If your democrat friends start muttering about stolen election conspiracy theories, the time to have a sit down with them and express your concerns is NOW, while you still have a chance to reach them, not 6 months from now when they're fully conspiracy-pilled.
Here's some of the talking points and why they're bullshit:
- '10 million votes don't just disappear!' -> Joe Biden's 81 million votes were a statistical outlier, sparked by the recent experience of the Trump presidency. The democrats failed to maintain that sense of urgency, but Harris still got more votes than Hillary Clinton, more than Obama and more than any previous democratic candidate. These numbers are not weird at all.
- 'The Republicans tried to infiltrate election- and vote counting organizations!' -> yeah, they did, and yet hundreds of independent legal observers didn't see anything go wrong enough to raise any alarms. Independent exit polls are also very consistently similar to the counted votes. Tons of international organizations specialized in this stuff observed the election and didn't see a reason to raise the alarm.
- 'But I know a dozen democrats whose mail-in votes were not counted!' -> In any election a certain number of votes are registered as invalid because something was wrong with the ballot. In a country the size of the US, that translates to many thousands of votes. The internet allows these people to find each other, creating the false impression that a suspiciously large group of votes was not valid.
- 'Musk used Star Link to mess with electronic voting!' -> Electronic voting machines are not connected to the internet and dozens of independent media have already debunked this myth. It is absolutely impossible to use Star Link to fake election results.
- 'There is voter disenfranchisement!' -> This is true. This has always been true, for every election. It's an issue worth talking about but it's not a special secret conspiracy that's unique to this election.
But just as importantly as the facts: sit down with your friend and talk about the anxiety that's behind their conspiracy leanings. Acknowledge their pain and fear. Help them find ways to feel less powerless and regain their sense of agency. Take them to a mutual aid event, involve them in a fundraising event for a marginalized group, invite them to a local community effort. If they spend more time feeling connection and empowerment and less time doom scrolling online, they're far more likely to stay in reality.
This one broke containment and that's good. The people I'm trying to reach are probably not my usual audience.
However, it is fucking annoying to see people in the notes going 'YES! We should be putting all the blame on the non voters instead!'. No, fuck you. Drop the conspiracy thinking but also drop the scapegoating. It's the Party's job to offer people something that they want to vote for, not the other way around.
It's time to face head on that the Democratic Party has failed people. By supporting a genocide, by not raising minimum wage and living standards, by not actually ending the pandemic, by pushing anti-immigrant ads and campaigning towards the right and taking their base for granted. They've failed.
There's multiple ways to move forward from this. Improve the democrats, join a third party, prepare to protest, or focus on mutual aid and community building instead: choose your own adventure. There are a lot of ways to make things a little less shit. All of them involve building bridges towards the people that have been failed by the Democratic Party. All of them involve solidarity and understanding.
Spending the next 4 years shouting at nonvoters or disappearing into a conspiracy is going to make things worse, not better.
