The maneuvers of a dictatorship

Arizona’s Republican sore losers are still hunting for Trump votes in Maricopa County in the most undemocratic ballot recount process.

Trump, who’s been soaking up the Florida sun since he left the White House on Jan. 20, lost Arizona to Joe Biden by just more than 10,000 votes. Biden’s victory in Maricopa County was larger — some 45,000 votes.

But no matter.

The sore losers are going through every one of the county’s 2.1 million ballots cast last November to find Trump votes — any votes — to keep crying that the election was fraudulent.

Leading the pack of Ninjas is Republican Senate President Karen Fann, who clearly doesn’t care about election integrity and transparency.

Watching her unleash the Ninjas to hunt for Trump votes is like watching Fidel Castro in Cuba or Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua or the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) in Mexico getting enough votes to remain in power.

Castro and Ortega didn’t give residents a choice while still proclaiming free elections. Mexico was a bit different with the same outcome, of course.

For seven decades, the PRI gave Mexicans the illusion that they were freely choosing the party’s presidential candidate through a series of maneuvers that included gifts and coercion. And when that failed, the party’s apparatus simply changed votes or filled out ballots for the PRI candidate.

It was called “the

perfect

dictatorship” because, technically speaking, Mexico held its elections democratically.

Something similar is happening in Maricopa County. The Republican sore losers are trying to give the illusion that their recount is to protect election integrity. But just like any dictatorship, they want to shut the public out to do whatever it takes to find Trump votes to prove a point.

It’s no coincidence that the Ninjas had blue and black ink — the same color voters were required to use to fill out their ballots in the first place.

It’s no coincidence that anyone could walk into the building where the ballots are stored and being recounted.

It’s no coincidence that journalists aren’t allowed to oversee the recount without being forced to become official observers.

It’s certainly

no

coincidence

that lawyers for Cyber Ninjas are mounting a legal argument to keep court hearings closed to the press, claiming its recount procedures are protected trade secrets.

All that, my friends, is nothing more than the maneuvers of a “perfect dictatorship.” Fann and her Ninjas want to fool the public with the illusion of a democratic ballot recount just to prove their baseless claim that Trump, not Biden, won Maricopa County.

To what end?

To fool just enough people that the election was fraudulent and slowly but inexorably awaken dictatorial spirits. That should terrify everyone — except, of course, that most Americans have no clue how life is under totalitarianism.