The Republican Civil War - it will be because we destroyed ourselves

[atomheartbevo 89015]

10 hours ago, NeverMarryAStripper said:

If that's the voice you're hearing when you wake up handcuffed to the bed then you have made some very poor life choices

I thought I was making the right choices at the time, but you know, Everclear can lead you down a bad road.

[Pescado_Rojo 19261]

10 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

I thought I was making the right choices at the time, but you know, Everclear can lead you down a bad road.

NowThis is very true.

[WBT 20253]

https://www.texastribune.org/2024/05/23/texas-gop-matt-rinaldi-republicans/

I'm still surprised how cheaply those 2 shitbirds were able to buy Abbot and the party.  I keep thinking there will be a Rinos strike back at some point.

[Brisketexan 103602]

30 minutes ago, WBT said:

https://www.texastribune.org/2024/05/23/texas-gop-matt-rinaldi-republicans/

I'm still surprised how cheaply those 2 shitbirds were able to buy Abbot and the party.  I keep thinking there will be a Rinos strike back at some point.

There won't be.  The Nazi party will never de-Nazify.  Stop hoping that it will.

Stop hoping that Repuglicans will ever come to their senses.

Stop hoping that ANYTHING will appeal to the "better angels of their nature."

Just.  Fucking.  Stop.

They are full-on, 100% committed to fascism.  It is all they are.  There is not an atom of anything else remaining.  There is no bringing them back, no reforming them, no "they'll eventually come around."  They are intent on hurting, punishing, and flat-out destroying everyone who doesn't agree with and support them 100%.  It's a fight to the death, that's what they've chose.  The only question you need to answer is which death you'd like it to be, theirs or yours?

Edited May 23 by Brisketexan

[wildcat09 28540]

I wish I could honestly say I'm surprised that there's still anyone thinking in 2024 the sane GOP will take back over, but a refusal by most normal people to face reality no matter how hard it slaps them in the face is how the fascists always take power. 

[F250 28491]

On 5/8/2024 at 10:46 AM, LCHorn said:

Unfortunately Paul’s lack of endorsement is only worth one vote.

 

Jesus, this episode was 8 years ago. I didn't think we would still be dealing with Trump nearly a decade later.

[LCHorn 2559]

1 hour ago, WBT said:

https://www.texastribune.org/2024/05/23/texas-gop-matt-rinaldi-republicans/

I'm still surprised how cheaply those 2 shitbirds were able to buy Abbot and the party.  I keep thinking there will be a Rinos strike back at some point.

What's truly sad is that a well-run and properly resourced Texas Democratic party would be in an ideal position to capitalize on this.  They clearly need a Ben Wikler type who recruit county chairs and grab onto rural voters pissed off about vouchers.  I doubt there's enough of those to matter in local races but they could be a big factor in a close state race. 

[Longhorn_Fan68 33718]

1 hour ago, F250 said:

 

Jesus, this episode was 8 years ago. I didn't think we would still be dealing with Trump nearly a decade later.

[atomheartbevo 89015]

3 hours ago, WBT said:

I keep thinking there will be a Rinos strike back at some point.

2 hours ago, Brisketexan said:

There won't be.  The Nazi party will never de-Nazify.  Stop hoping that it will.

Stop hoping that Repuglicans will ever come to their senses.

The only thing they hate worse than libtards is losing to the libtards.

Think about all of the Republican on Republican attacks we've seen over the last year, complete with the House Speaker batshittery.  

When Trump loses again, shit will go down within the GQP - either it will be vicious and brief and Trumpanzees will be purged from leadership positions, or they'll try to give Trump a pseudo-victory lap, with the understanding that he and his family is out of power.  They aren't going to let a Trump hang around and emptying the RNC coffers for another four years after he loses this November - the down-ballot Republicans will revolt.  He will be the first Republican in a while to have his term book-ended by 8-year stretches of Democrats in the White House.  And the BMDs ain't going to let one of his sons, whether it's Tweedle Dee or Tweedle Dum, take over.

 

 

Edited May 23 by atomheartbevo

[Brisketexan 103602]

The only thing they hate worse than libtards is losing to the libtards.
Think about all of the Republican on Republican attacks we've seen over the last year, complete with the House Speaker batshittery.  
When Trump loses again, shit will go down within the GQP - either it will be vicious and brief and Trumpanzees will be purged from leadership positions, or they'll try to give Trump a pseudo-victory lap, with the understanding that he and his family is out of power.  They aren't going to let a Trump hang around and emptying the RNC coffers for another four years after he loses this November - the down-ballot Republicans will revolt.  He will be the first Republican in a while to have his term book-ended by 8-year stretches of Democrats in the White House.  And the BMDs ain't going to let one of his sons, whether it's Tweedle Dee or Tweedle Dum, take over.
 
 

Dude. You’re adorable.
Nobody whose name isn’t “Trump” has any say. None. Not a word. Why? Because ALL GQP voters are tied to him with a bond greater than “worshipper to their god.” Betrayal of Trump loses those voters…and those voters are all the GQP has. There is no party without Trump and his supporters.

