Believe me, the last damn thing I wanted to do was make an update of The Best Democracy Money Can Buy.
But you gave me no choice.
The original film, released in 2016, told you in cold terms: “Trump’s going to win and he’s going to win by stealing it.”
But did you listen?
No, MSNBC reported that “Trump has no path to 270,” and they bought their party dresses for Clinton’s inaugural.
Well, the 2 million who saw the film got it — and Truthout readers of my columns got it. But that left 120 million American voters who actually believe Trump won, and marched like sheep to the Trump Casino to be sheered.
So, here’s the skinny: Trump lost not just the popular vote, but also the vote in key swing states — that is, if you counted all the ballots cast and allowed the blocked and purged voters to vote.
How? Well, that’s why I made a new edition to the film, to lay it out cold. And why I tramped through the snows of Michigan and Wisconsin and beyond to explain exactly what happened. The result was the updated film, just released, with a new sub-title: The Best Democracy Money Can Buy: The Case of the Stolen Election.
Take Michigan. Trump officially won the state by 10,700 voters. But dig this: 75,355 ballots were never counted.
Like, huh? Not counted? Yes. Michiganders vote on these ridiculous paper ballots that old machines have a hard time reading. And critically, 87 machines simply broke down and didn’t count the votes at all.
And where were these uncounted ballots and broken machines? I found them in Detroit and Flint, Michigan — two majority-Black cities. Do you think those 75,355 ballots in Detroit and Flint were Trump ballots?
So, why broken machines? As I explain in the update, Detroit and Flint went bankrupt — and so the budgets of those cities were taken over by “managers” appointed by the violently Republican governor. Detroit’s manager was told the machines would break in advance of the election. That the machines were old and couldn’t read all the ballots if marked with red pens or if folks put an “X” instead of filling in a bubble.
But there’s a marvelous machine that can read those uncounted ballots: the human eye. And that is why Jill Stein called for a “recount” — which was actually a count of the ballots previously “spoiled” and uncounted. Trump’s lawyers stopped the recount because he was losing.
And as I illustrate in the film, almost 3 million ballots were disqualified for cockamamie reasons, like not filling in the bubble.
Here’s a frame from the film of a voter who lost her vote because they didn’t fill in the bubble: my mother!
(Image: Courtesy of Greg Palast)
Whose votes get thrown in the ballot dumpster? According to the US Civil Rights Commission, the chance your vote will be disqualified is 900 percent higher if you’re Black than if you’re white.
Do the math. Trump would have lost Ohio, North Carolina, Arizona, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania … the list goes on … if not for the “spoilage” game and blocking legit voters from the polls.
The documentary has special extra reports from Michigan and Georgia — where the trick that was key to Trump’s vote heist also swiped the special election in Georgia’s Sixth Congressional District for the GOP.
And that new trick? It’s called, “Interstate Crosscheck” and it’s run by Trump’s vote-thief-in-chief Kris Kobach, secretary of state for Kansas. The mainstream media discovered Kobach and Crosscheck only after the election.
No reporter confronted Kobach with the evidence of his scheme — except this reporter, working for Rolling Stone. (You will see that confrontation in the film.)
And yet, the mainstream media still don’t get it. Crosscheck wiped out the registration of 1.1 million folks.
And whose money is behind Kobach? Me and my chief investigator Leni Badpenny run the money trail back through half a dozen front groups to the Koch brothers.
The updated film also includes Trump’s appointment of Kobach to his witch-hunting group called, “The Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity” — now disbanded and reformed within the Department of Homeland Security.
So, be afraid. Be very afraid of what Kobach is up to now. Unfortunately, it’s not just a movie; this horror show is for real.
Plus, I had to tell you how those billionaires made out who bought the election for Trump. (No, Trump’s not a billionaire; he just plays one on TV.) And they did fine, indeed.
So that’s why I had no choice but to update The Best Democracy Money Can Buy and give it a new subtitle: The Case of the Stolen Election.
Some folks ask, How much of an update? Oh, say, 15 percent of the film — and the extras are all new. No more was needed because, sadly, we figured out the trickery well before the election.
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
After the election, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy