Thursday, Oct. 27, 2022 | 2 a.m.
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The Republican candidate for secretary of state has never hidden his belief that Donald Trump won the 2020 presidential election. But this week, Jim Marchant went one step further, revealing the full extent of his plans to overthrow democracy, ignore the votes of Nevadans he disagrees with and hand control of all aspects of the nation’s government over to his hand-picked friends.
In a campaign ad Marchant posted to multiple social media platforms, he went beyond his normal blatant lies about Joe Biden being an illegitimate president — a claim that has been rejected by dozens of independent audits, investigators and judges — including some appointed by Trump.
Instead, the ad falsely claims that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., were all also illegitimately elected — all part of a vast conspiracy to give Democrats power.
His claims are preposterous and lack any evidence whatsoever.
Whether or not you agree with the three Democrats’ policies, they all won with overwhelming majorities in their respective districts.
Pelosi received more than 75% of the vote in her San Francisco-based congressional district in 2020, winning by a margin of more than 200,000.
Schumer received more than 70% of the vote in his last election in 2016, winning by a margin of more than 3 million votes in the state of New York.
And Schiff received 72% of the vote, winning by a margin of more than 150,000 votes.
For Marchant’s claims to be true, more than 3.4 million people would need to be actively conspiring to cover up the results of the 2020 House and Senate elections, not to mention the 7 million people who helped put Biden over the top in the presidential race. Marchant has admitted as much, describing the past 16 years of elections as being controlled by a “deep-state cabal.”
As evidence for this grand conspiracy of more than 10 million Americans, Marchant’s ad asserts that because Marchant disagrees with these three politicians, and because they keep winning, there must be a conspiracy and a cover-up. The sum of his evidence is akin to that of a child whose only response to losing a playground game is to say “you cheated” — an entitled brat who would rather kick the ball over a fence than admit to losing.
The ad fails to mention a point that proves the conspiracy theory is trash. Trump and a Republican majority in the Senate and House were elected while Democrats held power. If they manipulated the election in 2020, why wouldn’t they have done so in 2016, or in 2014 for that matter? The reason, of course, is that the conspiracy theory Marchant advances is a lie. He wants to undermine our democracy.
Both parties can be childish but only one is a threat to democracy.
We recognize that this particular brand of childish outburst is not exclusive to the political right. In the aftermath of Trump’s 2016 presidential victory, many Democrats engaged in similarly immature proclamations of “not my president.” Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton conceded the election when the votes were fully counted, she admitted defeat and the Obama administration assisted in the peaceful transfer of power.
Unlike today, none of the Democrats engaging in those outbursts were simultaneously seeking the office of secretary of state or campaigning on a platform of limiting the right to vote, throwing out legal ballots, and refusing to submit the results of an election they disagreed with. Nor were any of them credibly claiming that multiple members of both houses of Congress and the White House were engaged in a vast secret conspiracy to “steal” the election.
Marchant must be rejected.
To say that Marchant and his conspiratorial friends have gone off the deep end is an understatement. And yet, despite being out of touch with reality, he has a realistic chance of winning, and thus, a realistic chance of implementing his anti-democracy “I get to choose the winner because I said so” plan for Nevada.
Even more terrifying is the possibility that Marchant isn’t just a petulant child who needs to grow up, but a political parasite giving the middle finger to Nevada voters and daring them to do something about it. He smacks of a fascist bully following the Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin playbooks step by step in order to tear down the foundations of our great country in order to silence and eliminate anyone who might oppose him.
Only a monster runs for an election by promising to manipulate all other elections once he’s in power.
Ironically, our evidence for Marchant’s fascist sentiments is significantly stronger than his evidence of the vast conspiracy of the left. Marchant’s own words and self-proclaimed intentions echo those of infamous authoritarians of the past and present, including Putin.
But whether Marchant is immature, incompetent, evil or some combination of all three is ultimately irrelevant. His words and actions are unacceptable and should disqualify him from holding any public office, let alone the state’s chief election official.
When asked about the conspiratorial ad, Marchant’s Democratic opponent, Cisco Aguilar, told CNN, “Jim Marchant is not a serious candidate, but the threat that he represents to democracy is extremely serious.”
We agree. And we call on all Nevadans of all backgrounds, identities, parties and beliefs, to reject Marchant’s dangerous rhetoric and send him packing at the polls.