[atomheartbevo 89015]

27 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Dude. You’re adorable.
Nobody whose name isn’t “Trump” has any say. None. Not a word. Why? Because ALL GQP voters are tied to him with a bond greater than “worshipper to their god.” Betrayal of Trump loses those voters…and those voters are all the GQP has. There is no party without Trump and his supporters.

Those MAGA voters better start coughing up the bucks then, to make up for corporations, etc. that start funneling all of their money into the winning party.

When Biden wins again, that will be 8 years of Obama, 4 of Trump, and 8 of Biden.

That's never happened in the history of the Republican Party as we know it.

[atomheartbevo 89015]

19 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

That's never happened in the history of the Republican Party as we know it.

And it's only happened to the Democratic Party once, with Jimmy Carter.

Most parties get their shit together when they lose 2-3 terms in a row.  

[YGIFS 19445]

Other than kinda Ross Perot in 1992 and Wallace in 1968, we haven't seen a party faction break/realignment in this country for well over 150 years.  It may be time, I dunno.  

But they sat in rooms for 20 years trying to figure out how to maintain power, improve turnout among younger voters, Latino voters, female voters.  And they were on the brink.  They knew it.  You all think their morons,  but there's still smart people in those rooms.  And they knew that time and demography were not on their side.  They pondered messaging and social media campaigns and their own version of "Rocking the Vote."  And one man brought out 20-25mm people who were either non or irregular voters.  And he assured them that they mattered, that they're time had come to have a seat at the table of power, and that he could get back what had been unjustly taken from them.  

There'll always be straight ticket, chamber of commerce, country club (insert political cliche here) GOP voters.  And they'll stick this out and steer the party back on course or break away and do something different.  But these party leaders say one thing in public, but they aren't the idiots you think they are.  When 2032 elections come around after demography/census/redistricting occurs, they have to have the 20-25mm ultra-MAGA voters and their money.  They cannot sustain the model without them and their resources.  They will continue to pay fealty, sometimes fake & sometimes genuine, to the Trump God & Family.  

We are going to have a very strange next 8 years in this country as those people die off or lose interest.  It is a drug kick most of you cannot possibly fathom.  A charismatic man assured them their hatred and disconnect and lack of respect was all coming to an end if they'd just hand over a ballot and $50/month.  For they believed he was the way, the life, and the truth.  The rest of the party can run through machinations but that drug high for that bottom 20-25mm MAGA loyalists.  You can't win shit if you stop slinging them their dope for the next 8 years.  

[GenXer 2532]

3 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

The only thing they hate worse than libtards is losing to the libtards.

Think about all of the Republican on Republican attacks we've seen over the last year, complete with the House Speaker batshittery.  

When Trump loses again, shit will go down within the GQP - either it will be vicious and brief and Trumpanzees will be purged from leadership positions, or they'll try to give Trump a pseudo-victory lap, with the understanding that he and his family is out of power.  They aren't going to let a Trump hang around and emptying the RNC coffers for another four years after he loses this November - the down-ballot Republicans will revolt.  He will be the first Republican in a while to have his term book-ended by 8-year stretches of Democrats in the White House.  And the BMDs ain't going to let one of his sons, whether it's Tweedle Dee or Tweedle Dum, take over.

 

 

The messaging for a loss has been hammered into magadiots for four years.

stollen election

Come Nov 6, the cult will say dotard didn’t lose regardless of the results.

[Pato del Muerto 52094]

Nm

Edited May 24 by Pato del Muerto

[atomheartbevo 89015]

1 hour ago, GenXer said:

Come Nov 6, the cult will say dotard didn’t lose regardless of the results.

And Trump will fundraise off of it, and Fox News will rake in the revenue (to pay off their lawsuits) as more pissed of MAGA tune in.

[atomheartbevo 89015]

1 hour ago, YGIFS said:

Other than kinda Ross Perot in 1992 and Wallace in 1968, we haven't seen a party faction break/realignment in this country for well over 150 years.  It may be time, I dunno.  

Yeah, over the last 32 years, we've had 12 years or Republicans and 20 of Democrats.  Obviously you could go back further (92 and earlier) with Bush Sr. and Reagan, but I'm talking about just since the baby boomers moved into power and have dominated politics, and since they vote heavily these days.  We've had more years of Democrats than Republicans so there's something there (and you could probably look at things like the economy and what Republicans do it, etc.).  Trump's going to push that streak out to 12 years of (R) and 24 years of (D).

Will that lead to a realignment of the Republican Party? It will definitely lead to a realignment of corporate donations, and we have Republican factions sounding the alarm about Trump fucking things up for every Republican (even if those factions are being shit on by MAGA).

[Biff Tannen 45151]

2 hours ago, YGIFS said:

You all think their morons,

[GenXer 2532]

8 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

And Trump will fundraise off of it, and Fox News will rake in the revenue (to pay off their lawsuits) as more pissed of MAGA tune in.

These are the days of our lives

[tx 3 putt 75476]

The day after Trump loses and/or dies …..

