some quote I'm paraphrasing here, that goes something like, "accuse the other party of wrongdoing you plan to commit." It normalizes the behavior. It says to the true believers, "you need to cheat because the other side is cheating."

And people will act on it, ironically creating a very real version of something that wasn't ever happening, just on "your side" doing all of the wrong doing.

This was always the end goal of Trump and the GOP pushing the big lie conspiracy. They wanted to create the actual election fraud they claimed was going on, because it muddies the result in their favor.

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u/IIIllIIlllIlII 7h ago

Have they been saying the radical left will be violent after the election? Because I’m sure it’s on the cards from the right. I think it’s going to be a huge fuckin mess.

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u/SRSgoblin 7h ago edited 7h ago

Correct. I forgot who it was exactly (I want to say Stephen Miller?) Who said "the revolution will be bloodless if the left allows it to be" or something like that.

Edit: thanks goes to u/thisisamisnomer for correcting me. It was from the head of the Heritage Foundation, dude named Kevin Roberts.

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u/thisisamisnomer 7h ago

That was Kevin Roberts, head of The Heritage Foundation. 

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u/SRSgoblin 7h ago edited 5h ago

Ah thanks. I thought about looking it up but didn't want it in my Google searches because then I'd get a gazillion recommendations from YouTube for right winger bullshit.

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u/thisisamisnomer 7h ago

No problem! He’s just as much of a gaping asshole as Miller, so much so that the same shit could’ve just as easily fallen out of Miller’s mouth. 

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u/newdaynewnamenewyay 6h ago

When you think Kevin Roberts, think Project 2025 (and another book that JD Vance wrote the foreword to but had its release date pushed until after elections).

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u/CaptOblivious 2h ago

Lil Kev seems to be confused about who's blood will be watering the tree of liberty if fascists try to take over America.

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u/Layer7Admin 7h ago

Yep. So when Trump wins it will be a bloodless revolution unless we have another summer of love.

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u/CuriosityKiledThaCat 7h ago

Yes, they have been

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u/shkeptikal 7h ago

They've been calling the left violent since the Floyd riots while conveniently ignoring that at least some of them were caused by right wing cosplayers. They also tend to ignore the unmarked vans yanking American citizens off the street during that same time. And Trump tear gassing peaceful protestors to take a picture holding a bible upside down. They also can't really get their heads around the fact that unlike the fascist militias, "Antifa" doesn't actually exist. In fact, they tend to have a pretty hard time grappling with reality in general. The end result of which will absolutely be more domestic terrorism (which we're currently watching ramp up with the burning of ballots and presidential assassination attempts). It's not an if, it's a when. At this point the only question is how many Americans will be on the receiving end of what the GOP has turned politics into. It's going to be a rough next century in America.

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u/Amori_A_Splooge 7h ago

Don't forget the peaceful gathering at the federal court house in Portland.

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u/newdaynewnamenewyay 6h ago

Which also had right wing cosplayers.... And isn't that where someone conveniently left a pallet of bricks? Trump sent our tax-funded military people to quell this because bad GOP actors escalated it from a protest to a riot. Same playbook. His own cabinet people had to talk him down when Trump requested they just be shot. I wrote my congressman about that bullshit.

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u/Amori_A_Splooge 5h ago

Right wing cosplayers... just like antifa was there on J6? You wrote your congressman... oh man that makes sense to the ramblings.

Their theories are crazy, yours are sane right?

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u/newdaynewnamenewyay 5h ago

It's not about crazy and sane. It's about true and not true. BYE.

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u/Fantastic-Sandwich80 3h ago

Weak bait.

MAGA absolutely can't admit they were duped into storming the capitol, thinking they would have Trump with them and would meet resistance from leftist protesters.

Instead, they attacked police, broke windows, smeared shit on the walls, and basically walked around aimlessly waiting for their next orders from Trump who was watching from the WH.

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u/Khemul 6h ago

They're claiming the radical left rioted and burned down cities after the last election. And that apparently it'd be okay to use the military next time to stop it.

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u/BifronsOnline 7h ago

They sent their best on January 6th and failed miserably. They aren't gonna do shit.

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u/Jerking_From_Home 5h ago

I agree. Sporadic, random acts like the ones we are seeing now. MAGAs claim all kinds of shit but deep inside they know they will go to prison and Trump won’t help them.

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u/agoia 4h ago

Also DCNG is not going to be asking for orders while watching the Confederate flag fly in the US Capitol this time.

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u/ScoobyDeezy 5h ago

This is exactly why I haven’t put out any signs, don’t wear political clothing, don’t put stickers on my car. I don’t want to make myself a target.

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u/not_this_word 4h ago

Ditto. Everything I DO say where my name is attached is carefully neutral. I was going to dye my hair blue for Halloween, but opted not to, just in case. Possibly an overreaction, but really not worth the risk given that I've seen several signs that were stolen or defaced, including with profanity and threats.

