A roughly 1,000-word article published in Vanity Fair on Friday does its best to inculcate its readers with the notion that former President Donald Trump and his millions of MAGA supporters are a violent threat to democracy. Its sources suggest otherwise.
The article, titled “Election Workers Are Bracing for Another Barrage of Trump Threats,” makes its thesis clear: “[M]onths of ‘rigged election’ conspiracy theories, harassment of election officials (and even individual poll workers), and underhanded schemes to overturn Trump’s election loss gave way to violent insurrection. Now, as he runs to return to power, Trump is once again raising the prospect of political violence…”
Presumably, if the MAGA movement’s ‘threat’ to democracy in general and poll workers in particular were so strong (and violent), poll workers would be resigning their positions in droves. Not so. Quoting Robert Stein, an elections expert at Rice University, the article states that the allegedly “hostile environment over the last four years hasn’t seemed to deter temporary poll workers; his research indicates they remain ‘very committed’ to the groundwork of democracy. ‘They take seriously what they’re doing.’”
Lisa Deely, an election worker and the main subject of Vanity Fair’s article, also seems unperturbed by the supposed specter of political violence emanating from Trump and his supporters and makes it clear that she does not truly believe she is in any real danger:
“Deeley… said she is bracing for the political temperature to start ‘climbing higher again’ as general election season begins in earnest. Has that ever made her consider leaving the profession herself? ‘Honestly, yes,’ she told me… But then, ‘there’s the other side: I feel a responsibility,’ she said. ‘So I’m not going anywhere.’”
With Bidenomics an abject failure and Biden’s foreign policy record just as bad, “threat to Democracy” is the only thing left with which the Biden campaign and its supporters have to message. If Vanity Fair‘s latest contribution to those efforts is anything to go by, it won’t work.