 

[pyrohornIII 4770]

10 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

Yeah, over the last 32 years, we've had 12 years or Republicans and 20 of Democrats.  Obviously you could go back further (92 and earlier) with Bush Sr. and Reagan, but I'm talking about just since the baby boomers moved into power and have dominated politics, and since they vote heavily these days.  We've had more years of Democrats than Republicans so there's something there (and you could probably look at things like the economy and what Republicans do it, etc.).  Trump's going to push that streak out to 12 years of (R) and 24 years of (D).

Will that lead to a realignment of the Republican Party? It will definitely lead to a realignment of corporate donations, and we have Republican factions sounding the alarm about Trump fucking things up for every Republican (even if those factions are being shit on by MAGA).

Of those 32 years how many of them saw one party in control of the House, Senate and White house?    I know Trump's first two and Biden's first two, but beyond that I'd be guessing.   

 

[bolverk 29082]

7 hours ago, pyrohornIII said:

Of those 32 years how many of them saw one party in control of the House, Senate and White house?    I know Trump's first two and Biden's first two, but beyond that I'd be guessing.   

 

Clinton, Obama, and Biden each had two years at the beginning of their presidencies.

Bush had four years after 9/11 (rally around the flag), and Trump had two at the beginning of his.

[Fudge Nuggets 18977]

On 5/23/2024 at 6:07 PM, atomheartbevo said:

The only thing they hate worse than libtards is losing to the libtards.

Think about all of the Republican on Republican attacks we've seen over the last year, complete with the House Speaker batshittery.  

When Trump loses again, shit will go down within the GQP - either it will be vicious and brief and Trumpanzees will be purged from leadership positions, or they'll try to give Trump a pseudo-victory lap, with the understanding that he and his family is out of power.  They aren't going to let a Trump hang around and emptying the RNC coffers for another four years after he loses this November - the down-ballot Republicans will revolt.  He will be the first Republican in a while to have his term book-ended by 8-year stretches of Democrats in the White House.  And the BMDs ain't going to let one of his sons, whether it's Tweedle Dee or Tweedle Dum, take over.

 

 

Just like how Hot Wheels’ big money donors are going to reign him in.  Any day now, right?

[atomheartbevo 89015]

Just now, Fudge Nuggets said:

Just like how Hot Wheels’ big money donors are going to rein him in.  Any day now, right?

The West Texas bros broke him with their backing of the Mogwai Don Huffines.

[WhatTheBuck 28613]

On 5/7/2024 at 9:45 PM, tx 3 putt said:

 

Says the guy who, when Kevin fucking McCarthy said in 2016 that he thought Putin was paying Trump, urged his Republican colleagues to keep the allegation private and said, “What’s said in the family stays in the family.” Funny he should presume to talk about character now. Fuck him. 

[Biff Tannen 45151]

34 minutes ago, WhatTheBuck said:

Says the guy who, when Kevin fucking McCarthy said in 2016 that he thought Putin was paying Trump, urged his Republican colleagues to keep the allegation private and said, “What’s said in the family stays in the family.” Funny he should presume to talk about character now. Fuck him. 

Agreed, but it is one level above Nikki Haley. Astonishing. 

[Bozo_Casanova 25874]

On 5/23/2024 at 6:07 PM, atomheartbevo said:

When Trump loses again, shit will go down within the GQP -

Inshallah he loses again, but as of right now we need to planning contingencies for a second Trump presidency, because despite the GOP being in turmoil there’s about an 80% chance that Trump pulls about 280-300 electoral votes in pretty clear fashion. Operating under a different assumption as of right now is just whistling past the graveyard. 

Edited May 25 by Bozo_Casanova

[atomheartbevo 89015]

20 minutes ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

Inshallah he loses again, but as of right now we need to planning contingencies for a second Trump presidency, because despite the GOP being in turmoil there’s about an 80% chance that Trump pulls about 280-300 electoral votes in pretty clear fashion. Operating under a different assumption as of right now is just whistling past the graveyard. 

I can tell people I’m going to win the lottery,  but unless I buy a ticket there’s no chance I will.

He’s just done a rally in the Bronx, in a state he will not win.  Way too many of his rallies are not true campaign rallies, but instead legal defense fundraisers, because too many are in states that he will either easily win or easily lose.   He’s spending too much of his free time golfing or bitching on a social media platform his fans aren’t using.   There are battleground states that he should be spending weeks in, and when he bothers to do a rally in them, it’s to fly in and then quickly fly out.

 I know he hates his fans and most of the battleground states, but shit, he should at least spend a week or two here and there canvassing those states..  Except that would cost money, and even though it’s campaign money, he considers it his money so he won’t put his money or time into it.  And avoiding those states or refusing to help the down-ballot folks hurts him and them - look at the financial clusterfucks some of these states have with their Republican organizations  that impact their ability to GOTV at the local level.

Multiple times a year, for the last 20+ years, I have to make trips to West Texas, East Texas, and North Texas/Oklahoma/Arkansas/Missouri to visit family and friends, so it’s been easy to notice the amount of public enthusiasm over the years for various Republican candidates.  The public lack of enthusiasm for Trump is extremely noticeable now versus 2020.

[dcbc 14248]

43 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

I can tell people I’m going to win the lottery,  but unless I buy a ticket there’s no chance I will.

