Underhanded Trump tactics in Eastern Washington
Last week a group (or one person?) called “Spokane Citizens For Election Integrity” spent quite a lot of time and money to promote Trump’s Big Lie of rampant election fraud. “Spokane Citizens For Election Integrity” sent pirated DVDs of Dinesh D’Souza’s (see P.S. below) 2000 Mules from Spokane to recipients at least as far away as Pend Oreille County (the NE corner of Washington State). The postage alone cost a dollar per DVD.
Like most, if not all, of Dinesh’s eight political “documentaries” and twenty books, the purpose of 2000 Mules is to push the Republican Party line among media-siloed gullible base voters. 2000 Mules claims that an analysis of anonymous cell phone data aggregated around ballot boxes in certain states proves there was widespread election fraud organized and funded by evil “Democrat” operatives. His intent is almost certainly cynical. As a man of notable education, that Dinesh actually believes the bogus election fraud evidence presented in 2000 Mules is almost (but perhaps not quite) beyond imagining.
As Shawn Vestal points out, even the dyed-in-the-wool Republican commentator, Ann Coulter, who at one time dated Dinesh, characterizes 2000 mules as “Dinesh’s Stupid Movie”. Yet here we are in eastern Washington with “Spokane Citizens For Election Integrity” spreading Dinesh’s nonsense, stoking the idea that election fraud is rampant. Why? No doubt whoever is hiding behind the deceptive and benign sounding name “Spokane Citizens For Election Integrity” hopes to fuel suspicion of the conduct of local elections among those who know no better. What better way to motivate R-minded know-nothing voters to cast ballots to put an unqualified kindergarten teacher and Big Lie promoter into a position to oversee local elections? By their logic, our long-serving and immensely qualified County Auditor, Vicky Dalton, the supervisor of elections and the last remaining county-wide elected nominal Democrat in a Spokane County office, must be suspect based on party affiliation. (Of course, “Spokane Citizens For Election Integrity” dares not directly support or attack a candidate. To do so would raise a small risk of prosecution under Washington State election finance laws.)
Like developer Larry Stone’s inane youtube diatribe, “Curing Spokane”, the video that undoubtedly helped set the groundwork for Nadine Woodward’s election as City of Spokane Mayor, distribution of pirated copies of 2000 Mules requires no disclosure of financial backing to the Public Disclosure Commission. Who are these “Citizens” of “Spokane Citizens For Election Integrity”? Watchers of the DVD are, and are likely to remain anonymous—probably by design.
Even the return address on the mailer, 7825 N Wall, Spokane, is fake. No such address exists. According to the Spokane County property records, there is no N Wall address between 7809 and 8211. Googlemaps points to 7809 when one enters 7825 N Wall. Evidently, whoever went to the trouble and expense to send these DVDs is being careful to remain unidentifiable, not exactly the picture of “Integrity”.
Perhaps “Spokane Citizens for Election Integrity” is just one true believer with enough money and personal conviction to copy and send out ‘Dinesh’s Stupid Movie’ broadly across eastern Washington—but I wouldn’t bet on that.
More likely this mass mailing of DeSouza’a 2000 Mules two weeks before the primary ballot comes out (July 13th) and concurrent with the much ballyhooed request of the Auditor’s Office by the local Republican Party for an extensive retrospective audit of the 2020 election in Spokane County is a local Republican effort to stoke doubt for political advantage.
Keep to the high ground,
Jerry
P.S. Dinesh D’Souza is a 61 year old right-wing political commentator, provocateur, author, filmmaker, and conspiracy theorist from the same mold as Steve Bannon and Alex Jones. Born to a Roman Catholic family in Bombay, educated (in part) at Dartmouth College, Dinesh became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1991, after serving as a policy advisor in the Reagan administration. His richly-referenced wikipedia bio cements him in the pantheon of Republican provocateurs and outrage-mongers. Dinesh thrives on media attention to public statements like a tweet mocking the survivors of the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting.
P.P.S. Evidently, local Republicans are listening to Steve Bannon’s “Flood the zone with s__t” directive, a call to publish such an overwhelming quantity of misinformation that the average citizen doesn’t have a prayer of discerning verifiable fact through the storm of excrement. National and local social media is rife with articles like PJMedia’s June 30th, 2022 feature, EXCLUSIVE: FOIAs Reveal Progressive Money Fueling FBI, DOJ, Leftist Activist and Election Official Coordination, and JustTheNews’ June 26th article, 2020 election investigations and lawsuits building momentum. Never heard of PJMedia or Just the News? No matter. The targets of this tripe, people of whom even Ann Coulter asks, “Is there anyone in Trump World who isn’t trying to fleece the Deplorables? Haven’t they suffered enough?” These are folks for whom the source of an article is unimportant. If it is in electrons on the internet and it agrees with their biases, then it must be true. These articles are just a sampling of those shared by “Citizens For Election Integrity”, a facebook group run by Slade Raine, a “Christian” conservative law student based in Cheyenne, WY. “Citizens For Election Integrity” was the only hit I got when I googled “Spokane Citizens For Election Integrity”.
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