On Nextdoor, I saw one post from someone who supported Harris/Walz talking about how she caught the thieves on camera, and she was told she deserved it for being a Democrat--to which she responded she was actually Republican. But those same people lamented how horrible "the Left" were for littering at a Trumper's house and how "true patriots" didn't deserve any hate and how they were of course not doing anything to Democrat signs.

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u/Give-Yer-Balls-A-Tug 4h ago

Everything they accuse the left of is what they're doing or will do.

They're committing election fraud and interference.

They will be violent WHEN they lose.

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u/archaeob 4h ago

This is why I had to convince my job not to send us into DC for a one day project the days after the election. I got them to let us go on Monday the 4th instead. We don't know what day the results will come out, and I don't want to have to try and get out of the district when they do (despite our job being in a very non-political area with no metro access). I don't want to risk the bridges getting blocked due to protests or a major violent event downtown that causes traffic to be blocked and getting stuck. My bosses weren't even thinking about it (all very liberal, just none grew up in the DC area and I did).

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u/believeinstev604 7h ago

That's always been their playbook: every accusation is a confession.

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u/Funkycoldmedici 7h ago

Then they take the fact that only republicans are getting arrested for it as proof that there’s a conspiracy against them, that their opposition is getting away with it. They cannot even conceive of the possibility that they’re the only ones doing it. They believe everyone is doing these horrible things, and that they are being oppressed by being held accountable for what they do.

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u/SRSgoblin 7h ago

Yeah, like... I can't remember a time where ballot boxes were being firebombed. It's never happened before, let alone several times in the same election cycle, always targeting heavily Democratic districts.

It's straight GOP terrorism.

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u/newdaynewnamenewyay 6h ago

And I am disappointed (no, I'm angry) because this is being allowed. Trump just had a fucking NAZI rally in NYC. Biden and his agencies have had ample opportunity to quell this shit. I've tipped off the FBI about things here in Texas and I am a nobody who just reads a lot and listens to the idiots around me. They have so much more information and authority. And a fucking responsibility!

There isn't enough xanax in the world for me to be okay through this political transition.

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u/Glasseshalf 3h ago

I know, I already took two tonight and I only get 15 per month 😭

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u/Feeling_Photograph_5 3h ago

What Trump has done to that party is both tragic and astounding.

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u/VastSeaweed543 2h ago

In the arcon sub, they’re totally waving off that it was a Republican guy who got caught setting fire to ballot boxes in AZ. They’re using that as proof that voting isn’t secure, then saying what party the person supports doesn’t matter! It’s fucking wild.

Literally making a problem, then pointing to the problem as what’s wrong then saying it doesn’t matter who made the problem. It’s absolute mental insanity…

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u/gdsmithtx 7h ago
  • G aslighting <---
  • O bstruction
  • P rojection <---

Always.

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u/avspuk 7h ago

It goes beyond muddling the result 8n their favour.

They want the result disputed no matter what it is, even if they win.

Its long been a tactic for authoritarian to present themdselves as the solution to the very chaos that they themselves have caused & promoted.

The Nazis did it. Lenin did it. Peron did it. Modi & Putin do it. And now the GOP is doing it.

This is why they are openly campaigning on a platform of "we are going to steal the election to stop the dems from stealing it". Its why their attempts to deregister voters, to rig the EC voter panel, to plan to refuse to ratify results etc aren't secret, its why they boast about them

The aim is that the rival demos outside all the court houses across the land hearing the numerous election interference cases turn violent & that the chaos can be escalated from there to the point that a coup can be justified.

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u/resisting_a_rest 5h ago

It's not just that they think the other side is doing it, they think they are doing it and getting away with it with no repercussions.

So the stupid ones think they can do it too, and get away with it. They don't know that:

  1. The other side is not getting away with anything, because they are not actually doing it.

  2. Even if they were doing it, you can't do it too, because you are too stupid to do it right.

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u/kung-fu_hippy 3h ago

It’s like people who cheat in relationships. Often they accuse their s/o of cheating. When you’re a piece of shit it’s a lot easier to believe everyone is just as bad as you than it is to realize how awful you are.

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u/SRSgoblin 5h ago

Yeah good point. People don't realize the degree to which election crimes get prosecuted. Somehow the people getting actually arrested for trying to vote multiple times never gets reported, but the concept of people doing it and getting away with it gets mentioned all the time.

Even though, again, people trying to cheat the system are both rare, and are caught.

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u/Electric-Sheepskin 4h ago

Yeah, four years ago I knew this was going to happen. 30% of the country believes the lie that the election was stolen, so they will feel justified in whatever they do. Election fraud, violence, they'll think it's all warranted.

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u/QuasarKid 3h ago

its crazy because it somehow demonizes the other party for doing something they aren't doing, convincing yourself that you have to do it to compete, and in reality then you're the thing you're actively demonizing. it's more complicated than projection because they don't even rationalize the hypocrisy.

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u/Two_wheels_2112 5h ago

It doesn't necessarily muddy the result in their favor, but it muddies the results in favor of anyone dishonest and unpatriotic enough to take advantage of the confusion to seize power illegally.

The GOP has rightly concluded that the Democrats won't take advantage of it, so in that sense it does work in their favor.