He’s just done a rally in the Bronx, in a state he will not win.  Way too many of his rallies are not true campaign rallies, but instead legal defense fundraisers, because too many are in states that he will either easily win or easily lose.   He’s spending too much of his free time golfing or bitching on a social media platform his fans aren’t using.   There are battleground states that he should be spending weeks in, and when he bothers to do a rally in them, it’s to fly in and then quickly fly out.

 I know he hates his fans and most of the battleground states, but shit, he should at least spend a week or two here and there canvassing those states..  Except that would cost money, and even though it’s campaign money, he considers it his money so he won’t put his money or time into it.  And avoiding those states or refusing to help the down-ballot folks hurts him and them - look at the financial clusterfucks some of these states have with their Republican organizations  that impact their ability to GOTV at the local level.

Multiple times a year, for the last 20+ years, I have to make trips to West Texas, East Texas, and North Texas/Oklahoma/Arkansas/Missouri to visit family and friends, so it’s been easy to notice the amount of public enthusiasm over the years for various Republican candidates.  The public lack of enthusiasm for Trump is extremely noticeable now versus 2020.

I sit squarely in the middle of Trump Country, Texas.  If there were flags in 2020, there likely are flags now.  But yard signs are definitely in short supply.  I think it would be generous to say that 25% of people who didn't go for another Trump yard sign this year might not secretly vote for him or sit out the election in November.  I hope it's a higher number.

[Bozo_Casanova 25874]

1 hour ago, atomheartbevo said:

The public lack of enthusiasm for Trump is extremely noticeable now versus 2020.

This is a good take and you're right, but my sense is that the people who were enthusiastic about supporting Trump in 2020 see it as a grim duty in 2024.   My high school shop teacher used to love Trump. He had a yard sign in 2016 and 2020. No sign this year. Nowadays he says Trump is a cad and a liar, and that he's turned off by Trump's "boorish" behavior, but he's voting for Trump because he was "strong for America" and is the right man to "get this country back on track" and "we can't take any more" of Biden. He also voted for Obama twice. 

I'll be thrilled if I'm wrong. 

[Biff Tannen 45151]

10 minutes ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

This is a good take and you're right, but my sense is that the people who were enthusiastic about supporting Trump in 2020 see it as a grim duty in 2024.   My high school shop teacher used to love Trump. He had a yard sign in 2016 and 2020. No sign this year. Nowadays he says Trump is a cad and a liar, and that he's turned off by Trump's "boorish" behavior, but he's voting for Trump because he was "strong for America" and is the right man to "get this country back on track" and "we can't take any more" of Biden. He also voted for Obama twice. 

I'll be thrilled if I'm wrong. 

So much this. It takes a lot of energy to publicly support a candidate with vigor and cultish devotion year after year. Going to vote on one day in November?  Not much energy. They will all pull the lever again. 

[Thatguy 8206]

9 hours ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

This is a good take and you're right, but my sense is that the people who were enthusiastic about supporting Trump in 2020 see it as a grim duty in 2024.   My high school shop teacher used to love Trump. He had a yard sign in 2016 and 2020. No sign this year. Nowadays he says Trump is a cad and a liar, and that he's turned off by Trump's "boorish" behavior, but he's voting for Trump because he was "strong for America" and is the right man to "get this country back on track" and "we can't take any more" of Biden. He also voted for Obama twice. 

I'll be thrilled if I'm wrong. 

I hear people say this but it is always followed with a "but look where that got me". I never believe they ever voted dem.

[sidis 9659]

On 5/26/2024 at 3:21 AM, Thatguy said:

I hear people say this but it is always followed with a "but look where that got me". I never believe they ever voted dem.

absolutely correct.  anyone who is fucking dumb enough to say: "he's voting for Trump because he was "strong for America" and is the right man to "get this country back on track" and "we can't take any more" of Biden" never fucking voted for barack obama and you'd be a fool, or a communist, to believe it.

[atomheartbevo 89015]

Could go in the Gaetz thread, but damn

 

[4th&Five 41184]

He seems to be getting away with it pretty well. For years. 

[mdmost 42459]

Nor did McCarthy care about it until Gaetz came for his job. 

[tx 3 putt 75476]

 

[yoladu 4045]

39 minutes ago, mdmost said:

Nor did McCarthy care about it until Gaetz came for his job. 

yeah, real moral of him to object to his behavior now after silent for 3 years.

[Red Five 40356]

15 minutes ago, tx 3 putt said:

 

"I don't support what he said there and I think it was ridiculous."

He literally said that we should respect the rule of law. The party of "law and order" is jettisoning people who say that they respect the rule of law. 

[Sawbonz 26871]

54 minutes ago, mdmost said:

Nor did McCarthy care about it until Gaetz came for his job. 

I thought the ethics committee investigation pre dated his removal as speaker and was the impetus for Geatz to lead the recall 

[mdmost 42459]

23 minutes ago, Sawbonz said:

I thought the ethics committee investigation pre dated his removal as speaker and was the impetus for Geatz to lead the recall 

I thought they only did it because the DOJ was investigating him. 

[Sawbonz 26871]

2 hours ago, mdmost said:

I thought they only did it because the DOJ was investigating him. 

