What’s roiling around in there?
“Most of the greatest evils that man has inflicted upon man have come through people feeling quite certain about something which, in fact, was false.”
― Bertrand Russell
The crux, of course, is that part about “people feeling quite certain about” the truth of an empirically proven, demonstrable falsehood.
Park County Commission Chair Amy Mitchell was asked at the August 8, 2023, Commissioners Work Session why she believes in conspiracy theories about Dominion voting machines. She was asked to cite facts revealing something amiss with Park County elections in 2020 and 2024. After a slight pause, Mitchell referred to the July 18, 2023, “Election Summit” in the San Luis Valley as, I suppose, her version of what facts are.
Mitchell predictably did not state any facts but rattled off a couple of unadulterated conspiracies that were hyped at the Election Summit, organized and presented by the SLV GOP (San Luis Valley Republicans). Someone correct me if I’m wrong, but the SLV GOP appears to mirror the Park County GOP, which lately has become the bubble-encased enclave of Christian Nationalists, Constitutional Conservatives, Big Lie-believing, Biblicistic, small government, small-minded, gun-toting, science-denying, easily conned, easily led bevy of fearful inheritors of McCarthy-inspired claptrap and Know Nothing biases. They are not the party of Lincoln anymore. They are the party of Trumplike megalomanic fantasy.
Ahem.
Here’s the SLV Election Summit lineup: (Click on the names to get a sense of who these people are.)
Joe Oltmann, Shawn Smith, Jeff O’Donnell, Jeff Young, Randy Corporon, Douglas Frank
Just a note about Douglas Frank, touted by the SLV Republicans to be a “world-renowned physicist.” He may well be that, but he’s also, in my opinion, a nut wearing a Bill Nye the Science Guy bowtie, who appears, if he were not a physicist, to pine for a Vaudeville stage where his slapstick schtick would delight all. In fact, I do believe the gullible would even buy elixirs from him to cure their ills.
Back to Commission Chair Amy Mitchell and her gut. To ease all that queasiness in her tummy she wants to do a manual hand count of ballots. She bases this on the commissioners’ fiduciary responsibility under Colorado Statute Title 30, and at long last to settle the question “once and for all.” Where, I wonder did she get her talking points? From David Justice and Leni Walker? (Leni Walker, by the way, is a former Park County Commissioner who, in the early part of this century proposed a $75 to $100 flat tax on all properties to fund Road and Bridge. Imagine that!)
To understand who David Justice is and the nature of election deniers’ thought processes and fantasies, please refer to The Theater of the Absurd below:
Amy Mitchell’s Constitutional Conservative sidekick, Commissioner Dave Wissel, sat back during the August 8 work session and opined about the “cacophony” from both sides of the election issue, and suggested all he was looking for was the truth. His calm and quiet demeanor, however, is always a clue to his unspoken motivations. In fact, when it comes to hand counts of ballots, Wissel is definitely on board. Indeed, as I wrote last October:
Dave Wissel, running for District 3 Commissioner, the South Park Outsiders sweetheart candidate, wants to give the taxpayers of Park County election integrity. Not actually tossing a bone to the Outsiders, he doesn’t come right out and say Donald Trump won in 2020. But, his website tells us he “will work to implement voting measures that mirror the ‘Improve Public Confidence Election Validity’ measure (SB21-007).”
The bill was proposed by Sen. Paul Lundeen in the CO Senate in 2021. SB21-007 would require all Colorado general elections to be conducted in person at designated polling places. Mail-in ballots would not be automatically provided to the electorate unless the elector “affirmatively” requests one. Voting is restricted to seven days, and all votes must be counted by the close of election day. Any votes arriving after the close of the election would not be counted. The fiscal note on SB021-007 says it would increase expenditures by the Secretary of State’s office by $1.5 million. The increased costs for small counties could reach $86,000 and for large counties, up to $1,495,000. But Wissel goes a couple of steps further. He wants hand counts done and will investigate the termination of Park County’s contract with Dominion. He says this is necessary because “there is enough evidence to justify people’s concerns of election fraud and general lack of integrity.”
Listen. I could go on and on with this subject matter with bells and whistles, videos and quotes for another five or six pages. But, what’s the point? Mitchell and Wissel will have their hand count of ballots regardless of what it costs the county, regardless of what We the People see as the indisputable facts that reveal to anyone with a sound mind and a smidgen of logic that the Big Lie is just that, a lie. But these folks, these election deniers who adhere to the self-righteous fundamentalist Christian Nationalist vision for the future of our republic, and certainly for little ol’ Park County, will never crawl from the dismal bubble they exist within. Regardless of demonstrable, empirical, logical real-world truths, their truths, like those they see in the Bible, cannot be proven, but for them are nonetheless inviolable. They savor regression, preferring to believe revelation comes from a burning bush. Their false idol is the most prolific conman of our time, a golden idol, the Grand Poobah of Mar-a-Lago.
