EDITOR:
This letter in response to the manifesto published by Platte County Republican Central Committee (viewable here: https://plattecountylandmark.com/2022/08/11/local-republicans-say-bidens-election-not-valid/) to disavow the 2020 election.
I can only say that my father’s Republican party is unrecognizable to me today. I am suffering from such fatigue and disillusionment in my fellow Americans who seem so willing to bring down our democracy and the institutions that make it work.
Any democracy is built on a foundation of: 1. laws created to form a common feeling of justice and fairness, 2. policing bodies to enforce those laws, 3. courts to pass judgement of whether the laws were violated, 4. and possibly most important, free and fair elections in which the citizens can trust. Without the last, no democracy can survive. The one thing that has most set the United States of America apart from other countries, and for which we have always been proudest is our remarkable peaceful transition of power by our office holders.
By attacking our elections and our election boards and denying the results and the facts presented by bipartisan civil servants that the election was both fair and accurate, Republican deniers are attacking the very fabric of our democracy. Never before has any candidate or office holder been so myopically self-interested that they have been willing to put their own ego and lust for power above the good of our country’s welfare. And never before have so many seemed willing to blindly perpetuate the myth of a stolen election resulting in tipping our all too fragile democracy to the breaking point.
I notice that the Platte County Republican Central Committee is quick to say that OUR Platte County Board of Elections did a good job (they are correct), but apparently all those OTHER election boards are made up of liars and cheats—despite the fact that ALL are made up of bipartisan civil servants.
To the Platte County Republican Central Committee I can only ask why you:
•Choose to ignore the recording of Georgia’s REPUBLICAN Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, in which the acting President demands Raffensperger “find” enough votes to overturn the election—even being specific “I need 11,000 votes.” (In his own words: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbFc9T7KXA0 )
•Choose to ignore the over 60 court cases Trump brought claiming election fraud only to be dismissed by the courts which found they were “without merit”. Are all these courts also cheaters and in on the “conspiracy”?
•Choose to ignore the sworn testimony of Arizona Republican House Speaker Rusty Bowers (and Trump voter) as he described the harassment and threats he has been subject to when he refused to bow to Trump’s pressure to overturn the Arizona election because it was “wrong”.
•Choose to ignore the Jan 6 mob of insurrectionists that attacked the Capitol chanting the election was stolen and that they would “hang Mike Pence” because he would not bow to Trump’s pressure to overturn the election.
•Choose to ignore the joint statement issued by the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) that “The November 3rd election was the most secure in American history.”
•Choose to ignore the testimony by his own appointees and people who made up his inner circle: Attorney General Bill Barr, acting deputy attorney general Richard Donoghue, attorney Eric Herschmann, his campaign manager Bill Stepien, and even his own daughter Ivanka among others who tried to convince him that he had lost, but he did not listen then and continues to perpetuate the lie.
•Choose to ignore the fact that the man who said, “You don’t take the Fifth unless you have something to hide”, claimed the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination 440 times in four hours last Wednesday the 10th in New York.
And now, after choosing to ignore any evidence to the contrary, the Platte County Republican Committee, without shame or hesitation, is making the same claim that the January 6th insurrectionists made — that the election was stolen. By being unwilling to seek out any facts but those being presented by a very narrow segment of politicians and special interest groups determined to feed and amplify the anger for their own benefit, you seem willing to burn down the house because you don’t like the paint job!
--C.F. Hunt, Parkville