I’m pretty sure the ethics committee investigation was paused while the DOJ “investigated”

[atomheartbevo 89015]

 

[tx 3 putt 75476]

All talk imo ….

 

[Thrawn 531]

99.9% of Republicans after they hear this:

[tx 3 putt 75476]

Do you think Old Kim will be helping down the ballot R’s at the National Convention ?

 

[Biff Tannen 45151]

1 hour ago, tx 3 putt said:

All talk imo ….

 

I’m failing to understand the problem with calling dotard a convicted felon.  

[A-Tex Devil 2414]

1 hour ago, tx 3 putt said:

All talk imo ….

 

I mean, this dude seems sincere enough - and he's right:  sitting on the sidelines is not enough.  It's the pitch I give my dad who says "I won't vote for Trump or Biden."   If you are lifelong GOP (my dad says he's a "Jack Kemp Republican," whatever the fuck that means), and you hate what Trump did to your party, then the only fix, and it may be too late, but it's the only one, is to vote for Biden and against every Maga on the ballot so there are massive defeats up and down the ballot across the country from the municipal level up to the presidency.  Sitting on the sidelines just enables Trump if he wins, and even if he loses, it allows the party you grew up with to winnow away at the hands of the Paxtons, Mike Johnsons, and Ravaswamis of the world.  

 

Who am I kidding, it's too late.  

Edited June 4 by A-Tex Devil

[Brisketexan 103602]

3 minutes ago, A-Tex Devil said:

Who am I kidding, it's too late.  

A-Tex gets it.

[Francisco 2.0 32175]

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/06/us/politics/nevada-election-clerk-trump.html

TL;DR   A republican 20 year county election clerk, who flies a Trump 2024 flag at her home, in a county of 620 voters, who all know each other, now believe the clerk is part of the deep-state.

A Republican Election Clerk vs. Trump Die-Hards in a World of Lies

 

Quote

Cindy Elgan glanced into the lobby of her office and saw a sheriff’s deputy waiting at the front counter. “Let’s start a video recording, just in case this goes sideways,” Elgan, 65, told one of her employees in the Esmeralda County clerk’s office. She had come to expect skepticism, conspiracy theories and even threats related to her job as an election administrator. She grabbed her annotated booklet of Nevada state laws, said a prayer for patience and walked into the lobby to confront the latest challenge to America’s electoral process.

 

Quote

The deputy was standing alongside a woman that Elgan recognized as Mary Jane Zakas, 77, a longtime elementary schoolteacher and a leader in the local Republican Party. She often asked for a sheriff’s deputy to accompany her to the election’s office, in case her meetings became contentious.

“Hi, Mary Jane. What can I do for you today?” Elgan asked, as she slid a bowl of candy across the counter.

 

Quote

“I hope you’re having a blessed morning,” Zakas said. “Unfortunately, a lot of people are still very concerned about the security of their votes. They’ve lost all trust in the system.”

“I’d be happy to answer any questions and explain our process again,” Elgan said.

“We’re beyond that,” Zakas said. She reached into her purse and set a notarized form on the counter. Elgan recognized it as a recall petition, a collection of signatures from voters who wanted to remove an elected official from office. It had been more than 20 years since the county’s last successful recall, and Elgan leaned down to study the form.

“Name of public officer for whom recall is sought: Cindy Elgan.”

“Reasons why: Cindy Elgan has run interference in our elections.”

 

Spoiler

It was an outcome she’d feared for the last three and a half years, ever since former President Donald J. Trump lost the 2020 election, and his denials and distortions spread outward from the White House to even the country’s most remote places, like Esmeralda County. It had neither a stoplight nor a high school, and Elgan knew most of the 620 voters on sight. Trump won the county with 82 percent of the vote despite losing Nevada. In the days after the election, some residents began to suspect that he should have won by even more, and they parroted Trump’s talking points and brought their complaints to the county’s monthly commissioner meetings.

They falsely claimed the election was stolen by voting software designed in Venezuela, or by election machines made in China. They accused George Soros of manipulating Nevada’s voter rolls. They blamed “undercover activists” for stealing ballots out of machines with hot dog tongs. They blamed the Dominion voting machines that the county had been using without incident for two decades, saying they could be hacked with a ballpoint pen to “flip the vote and swing an entire election in five minutes.” They demanded a future in which every vote in Esmeralda County was cast on paper and then counted by hand.

And when Elgan continued to stand up at each meeting to dispute and disprove those accusations by citing election laws and facts, they began to blame her, too — the most unlikely scapegoat of all. She had served as the clerk without controversy for two decades as an elected Republican, and she flew a flag at her own home that read: “Trump 2024 — Take America Back.” But lately some local Republicans had begun referring to her as “Luciferinda” or as the “clerk of the deep state cabal.” They accused her of being paid off by Dominion and skimming votes away from Trump, and even though their allegations came with no evidence, they wanted her recalled from office before the next presidential election in November.

“Prophecy says stand your ground and start in your own backyard,” Zakas said. “I’m sorry it had to come to this.”

