The polls are wrong because polls assume that people can vote

The polls are wrong because the polls are built on one assumption. That likely voters can actually vote. That their votes will be counted. That’s precisely what Republicans are trying to stop. Indeed, they already have. Republicans are not trying to change opinions. They know they’re going to lose. They’re simply rigging the vote.

Republicans have already rigged on state elections, removed polling stations, sabotaged the post office, disputed votes that have already been cast, and are trying to call the results on election night, before votes are even counted. They’re not even hiding it. They want you to know.

While an ordinary dictator will rig an election to look like they won, Republicans are attacking the legitimacy of elections in general. This is galaxy brain fascism. Why stuff the ballot box, when you can just light the box on fire?

Trump is going to lose the vote

No one is disputing that Trump will get less votes. He lost the popular vote and he’ll lose it again. It doesn’t matter. At a core, fundamental level that baffles the rest of the world, your votes don’t count. Your electoral college is already rigged for minority rule. You already accept this despite it being wrong.

Republicans are just trying to sow enough chaos around the election to claim victory on TV and take it to the courts, which they control. And it’s not a big job. They just need a few disputes in one or a few states. The 2000 election was decided by 537 votes in Florida, after the courts stopped an automatic recount. As I said, those lawyers are now on the Supreme Court itself.

And as you know, that chaos has been sown. Trump has been calling mail-in ballots and votes against him as fraudulent in general. He has encouraged people to feel violently about this. And it’s not just Trump. The modern Republican party — from Texas to Florida to Georgia — is built on voter suppression and minority rule.

In Georgia, the Secretary of State in charge of elections ran for Governor himself. He threw out 1.5 million registered voters and shut down over 200 polling stations. In any other country you would call this a rigged election. But Americans cannot see themselves. You cannot see the failed state that you are. And now it has gone national.

I live in Sri Lanka, which has had some crazy elections, but nothing on this scale. Not even our worst leader has thought to sabotage the post office to stop mail-in voting. No one has ever attacked the legitimacy of elections themselves. Across the world, even the worst dictator wants to appear legitimate. The Republicans’ great innovation is simply not giving a fuck. They don’t care about legitimacy. They just want to win.

Americans point to hours or even days long voting lines as proof of their democratic spirit. No you fools. Almost nowhere in the world does it take more than 15 minutes to vote. Your media points to potential leads in early voting. You fools. Republicans will try to make sure those votes aren’t even counted on election night, and claim victory on TV.

Trump is going to lose the vote. That’s not what you have to worry about. America is at great risk of losing their democracy. This is your Reichstag Fire. They’re laying the kindling in front of your eyes. In that attack on the German Parliament, Hitler said there was so much chaos that he had to take over. And he did. That was the end.

You are at that point today. Wake up.

Election Fraud

Your media covers each outrage as some isolated event, but it’s not. This, in many ways, is your democracy. It’s worth remembering that the United States got universal franchise after Sri Lanka and 55 countries. At your founding, only 6% of the population could vote. Americans think they’re a leading democracy, but that’s only in an Athenian sense. You’re a nation of slavers. Your system is actually built around voter suppression.

The ⅗ Compromise counted enslaved people as less than a human, and gave their votes to their enslavers. Do you think America is better today? The American prison system disenfranchises more people than were ever enslaved. But they’re still counted in the census. Do you know where their votes go? To their jailers.

Hence modern voter suppression is not modern. American democracy is voter suppression, with some modifications to look modern. Even the Greeks would look at this and be like wait, you let the enslaved vote? And Republicans would take them aside, no, no, now we call them felons.

Even America’s paltry modifications have now fallen off. Your Voting Rights Act was gutted by the Supreme Court. You have poll taxes again in Florida. Jim Crow is all grown up and in the White House. Call it Jim Eagle now, and salute.

Your media covers voter suppression as drips and drabs, an outrage here, and outrage there, but it’s one thing. It’s just election rigging by the ruling party. That’s what you’d call it in any other state. This is why you need foreign correspondents.

Your election is so rigged that the winner of the popular vote will not win. Your election so rigged that not all votes will be counted. Your election is so rigged that one side won’t commit to the results. These are not minor norms being violated. These are the foundations of electoral democracy.

America’s election is rigged, and they want you to know it. This is your Reichstag Fire and they want you to see it burn. That’s the point. Like Hitler in 1932, if Trump wins then this is your last remotely free election for a long time. And even this election is not free.

Does this mean don’t vote? Of course not. Vote as if your health depends on it. Vote as if the Earth depends on it. Vote as if your vote depends on it.

It does.