guest COMMENTARY

Election Integrity: The Firewall That Keeps America Free

During the last year and a half, it’s become obvious to anyone whose head is not in the sand that America has been under assault on multiple levels from within. There is no denying that the COVID-19 viral invasion was a catalyst for so much of the disruption of 2020, culminating in election irregularity in November.

By spring 2020, normal activities and businesses were largely shut down nationwide by federal and local governments’ response to COVID-19. Antifa and BLM protests and riots in May and June brought the costliest manmade damage to American property in history. Then the cancel culture, already ensconced and in control of college and university campuses, came to the streets and parks of America in the tearing down historic monuments — all the while law enforcement was coming under severe attack with numerous police departments facing prospects of defunding.

This lockdown- crisis environment gave Democrats an opportunity to push for change in state election rules to their advantage, such as allowing wholesale distribution of mail-in ballots, extending deadlines for counting those ballots, and legal challenges to voter ID and signature verification laws. And we all now know the result: the November 3rd election was characterized by unprecedented election irregularities and charges of vote fraud in more states than any prior election.

The confluence of all this has certainly brought on confusion for many Americans. But a significant group of people believes they see things with clarity. Where I live in South Florida it’s an incredible melting pot of people — immigrants from all over the world. Many of my acquaintances and friends — from Eastern and Slavic Europe and Russia, Latin America, and Southeast Asia — have commented that what they see going on in America is a fairly classic communist-type subversion. They believe that the takedown of America is well advanced and now poses a real threat to continuation of the United States as a free nation.

My immigrant and refugee friends point out that the communist playbook is really quite easy to understand. Several who lived under communist systems commented that communist revolutionaries are masters at using false fronts, whether Critical Race Theory or social justice Marxist theories of wealth redistribution to advance their real objective which is one-party rule and total control of society. While my friends see this so clearly, they are dumbfounded and mystified that so many American people remain so continued from page

naïve and passive in the face of cancel culture, censorship, and creeping cultural totalitarianism that is so obviously and rapidly redefining the country.

While there are minor differences in theory amongst those who have lived under and have experienced communism up close, they basically agree that communists generally target four primary institutions to break down and replace: 1) the Family unit; 2) Religion, Christianity in particular; 3) Individuality and independent thinking (which is supplanted by collectivist group think); and 4) Loyalty to the nation-state (which is supplanted by global and internationalist affinities).

My friends also agree on the four steps or stages that communists employ to take over targeted peoples and nations. First, communists seek to bring about “demoralization,” which takes many years — a generation or two — of brainwashing to destroy the moral fiber and integrity of the target people or country. The second stage, which is shorter, is to bring about “destabilization,” and targets the weakening of the country’s economy, justice system and law enforcement, and its defense capabilities. The third stage is to bring about a “crisis.” This is the last major step in the communist playbook, which usually involves a cataclysmic event that upsets and divides the country — pitting large groups against each other, creating either civil war or simply chaos and panic. The fourth and final stage in the realization of the communist-type society is what is called “normalization,” and it is generally irreversible. That is the final stage where the new powerbrokers take over and the populace of the target country loses all its remaining freedoms, its connection to its past, while the new state employs censorship and propaganda to enforce acquiescence to the new communist reality being imposed.

According to the “four stages of communist revolution,” the United States is now clearly in the third Crisis Stage, with division making the country nearly ungovernable and revolutionary change being manifest in a fraudulent election. Not only is Joe Biden’s election legitimacy as President in question, but so is his mental competence. Additionally, his fundamental trustworthiness is in question because of son Hunter taking large monetary sums on behalf of the Biden family from corrupt foreign countries, with China being the largest benefactor.

The greatest crime against the American people and the U.S. Constitution is the soft coup of election fraud.

We all sense that many people in high places in the U.S. government have for many years violated their oaths of office and became compromised by gaming the system to gain wealth and stature. And with America having a corrupt two-tiered justice system that gives cover and protection to a favored political party and its chosen figures, it is only free and fair elections that are the peoples’ chief constitutional check on corruption. When election integrity is lost, the country will be lost.

Our communist enemies likely view the forensic audits of election results in Arizona and elsewhere as a means of keeping the Crisis Stage going. Regardless of the facts, the mainstream and social media will in all probability either ignore or discredit audit outcome results that are contrary to their narrative that denies the existence of 2020 election fraud. And with probably 40% of the American population being brainwashed and demoralized, the Crisis Stage in America is clearly a high-risk period.

While this late-stage challenge is frightening, America has overcome many equally daunting challenges throughout its past. And, historically, Americans have exhibited a tendency to wake up and rally at the 11th hour.

The good news is that a greater number of Americans are now more informed and better prepared to accept election audit findings and consequences than they would have been in the two and a half months immediately after the election when Trump was still in office.

What is critical now is that the people fully realize that the freedoms they have enjoyed under the democratic constitutional republic of the United States can only be guaranteed at this point by election integrity. There simply is no substitute for victory in the fight to restore and protect the honesty of our electoral system. Election integrity is the indispensable firewall to keep America a free nation.

Scott Powell is senior fellow at the Discovery Institute and author of the forthcoming book, Rediscovering America. Reach him at scottp@ discovery.Org.