“So am I,” Elgan said. She took the recall petition back into her office, and over the next several days she continued to flip through the pages in disbelief. She counted at least 130 signatures, which at first glance appeared to be enough to force a recall election if the signatures and corresponding addresses proved legitimate. Nevada allowed a period of 20 days for voters to reconsider and remove their names from the petition. After that, Elgan’s office would work with the secretary of state to confirm signatures and determine if the petition was successful and whether Elgan still had a job.

“This is actually insane,” said Angela Jewell, the deputy clerk. “This is how democracies end. There must be some way to reason with a few of these people.”

“It’s like talking to that wall right there,” Elgan said. “I’ve given them every fact and document known to mankind, and none of it matters. They’re too busy chanting their mantras to stop and listen.”

She wasn’t necessarily surprised by the extent of denial about the presidential election. According to polls, a third of U.S. congressional representatives and more than 60 percent of all registered Republican voters continue to believe President Biden was falsely elected, and even Elgan had wondered about the potential for fraud in other swing states like Georgia or Ohio. She understood how conspiracy theories could grow in places of ignorance — how people could come to doubt or even distrust faraway systems and strangers — but many of the names on the petition were ones she recognized as her friends. “A lot of these people really know me,” Elgan told Jewell, as she scanned again through the list.

One was a woman she played cribbage with on Saturday nights. Another was a friend of her husband’s who had voted to re-elect Elgan several times. Another was the county sheriff. Another was her next-door neighbor of nearly 30 years. And then there was Zakas, who had come to several of Elgan’s annual Thanksgiving dinners, asked for her pecan pie recipe and offered to give her a children’s book that Zakas wrote about “21 Great Demonstrations of Kindness.”

“What in the world happened to these people?” Elgan asked. “What kind of person could actually believe this nonsense?”

A few days later, Zakas grabbed her folder of voter registration lists and property maps and began another long trip on the two-lane roads of Esmeralda County. She had traveled more than 10,000 miles in the last three months to promote the recall, driving through dust storms and herds of wild horses to visit hundreds of voters and ask for their signatures. The county had an average of one resident for every four square miles, and some of them had moved to the rugged desert of western Nevada because they didn’t want to be found. A few of her trips ended at no trespassing signs riddled with bullet holes, or on roads that disappeared under snowbanks in the high Sierras. Other times, she found residents living in abandoned mining camps or trailers hidden down unmarked roads.

Now she turned toward Goldfield, a self-proclaimed “living ghost town” where the mine was shuttered and the historic hotel was open only for ghost tours by flashlight. She pulled to the side of the road and checked her list of voter addresses. “I could swear this house is supposed to be just beyond the junkyard,” she said.

She drove around for another minute and called a friend to ask for directions. “I don’t think that street exists,” she said. “But don’t worry. I’ll keep looking.”

She had tried finding easier ways to upend the county’s voting system after the 2020 election, when Trump lost Nevada by more than 33,000 votes and his campaign protested the result. “Donald Trump won after you account for fraud and irregularities,” one of his lawyers said at the time, and even though Nevada found no evidence of widespread fraud and the courts dismissed Trump’s lawsuits, Zakas decided to do her own digging. A career in public education had taught her to be skeptical of big government systems. She had taught seven different subjects to three separate grades while working at a country school — sometimes all at once in the same room — and when she didn’t trust the curriculum, she believed in writing her own. She was recently retired and widowed, and she started devoting more of her free time to learning about local politics as a rotating tour of election deniers came to speak in Esmeralda County.

She listened to a self-proclaimed cybersecurity expert from Colorado named Mark Cook, who claimed that voting machines could be hacked with a cellphone. She heard Jim Marchant, then the Republican nominee for Nevada’s secretary of state, say that Nevada’s election officials had been “installed by a deep state cabal.” She heard local Republican leaders say Dominion machines had stolen votes, even though Fox News had agreed to pay Dominion nearly $800 million to settle a lawsuit for spreading the same lies. And most of all she continued to listen to Trump as his election denialism intensified. “We will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country, that lie and steal and cheat on elections,” he said during a Veterans Day speech in New Hampshire last year.

Zakas started sending emails to Esmeralda County commissioners about what she considered “potential vulnerabilities” for fraud heading into the 2024 election: fragile machines, faulty electronic counters, signatures that could be forged and poll workers who might be compromised. “We like it the old-fashioned way,” she said in one community meeting. “You should have to sign in, show your ID and vote on paper. Then it gets hand counted.”

“That process brings in all kinds of human error,” Elgan responded. “There’s tons of proof that machines are accurate and secure.”

The more Elgan defended the system, the more Zakas became convinced she was hiding something. Eventually, she decided to file recall petitions not just for Elgan but also for the county auditor and the district attorney. “What’s required is a complete and total house cleaning,” Zakas said.

Now she turned down a dirt road in Goldfield and stopped to visit a voter who was helping to support the recall, Sam Wise, one of the first doctors to live in Esmeralda County in decades. He’d worked at Stanford and then run a rehabilitation center in Las Vegas until he “got fed up with the bureaucratic takeover of medicine,” he said. He moved to Goldfield to distill whiskey and lost a close election for county commissioner in 2022 after running on what he called a “MEGA platform — to Make Esmeralda Great Again,” he said.

“We need to get rid of these criminals running our voting systems,” he told Zakas. “It’s like a slot machine that’s been rigged. We pull the lever, but they decide who wins.”

