The Trumper Troll Neighbor and Election Integrity
As the election draws closer, my nerves are in knots. Will the American voting public choose common sense and democracy, or will they choose a shit-show version of fascism that comes in orange and wears a red tie? I have no faith in the American voting public at all, not since 2016. Actually, I am convinced that my fellow Americans are masochists and not the fun kind. But before I get into my main topic, I have an interesting social media story to tell you all. (See my 10/14/24 post, "Troll or Not?" for background.)
I just recently experienced someone who is in the Orange cult, in real life, it was my neighbor. She has been a “friend” on FB for a year, and I knew her political views, but I paid no attention to her except when she would post happy family pictures, because, regardless of someone’s political leanings, I always wish them love and it’s nice to see it. So when she commented last week on my post about my inquiry about JD Vance’s name changes (there are three.), she responded with, well she responded with generalities and didn’t answer my question. So I matched her energy with my reply to her and repeated my question. This interchange happened three times until she used a “bee” emoji, which until this day, I think she was trying to imply that I was annoying or better yet, being a bitch. I then reminded her that she came on my page and asked her, what in the hell the “bee” emoji meant. A few days later, she responded with, “It means I love honey.” At that point, I just did a laughing reaction to that reply. Thinking it was done.
But…
A few days later, she replied to the same thread, stating, that she just had a lot of questions. My inner idealist, well, she’s a sucker for this kind of thing, always wanting to build bridges. I asked her if she wanted to have coffee at the Clubhouse (I live in one of THOSE subdivisions) to ask questions or discuss these issues. She responded, “Sure." Well, I want to beat the shit out of my inner idealist for being a naive idiot. Should have continued to let my inner anarchist answer her or something.
Because the minute I opened the door, there were multiple replies from her on multiple posts the next day. It’s so strange to me when someone goes through your feed and decides to reply to old posts. Some call it trolling, others say cyberbullying, and I call it harassment.
She was ranting about all the lies that her Orange messiah was telling her. Calling all Democrats socialists, which is so fucking laughable, it hurts. And I say this as a Democratic Socialist, I wish they were, but they’re not. Right now, the Democratic Party is talking AGAINST tariffs. Which is some neoliberal economic bullshit. But that didn’t matter to her, she kept talking about how Dems were socialists, ok with killing babies after they’re born, etc.
Anyway…ONE subject that kept coming up in her replies to my posts over the past few days, was how the 2020 election was stolen that “millions of votes were illegal” and that “they were all Democrats”! I replied, “There was no evidence of illegal votes, where is your evidence?” (My mistake was that I used the absolute, “no”, I will never do that again with fucking crazy people.) I ended up telling her that I felt that she was trolling me at this point, and I would not be replying to any more of her rants. I even said, “You’re not going to convince me to vote for the Orange Bastard, and I am not going to convince you to vote for Harris, so why are you wasting our time?”
The next day, she replied to multiple posts again, the one that stuck out for me though was she attached a link to The Heritage Foundation, the conservative think tank behind the social security destroying plan of Project 2025. The link was about “Election Fraud”. It brought me to The Heritage Foundation’s “Election Fraud Database.” And since I am a sucker and nerd for these things, I couldn’t help but look at it. Stupid Trumper Cultist actually provided me with data that proved my point rather than hers. Where in the hell did she get, “Millions”!?
Here is a link, you all can look it up for yourselves: https://www.heritage.org/voterfraud
You all…she is crazy. I looked at this CONSERVATIVE think tank’s number and almost laughed out loud. The website before you even open the database, has the number: 1,561 (Proven Instances of Voter Fraud), and if you go through the database, they list by state, name, and year. The database includes entries dating back to 1982! Let me repeat that, 1982! 1,561 of what they describe as “election fraud” is far from the millions that she claimed for just 2020! Go ahead, look for yourselves! Here’s a screenshot from this respected CONSERVATIVE think tank.
Do you know how many votes have been cast since 1982! I don’t know, but millions upon millions! (I don’t want to do the math and the research but you all can.) Anyway, look at the number of “proven instances” and “criminal convictions”.
But you know what, I am going to do, just to entertain myself, I am going to pretend that the 1,561 were just for the 2020 elections. Let’s pretend, shall we?
In the 2020 election, 154.6 MILLION voters voted in 2020 (https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2022/2020-presidential-election-voting-report.html)! That is more than any election before that! Yay, democracy! What’s crazy is that Biden won by millions and he creamed him in the electoral college, too! How do some of you think that, nevermind, it’s not important. Back to what I was saying.
