The Columbian’s editorial cartoon on Dec. 26, “Wheel of Excuses,” is a perfect example of deliberately missing the point. It shows a Democratic donkey spinning the Wheel of Excuses why Hillary Clinton lost the election: Comey, Russian meddling, etc.
FBI Chief James Comey’s action, a clear violation of Justice Department rules and the Hatch Act, resulted in a swing of up to 30 percent of undecided voters; the FBI and CIA have both concluded that the Russian government was responsible for hacking Democratic emails; and, as Greg Palast reports, “Trump operatives, under the direction of Kris Kobach, Kansas secretary of state, created a system to purge 1.1 million Americans of color from the voter rolls of GOP-controlled states.” Palast adds that “Millions of provisional ballots will never be counted.”
Republicans are free to ascribe the Democratic loss to a flawed message, while some Democrats think Clinton was a flawed messenger. All of this is beside the point. If people are being systematically denied their voting rights, and government agencies are propagandizing on behalf of one party, while a foreign government is hijacking our election for its own purposes, we’re well on the way to losing our freedom.