“I heard somewhere that Nevada’s a test case for manipulating the vote by 10 or 15 percent each year,” Zakas said.

“And it’s happening right under our noses,” Wise said.

“Who would have believed that Cindy — sweet Cindy, our Cindy — could be connected to the deep state umbilical cord?” Zakas asked.

She believed it only because she had experienced many similar revelations during the last few years, ever since she heeded Trump’s warnings about the “corrupt, lying mainstream media” and decided to disconnect her television. Her friends introduced her to far-right media platforms online like Mike Lindell’s Frank Speech and The Elijah List, where each day she listened to a rotation of self-proclaimed patriots, biblical prophets and also sometimes political figures like Lara Trump. They offered Zakas not only conspiratorial ideas but also the promise of a community that extended far beyond the loneliness of her house, with a grandfather clock ticking away in the living room and views out the window of an emptiness that stretched clear into California. Each day, something urgent was happening in the far corners of the internet — something big and dark and secret, and that knowledge fueled her days with both purpose and agency.

She came to believe, along with millions of others, that Covid was a creation of the federal government used to manipulate the public and steal elections; that two doses of the vaccine would make men infertile; that Trump had been anointed to lead a “government cleansing”; that fighting had already begun in underground military tunnels; that Trump’s election in 2024 was preordained by God; that he would return to power with loads of gold collected from other countries that had capitulated to his power; that, during his next term, Americans would have free electricity, zero income tax and “medbeds” powered by a secret technology that could harness natural energy to heal diseases and extend human life; and that the only thing standing in the way of this future was a deep state so malicious and vast that its roots extended all the way into tiny Esmeralda County.

“The whole idea for Cindy and the rest of them is to cripple Trump,” Zakas said.

“That little tyrant,” Wise said. “We have no idea how many votes they’re skimming.”

“But Cindy sure does,” Zakas said.

When their allegations weren’t forcing her out of bed with nausea late at night, or inducing another panic attack, or prompting her husband to search for real estate in California, Elgan sometimes found herself laughing at the sheer absurdity of the county’s transformation. For as long as she could remember, nobody had been interested in her job. She sometimes ran for re-election unopposed. “What does a clerk even do?” her friends sometimes asked. The county had such a nonchalant, trusting relationship with elections that once, after two candidates tied for commissioner in 2002, they settled the race by drawing from a deck of cards. But now two decades later, Elgan was being flooded by emails asking about the license plate numbers of her poll workers and the temperature data of her equipment storage room.

“MAJOR VIOLATION CONCERNS,” read the subject line of one recent email, which listed dozens of obscure legal statutes and codes. “NRS 293B.063, NRS 1960.264, NRS 1977.246,” and on and on it went.

“Thank you for your thoughtful request,” Elgan often replied. She kept her emails concise and factual, and increasingly she saved her unfiltered reactions for her phone calls with Nevada’s other election clerks, many of whom were navigating their own crises in the continued fallout of the 2020 election. Lander County commissioners had tried to seize the county’s own election equipment. Nye County had voted to count ballots partially by hand. Lyon, Elko and Lincoln Counties had put forward proposals to remove their Dominion machines. The election office in Clark County had been sent a threat letter with traces of fentanyl powder.

About half of the state’s election officials had quit or resigned since 2020, and several had been replaced by vocal election deniers. Jim Hindle, the new clerk in Story County, was awaiting a felony trial for allegedly trying to sign over Nevada’s six electoral votes to Trump in 2020, and now he oversaw election integrity in 2024.

“Welcome to another day at the center of the circus,” Elgan said one afternoon in May, on a phone call to Amy Burgans, the clerk in Douglas County.

“Are they still calling for your head on a stick?” Burgans asked. “What’s the latest with the recall petition?”

“We’ll confirm signatures at the courthouse next week and then make a ruling,” Elgan said. “The conspiracy theorists are coming out of the woodwork with their tinfoil hats.”

“I call them my Kool-Aid drinkers,” Burgans said.

She estimated that more than half of the 50,000 people in Douglas County belonged to that category. They believed that elections were rigged and that Biden had been fraudulently elected — and for a while Burgans had thought that, too. She had been working in an administrative job for the county during the 2020 election, and she listened to her family members spread conspiracy theories about Dominion machines and read a friend’s false Facebook posts about the thousands of dead people voting in Nevada.

Then the county clerk abruptly resigned, and the commissioners appointed Burgans to lead a voting system she didn’t trust. She devoted her first several months to learning about the state’s mandatory election safeguards: machine inspections, signature verifications and the certified canvass to confirm each vote. “The reality is Trump lost,” she eventually concluded. “I did a complete 180. Our elections are more accurate and secure than ever before in American history.”

The challenge was convincing anyone else. She offered public tours of the county’s voting machines and live-streamed the counting of each mail-in-ballot, but almost nobody bothered to watch. Her best friend continued to send her videos of people lambasting Dominion machines. Her father and two of her adult children said they still didn’t entirely trust elections. In the 2022 midterm, one voter sent in his ballot with a death threat written to Burgans, and now the county sheriff was keeping an eye on her house.

