Democrats Act Like Cheaters

For several years, I’ve been debating with a close friend (who happens to be a pre-Trump Republican) about whether the Democrats habitually cheat in elections. I think they do. And bigly. But my interlocutor attributes their successful efforts to make elections less fraud-proof to a desire to be more open to marginalized or indifferent sectors of the electorate. Presumably, requiring proof of citizenship would frighten away segments of the population who don’t feel they have any stake in our society. In any case, he insists we shouldn’t confuse Democratic efforts to expand the electorate with a desire to commit fraud.

 Moreover, my friend contends that since very few cases of definitive fraud have been demonstrated from the 2020 presidential election (I would say suspiciously few, even in what would be a generally honest election), we should be very cautious about arousing distrust in our voting arrangements. Mail-in ballots do not really encourage cheating, as right-wing fanatics (like yours truly) would suggest. They just make it easier for those with busy schedules to perform their civic duty in a modern, technologically sophisticated world.

These arguments have some merit—particularly when they point out that there has been remarkably little evidence of the Democrats cheating, and that the onus of proof remains on those of us who believe that millions of ballots have been falsified and that this may even have altered the outcome of the 2020 presidential race. The problem with this argument is what I call the Meyer Lansky factor. For those who don’t know who this figure was, let me explain that Lansky came from a poor family of Russian Jewish immigrants but rose to wealth as an associate of Lucky Luciano and as a money launderer for the Mafia. He was also more fortunate than his clumsier colleagues, many of whom spent decades in the slammer. Meyer was never imprisoned for his highly probable misdeeds, except for a few weeks he spent in jail early in his career for gambling irregularities in Saratoga Springs, New York.

Should we therefore conclude that Lansky was a model citizen because he, unlike his associates, was more expert in hiding misdeeds? Wouldn’t we be justified in believing that the same odor of criminality attached to him as to those with whom he worked?