I’m generally not the type to take part in public protests, and would rather avoid them. Instead of demonstrating, I regularly call my representatives in the Senate and the House to voice my views on policy and legislation as a constituent. Despite constant gridlock in Congress, this has seemed like a much more efficient and effective way to civically engage than gathering in public squares.
And over the years, we’ve all seen viral videos, captured by shaky cell phone cameras, of select demonstrators who have somehow gotten caught up in confused and frenzied street scraps. The videos often have little context (how did these confrontations start and who is at fault?), and are typically not a great look for anyone involved. One of the last things I would want is to inadvertently stumble into a volatile situation, with an ugly, decontextualized video record there for the world to see.
Despite my natural reservations, I feel strongly that, in addition to continuing to call my representatives in Congress, I should be present in Washington on Jan. 6 to stand with my fellow Americans against what citizens of the United States and untold billions around the world are witnessing: an attempted heist of the presidency and an undermining of our electoral system’s integrity by way of election fraud.
A summary, with extensive source notes, of the overwhelming evidence of fraud across six states is provided in Dr. Peter Navarro’s report titled “The Immaculate Deception.” For those who had been paying attention, though, Navarro’s report was simply further confirmation of what was already known.
To recap only a few of the numerous issues surrounding the 2020 presidential election, there was election night itself, with an abrupt vote-counting stoppage in Georgia after a mysterious “water main break,” followed early the next morning by mail-in ballot dumps of hundreds of thousands of ballots in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. These ballot dumps favored Joe Biden by suspiciously wide margins and made the first post-election-night cuts into Trump’s leads in those states.
In Michigan, windows of a ballot counting center were papered over so that counting could not be observed. In Georgia, as captured on surveillance video, hidden boxes of ballots were pulled out from under tables and run through counting machines without observers present. Then, of course, there are the dead voters, the non-resident voters, and those who voted multiple times in the states being contested. Hundreds of sworn affidavits detailing witnessed irregularities and allegations of fraud have been provided by those directly involved in all aspects of the election, its process, and its infrastructure.
Having grown up in northwest Indiana, within the Chicago media market, I have long been familiar with the concept and reality of alleged political-machine-style election fraud in the tradition of the late Chicago mayor and political boss Richard J. Daley. However, I had not considered that this kind of fraud could be carried out in a presidential election, across multiple states, and on a result-changing scale all at once. And yet, hyperbolic health concerns surrounding COVID-19 provided the perfect pretext for the short-notice expansion of mail-in voting procedures that were designed to be abused.
Americans are being ordered by many in government, and through censorship in social media, to abandon their intellectual honesty, suspend their common sense, and ignore what they have seen.
Yes, Trump regularly brought in tens of thousands of supporters at his campaign events, won Florida and Ohio and 18 of 19 bellwether counties across the country, and received more votes than any sitting president in history, we are told. But Joe Biden, despite a remarkably light campaign schedule, campaign event crowd sizes measured in dozens rather than thousands, and the complete absence of a down-ballot “blue wave” on election night, received more legal votes than Trump, and more votes than President Barack Obama did in both 2008 and 2012, we are asked to believe.
If the presidential office is effectively stolen through the Chicago-style chicanery and fraudulent tactics that we have seen in Detroit, Philadelphia, and Atlanta, the integrity of our electoral system will have been fundamentally undermined, American voters across the nation will have been disenfranchised, and there will be no basis for faith in fair processes and outcomes in future elections. This is more than enough reason for every American to stand up and protest, and for every legal and constitutional avenue to be pursued in defense of our nation’s integrity and future as a constitutional republic.
Beyond the most fundamental issue of defending the integrity of our electoral system, Trump’s legitimate election to a second term is also more than worth defending, regardless of party affiliation, based on what his continued leadership will mean for our trajectory and future as a nation.
A crucial reason why Trump has been able to effectively push for policies that benefit American citizens and workers, rather than special interest groups and the political establishment in both major political parties, is that he’s an independently successful entrepreneur whose campaigns have been largely self-financed and run. He’s therefore not beholden to donors or the political establishment and, to their great chagrin, isn’t answerable to their interested guidance as typical politicians unfortunately have been.
Despite relentless, some might say rabid, opposition to Trump throughout his first term, he has worked tirelessly to rehabilitate our domestic industrial base, stop the shipment of American jobs abroad, and stand up against abuses perpetrated upon the United States by geopolitical rivals and ideological adversaries, particularly authoritarian China.
Having previously lived in China for several years, I’m deeply aware of the antipathy that the People’s Republic of China has for the United States and for the principles of freedom, democracy, and human rights that we champion at home and around the world. Trump, through economic policy, military strategy, and support of a free and democratic Taiwan, has struck at the core of authoritarian China’s plan—outlined in Michael Pillsbury’s book “The Hundred-Year Marathon”—to comprehensively overtake the United States as the world’s foremost power. The Chinese Communist Party would like nothing better than to see Trump exit the White House on Jan. 20, with a malleable career politician replacing him.
The United States has reached a crossroads that compels us to exercise our rights and freedoms as citizens to stand up for the integrity of our electoral system, our franchise as American voters, and our future success as a nation. For this reason, on Jan. 6 in Washington, I will be publicly protesting for the first time. The battle may roil markets and discomfit the political establishment, but the issues and principles at stake are too important to ignore.