“This job is hard enough without everyone throwing us under the bus,” Burgans said. “The responsibility to get it right, the scrutiny — we already feel the weight of our entire democracy.”

“And meanwhile they just repeat the same lies over and over,” Elgan said. “Eventually people go: ‘Oh, I think I heard that somewhere before. I guess it must be true.’”

“The only thing we have to give in return are facts,” Burgans said.

Elgan had also tried to offer her constituents a series of concessions. She updated the county’s Dominion system so that all voters were given a verifiable printed ballot and four chances to double-check their vote before it was cast. The county commissioners asked to confirm the electronic results in 2022 by recounting all ballots by hand, and she reluctantly agreed. They asked her to swear that her recount was accurate, and she swore. They decided they still didn’t trust her results and voted to recount a third time, a seven-hour process that confirmed the exact tallies and brought the county within minutes of missing the state’s deadline to certify elections.

Voters had pushed for her dismissal based on term limits that didn’t apply to her position. They had asked all three women who worked in her office to replace her as the clerk, but none felt qualified.

“Some days, I drive home after work and I wonder why I’m still doing this,” she said. Her job was one of the lowest-paid elected positions in Nevada. Her husband was already retired, and they had grandchildren in California. “I believe in my bones that we have to protect the integrity of our process, but if I’m recalled because of all this, I’ll survive,” she said.

“Of course you will,” Burgans said. “But if the whole system gives way to disinformation and lies, what’s left to protect?”

On the morning of the recall verification, Zakas came to the courthouse with her friend Theresa Moller, chair of the local Republican Party. They sat in the galley and said a prayer: “Let today be earth moving,” Zakas said. “Let the ripples stretch far and wide.”

A representative from the secretary of state’s office and the clerk from neighboring Nye County arrived to help run the process, and Elgan carried the recall petitions to a table at the front of the courtroom.

“Let’s go over some basic ground rules first,” said Cori Freidhof, the Nye County clerk.

The petition against Elgan required at least 114 signatures to force a recall election, because that number represented a quarter of Esmeralda County residents who voted in 2022. The petition had been submitted with 142 names, but each person’s information needed to be verified against the signature and address that the county had on file.

“So today, we’re checking those signatures, and you’re here just to witness,” Elgan told Zakas and Moller. “You’re not here to debate or interject. There’s an official process that needs to be followed, and we have to trust that process.”

“There’s more to it than trust,” Zakas said. “Will I get to know which signatures you are accepting and which ones you are tossing off?”

“Not today,” Elgan said.

“I don’t like the secret part. Why don’t I get my basic right to know what is happening with the recall?”

“You are just here to witness,” Elgan said again.

They started checking the petitions, first for the district attorney and then for the auditor. When they started working on Elgan’s petition, she volunteered to walk away from the table and sit in the galley. “Seeing all those names again, I think I’ll just go back there and pray,” she said. She walked past Zakas and Moller, sat in the far corner of the courtroom with her husband and pulled up Psalm 86 on her cellphone. “Oh God, the proud have risen against me,” she read, as Freidhof began to check the names on her petition one by one.

“Number 13, the address doesn’t match,” Freidhof said. “We need to verify.”

“Number 18, no,” she said. “We need to verify the signature.”

They paused at one point for a bathroom break, and Freidhof instructed everyone to clear the room except for one administrator from the clerk’s office who would guard the petitions. “Something fishy is happening,” Zakas said, as she walked into the hallway. “That woman could be tampering with signatures right now and we’d never know.” She turned back into the courtroom to watch, which made the employee feel uncomfortable.

“I’d like to remind everyone that it’s now considered a felony in Nevada to intimidate election workers,” Freidhof said a few minutes later as people filtered back into the room, and then she returned her attention to the signatures.

“Number 28, we need to verify the address.”

“Number 32, signature.”

“Number 38, address.”

Zakas wrote notes in case she needed evidence for a future appeal and rubbed essential oils on her wrists to stay calm. Maybe the addresses were wrong because people had gotten confused and written down their P.O. boxes instead of their physical street address, she thought. Maybe some of the signatures didn’t match because people’s handwriting deteriorated with age, or because younger voters had never learned how to sign their names in cursive.

“We knew they weren’t going to make it easy,” Zakas whispered to Moller. “God might have a different plan. You don’t have to knock the bull off its feet all at once. He might want this to go all the way up through appeals to the first district court.”

By the time Freidhof finished examining the petition, she had questions about 67 of the 142 signatures. One petition contained a potential fact error on the affidavit, and a notary had signed on the wrong line of the form. It was clear the recall petition would be ruled insufficient.

“That concludes our process,” Freidhof said.

“Well, not quite,” Zakas said.

She sorted through the papers in her lap, looking up laws and state statutes and then writing down the numbers of obscure legal codes. There were still six months left until the next presidential election was held in Esmeralda County, and already she was thinking of new ways to dismantle a process she didn’t trust.

“I know my rights,” she said.

“There are procedures in place you can still pursue,” Elgan said. “If you don’t like what’s happening, you have the right to appeal.”

“I’m aware,” Zakas said. “And I will.”

 

Edited June 6 by Francisco 2.0