So, let’s take that number of 1,561 voter fraud cases (that really goes back to 1982!) and the 2020 election numbers, and let’s see what percentage we get, shall we? Hold on, while I do this on Google Sheets.
WHAT THE? SOOO, if you noticed, even if I only apply that number to the 2020 elections, it is ONE THOUSANDTH OF A PERCENT! But if I was really nerdy, and I am, and I was making money from this blog, I would create a spreadsheet going back to 1982 and give you all those numbers. But I am not making money from this, and I don’t have time for that.
And to be fair The Heritage Foundation states that these cases apply to “Democratic, Republican, independent, and other parties.” The language used is a little suspect though, when they state, “We really don’t know how extensive it is.” Well, that is a fair statement, but to a crazy paranoid cultist, it sounds like you might be validating their propaganda.
I agree that our elections need to be protected, but so do our voting rights. And calling for mass paranoia is not helping our democracy, not that The Heritage Foundation is doing such a thing. Well, we really don't know how extensively they are contributing to this lie, do we? (wink, wink).
I honestly don’t think she read or really looked at what she provided me. That’s the thing about research, you can’t just look for information that backs up your claims. I mean you could, but it can be torn apart in a matter of minutes.
I don’t consider myself a scholar, but I do have a Master of Arts in Political Studies. Does that always make me the smartest person in the room? No. But I have enough sense to question everything that I hear or read. It’s what my formal education taught me. And you don’t need to have a formal education to question things, just a strong sense of curiosity. Do not believe everything you hear. If you want to look up things, just ask me, I am good at finding things. Well, that’s what I thought my neighbor wanted. I was wrong. Even if I had responded with the truth as I stated above, she would have called me a liar, because if her Orange Bastard Messiah said it, it must be true, and everyone else is a liar, including the source she provided to me. The source that wants to send this country back to the 1870s.
Elections do need to be fair, they do need to be protected, I agree with The Heritage Foundation, but to be intellectually dishonest about it being a major problem is ridiculous. Should those who commit voter fraud be faced with criminal persecution, maybe. But even this conservative think tank admits indirectly that it is not a rampant problem and “millions” of votes were not illegal Democratic votes in 2020, she and others like her do not care. She listened to an egotistical Orange Bastard and believed it. She ignored her own provided data.
One of her replies was about abortion, which I never mentioned. She even shared a personal story on why she is anti-choice, and how she almost died giving birth to one of her kids, and she chose to have her baby instead. Her words of “chose” and “choice” were not lost on me. She chose to risk her life to have a baby that she wanted. But after all the replies with the emotional rants, and one reply stating, “I am not trying to change your mind,” I finally realized she was just trolling me and I wasn’t in the mood to be her anxiety punching bag, because I was ready to literally punch back (ask my sisters). Any sympathy that I had for her about her choice left me after I read about her intention with her replies, her intention to just troll me. She wasn't interested in learning or in civil discourse, she lied about that. All I knew was that I was her perceived enemy, and her rants were erratic and not even on topic. Her anxiety was her being a keyboard warrior, but I was afraid that it might get personal. I do give her credit for watching Kamala's interview on Fox News, I didn't watch it, but she did.
Last night, I ended up blocking her on my personal FB page. Her hate, lies, and propaganda were just too much for me. My inner idealist was so sad about her manipulation to get me to be receptive to listening to her. My inner anarchist was ready to burn the bridge that I tried to build. So, I did. The crazy thing was that she is a real neighbor, so it’s not like a stranger trolling you. We did the Greywall craft show, that I organized, last year. This was someone that I could run into while walking my dog or at HOA meetings. Any Mister Rodgers lesson I learned about being neighborly went out the window, at least for now. I am grieving for my inner idealist, but I am sure she’ll return one day.
Election Day is November 5th.
Meanwhile, I am going to hate that Orange Bastard until he leaves politics for good and he can take his children with him.
P.S. For more information on Election Integrity and Voter Fraud, here are some more resources that I found besides The Heritage Foundation:
https://www.brennancenter.org/issues/ensure-every-american-can-vote/vote-suppression/myth-voter-fraud
https://www.usa.gov/voter-fraud
https://www.npr.org/2024/10/11/nx-s1-5147732/voter-fraud-explainer
https://www.dominionvoting.com/setting-the-record-straight/
https://apnews.com/article/elections-2024-voting-machines-conspiracy-theories-1aec4eec87eaaea4158825cb3f4bda27
