They come and go in cycles, we usually have to put them down again once every generation or two. Rachel Maddow’s “Ultra” podcast is an ongoing case study in the whole “history doesn’t repeat itself but it rhymes” aspect of American history. One example from the last episode that sounds very familiar:
But where his previous newsletter had been targeted to an extreme right-wing audience, with screeds against Jewish people and racial mongrelization and all-but-explicit endorsements of Nazism, this new publication, “The Liberty Letter,” would aim for a more mainstream audience, a more mainstream Republican audience.
And there was good reason now, a good hook, for rushing out this first issue just after the election. Republicans needed to know that this election had been stolen, or at least it was in the process of being stolen, but there was a way to stop it, to stop the steal.
This was the big headline from Carto, page one: “Kennedy Has Not Won the Election.”
He explained that the votes apparently cast for Kennedy had been fraud, that the fraud could and would be proven, but, in the meantime electors in the contested states, for example, from Georgia, those electors should not be counted for Kennedy under any circumstances.”
Carto wrote: “Unless some action is shown at once, Kennedy will claim the White House.” Quote: “Will no one stop them?”
Carto said a mass mobilization on the right could prevent the transfer of power to Kennedy. He wrote: “This urgent event can happen between now and January.” The electors plot that they had promoted, but never tried in 1956, they should actually do it now in this next election, in 1960.
Yes, there was a baseless “stop the steal” effort in 1960 that looked almost exactly like the one in 2020. The battle continues.
