The 2020 election remains controversial. I wrote here that there is compelling evidence of several million illegal votes being cast in that election–several million more, that is, than in 2016 or 2024. And we know there was plenty of funny business, beginning with the media boycott of devastating evidence of Joe Biden’s corruption, leading up to the election.
These issues certainly should be debated, and election integrity is an important issue today, as it was five years ago. But many Democrats think you shouldn’t be allowed to question what happened in 2020. Rasmussen finds that many voters–42%–think it likely that cheating affected the outcome of that election. But a plurality of Democrats don’t think you should be able to say that.
Rasmussen asked: “Some members of Trump’s first administration who questioned the integrity of the 2020 election results have faced legal punishment. Do you believe that people who questioned the integrity of the 2020 election should be punished?”
Thirty-six percent (36%) of Likely Voters believe that people who questioned the integrity of the 2020 election should be punished, while 48% are against such punishment and 16% are not sure. Among Democrats, however, those numbers are reversed – 48% in favor of punishment and 36% opposed.
Putting aside the fact that those who question the integrity of the 2020 election results are in all probability correct (which doesn’t necessarily mean that Trump “really” won the election), the fact that a near-majority of Democrats think you should be punished for disagreeing with them about that election is pretty shocking. Especially since they themselves have repeatedly questioned the integrity of elections won by Republicans; Hillary Clinton, for example, with regard to the 2016 election.
At a minimum, it is more evidence that the Democratic Party has absolutely no belief in, or commitment to, freedom of speech. For now, the federal courts are a reasonably strong bulwark against the sort of crackdown that most Democrats apparently would support. But a modest turnover on the Supreme Court could change that, too. If you think that a Court with five or more Sonia Sotomayors and Ketanji Brown Jacksons would safeguard your right to disagree with Democratic Party orthodoxy, you are a lot more optimistic than I am.
