Ross D. Franklin / AP
Kari Lake, Arizona Republican candidate for governor, speaks to supporters at the Republican watch party in Scottsdale, Ariz., Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2022.
Thursday, Nov. 10, 2022 | 2 a.m.
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Polls had only been open a few hours when Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake started adding fuel to the fires of election conspiracy. At an impromptu press conference after casting her ballot, Lake repeatedly insinuated that what was effectively a printer jam caused by an incorrect alignment setting on a few dozen printers in Maricopa County was actually a mass conspiracy designed to keep Republicans from voting. The conspiracy theory was even more absurd given that the problem was quickly isolated and resolved by Maricopa County’s top election official, Stephen Richer — who is a Republican.
Of course, facts are irrelevant to Lake unless they support her pre-ordained view of the world. By the time she spoke at a campaign celebration Tuesday night, she was in full-blown conspiracy mode. “We need honest elections and we’re going to bring them to you, Arizona,” Lake told supporters.
A long-time advocate of the big lie that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Donald Trump, Lake claimed the 2022 election was like a “groundhog day” in which unspecified “corruption” was being covered up by the “fake media.”
Interestingly, when Maricopa County released a new batch of results Wednesday morning showing Lake narrowing the gap with Democratic opponent Katie Hobbs, Lake had no problem with those results. Her accusations of fraud suddenly went silent as she celebrated the move in her favor.
None of this is particularly surprising coming from Lake. Like Nevada GOP candidates Adam Laxalt (Senate), Jim Marchant (secretary of state) and numerous other Republicans across the country, Lake has spent the past two years building a following that rests on the foundation of being the victim of a Democratic conspiracy.
They are convinced that millions of Democrats across the country are collaborating with Trump-appointed federal judges and Republican leaders like Richer and Nevada’s Republican secretary of state, Barbara Cegavske, to silence Republican votes.
Also involved in the cover-up are the entire film and television industry, the print and television news media, parents and schoolchildren who faked their own deaths in school shootings and the vast majority of federal law enforcement and Justice Department officials. Oh, and the owner and teenage employees of a pizza shop in Washington, D.C.
The absurdity of the web of lies is the stuff of a “Saturday Night Live” sketch. And yet Lake, Laxalt and Marchant have a real chance at winning. Moreover, even if they don’t win, their lunacy isn’t going away.
In a true damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t moment, the United States now finds itself in a Catch-22 where MAGA victories prove the made-up claims of fraud don’t exist but put the liars in positions of power. Meanwhile, legitimate victories by Democrats and non-MAGA Republicans simply add fuel to the fire of conspiracy speculation.
All of which is to say that while Americans should celebrate our (in large part) rejection of extremism and conspiracy theory Tuesday night, our work is not done. MAGA extremists are already turning the gears of their public relations machine, spreading lies and rumors designed to infect the American public and take down democratic norms and institutions.
We must be ever vigilant against this threat, refusing to allow it to spread or infect our friends, family and neighbors. We must also guard against the threat of bad actors like Marchant, who are not only spreading lies to undermine democracy but are actively trying to take control of elections for the purpose of corrupting them.
They are trying to steal elections, and they aren’t even trying to hide it.
Should they succeed, we may find ourselves crying foul, but only with the support of verifiable evidence and the knowledge that fact and truth are on our side.
Democracy works when we show up to cast our ballots and encourage our community to do the same. On Tuesday, Americans provided some of the best examples of democracy in action in recent memory.Americans of all backgrounds and identities turned out in droves and mostly rejected the most extreme elements of American politics. Democracy won. Civil and human rights won. Decency won. But it was only by the thinnest of margins.
Results are still coming in, with final numbers in states like Arizona and Nevada likely still days away. But win or lose, MAGA extremists and their coalition of white nationalists, white supremacists, conspiracy theorists and hatemongers aren’t taking a break from their lies. Thus, we can’t afford to take a break either.
