The issues that marred the 2020 election remain unresolved. Over the past four years, Democrats have been actively entrenching those efforts and experimenting with new methods to influence the 2024 election. To win, Republicans need to recognize the evolving tactics being used, one of the most critical being the Democrats’ efforts to incarcerate their political adversary.
The “Zuckbucks” tactics of 2020 seem minor compared to Biden’s mobilization of federal resources to bolster voter turnout in favor of Democrats. While the Russia-collusion narrative had significant repercussions, Democrats have gone further by attempting to imprison their primary political rival.
As my colleague John Daniel Davidson expressed: “Much like the 2020 election, which wasn’t stolen so much as rigged months in advance to give Joe Biden an advantage that all but guaranteed his victory, the 2024 election is being rigged to ensure that Trump either cannot run or, if he does run, cannot win.”
What’s New?
In a significant new development, Democrats are seeking to imprison their main political contender.
A Manhattan district attorney, funded by Soros, concocted charges that were unclear before presenting them to a jury predominantly supportive of Biden in 2020. A Biden donor then presided over the trial against Trump, which appeared as an extension of Democrats’ refusal to accept the 2016 election results.
It’s uncertain whether the left-leaning judge will sentence Trump to jail time. Trump also faces three other legal battles that seem unlikely to reach trial by November, including a case involving a raid on Mar-a-Lago authorized by Biden’s DOJ, during which agents were allowed to use deadly force to recover documents that prosecutors later admitted had been tampered with.
The trials serve dual purposes: draining Trump’s resources and hindering his campaign activities, and tarnishing his reputation to dissuade voters from considering him a viable alternative to Biden.
Additionally, Democrats have sought to exclude Trump from the ballot based on a dubious legal theory rejected by the Supreme Court.
If legal battles don’t cripple Trump by November 5, federal agencies’ influence on Democrat-leaning voters might challenge Republicans further.
Upon taking office, Biden issued Executive Order 14019, essentially directing federal agencies to use taxpayer money to influence elections. The Department of Education (DOE) is one example. The DOE issued a memo in February allowing Federal Work-Study funds to pay students to register voters or work as poll workers. Statistically, college-aged students and recent graduates are more likely to be Democrats.
Biden’s Attorney General Merrick Garland has also stated that the DOJ would challenge state laws related to voter ID requirements or safeguards for mail-in ballots and drop boxes.
Individual states are also taking measures favoring Democrats. For instance, Pennsylvania has partnered with the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) to target speech it deems threatening ahead of the election. Nevada’s legislature passed a 2021 law mirroring a temporary 2020 measure that extended the mail-in ballot deadline. Republicans have contested this law.
What Did Democrats Do in 2020?
The tactics from the 2020 election haven’t vanished. The 2020 election saw maladministration and circumvention of election laws.
In Wisconsin, where Trump lost by around 20,000 votes, officials expanded ballot drop boxes use, later deemed unauthorized by the state Supreme Court. Cities like Milwaukee had over a dozen such boxes. Biden won Milwaukee by more than 100,000 votes.
In Pennsylvania, officials unlawfully counted ballots that were missing dates or incorrectly marked. “Thousands” of such ballots were received in both the 2020 presidential election and the 2022 midterms, per the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Many of these ballots were counted in 2020.
Furthermore, Big Tech played a role by censoring the Hunter Biden laptop story and other damaging narratives for Democrats. The New York Post’s report on the laptop was suppressed by Facebook, Twitter, and others under the false label of “disinformation.” Major outlets like NPR refused to cover the story.
The FBI knew of the laptop’s authenticity in 2019 but collaborated with Big Tech to discredit it. Mark Zuckerberg revealed on Joe Rogan’s podcast that Facebook was warned of potential “Russian propaganda” and thus limited the laptop story’s reach.
Zuckerberg’s impact on the 2020 election wasn’t limited to tech censorship. He and his wife injected over $400 million into the election, significantly benefiting blue areas in battleground states through left-wing nonprofits under the guise of “safe election” grants. As noted by M.D. Kittle, the grant program often acted as a privately funded campaign to mobilize Democrat voters in swing states.
At least 28 states—mostly red states, but including swing states like Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania—have since banned such private funding in elections. However, other Democrat-affiliated groups, like the U.S. Alliance for Election Excellence, continue to influence local election administration. The Center for Tech and Civic Life, which collaborated with Zuckerberg in 2020, is now working with the Alliance.
Most of the 2020 tactics—or new versions of them—remain in use. They are now combined with overt legal strategies and federal efforts to turn out votes for Biden.
