The Last Straw: They’re Stealing Elections in Real Time and Pretending It’s Normal

 

It’s not often life showcases a problem in real time. It is now in the form of California and the Senate.

It’s become clear that California voting is designed to give Democrats the ability to cheat.  Aside from Ranked Choice Voting scam and a universal mail-out of ballots, the state allows 30 days for votes to be counted, a fraud facilitator if ever there was one.

We’re seeing it play itself out very much in real time.  Last week in Los Angeles in the battle for Mayor, at one point after an update of 24,000 votes, Spencer Pratt, a guy with 30% support, did not gain a single vote. I asked Grok for the odds and it was somewhere over 1 over infinity... basically, zero. In a city where only 43% of students can read, believing those vote totals would require you to think that when half the voters are practically illiterate, not a single one accidentally voted for Pratt. And now thanks to mail in voting, Pratt has lost the lead for qualifying for the runoff to someone who was polling 4 points behind him when voting started.

All of this makes me think of a quote by Elena Gorokhova when characterizing life in the Soviet Union: “The rules are simple: they lie to us, we know they’re lying, they know we know they’re lying, but they keep lying to us, and we keep pretending to believe them.”  The Russians even have a word for it: Vranyo, a lie that everyone knows is a lie but pretends otherwise.

That’s exactly what’s been going on in America for decades. The Democrats have been using mail-in ballots, voting machines, and endless “recounts” to steal elections right in front of us.  It’s the theft that everyone is supposed to pretend is not happening. Christine Gregoire in 2004. Al Franken in 2008.  Joe Biden in 2020.

Then there’s the Senate. The same week the Senate took a shot at the SAVE America Act and it was defeated.  Voting with the Democrats were the four most despicable vermin in the Senate, Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Mitch McConnell, and Thom Tillis. Even if they had voted with the GOP, it would have failed because the TDS afflicted John Thune refuses to get rid of the filibuster.

Congress’s failure to provide for secure elections has been a disaster for Republicans and the Republic. Not only is California an economic and cultural trainwreck, but a Republican hasn’t won a statewide race in 20 years — the year Democrat-in-RINO-clothing Arnold Schwarzenegger won reelection. But at least they have 7 House seats, out of 52 in a state with 25% GOP electorate. In New England the GOP’s 24% of the electorate gets them exactly zero of the region’s 21 House seats, and the one Senator out of twelve is another Democrat-in-RINO-clothing, Susan Collins.  She has a Liberty Score of 20, which is even with AOC and below Ilhan Omar at 22!  (That’s out of 100… while Thomas Massie had a 96!)

This failure is at the core of everything that is going wrong in America right now.  There is literally nothing more important in 2026 than getting the SAVE America Act passed. Donald Trump came to power promising to take on the establishment. In his first term he played by the Marquess of Queensberry Rules, and much of his agenda was stonewalled.  Then the election was what it was, and Joe Biden rolled back most of the little he did accomplish.

Then in 2024 Trump ran again, and we expected that after years of being targeted, both literally and figuratively, he would take a wrecking ball to the Swamp.  But he hasn’t. Deficits have continued to grow, it’s practically impossible to eliminate even the most egregious of programs, and federal judges usurp Executive powers like kids in a candy store. From deportations to Pentagon decisions to the 1776 Fund, there’s barely an initiative that some leftist judge hasn’t stopped.  In the Senate, Republicans have actively stopped him from making recess appointments by gaveling in faux sessions so they never technically go on recess.  That’s never happened before. No president has ever had recess appointments blocked by a Senate controlled by his own party.

All of this is happening because Congress has shirked its constitutional responsibility.  Fair and free elections are not speed limits or property taxes or any of the other things that are constitutionally in the purview of states. Fair and free elections are core to the rights of every single American regardless of where they live. Yet we have 14 states, representing almost 40% of the population with no Voter ID, representing 73% of the Electoral College votes necessary to win the White House.  Add in the issues with voting rolls, machines, and chain of custody, and it’s clear cheating is the rule of the day when it comes to voting in Democrat cities and states.

The Elections Clause of the U.S. Constitution reads:

The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators.

This is not Congress spending billions on redistribution because someone discovered the power to do so hidden in the penumbra of the General Welfare Clause. This is not Congress deciding out of thin air that they could legislate “right turn on red” nationally because they controlled highway funds. No, this is explicitly in the Constitution and Congress has failed to utilize its power to provide Americans with free, fair, and timely elections.  All of the other problems in America today stem from that.

President Trump, if he wants to have even a chance of a successful legacy, needs to knock out the Swamp with the SAVE America Act. Force Congress’s hand. He needs to make a speech to the nation and perhaps do a modern version of FDR’s Fireside Chats chronicling its progress. He needs to name names of Senators obstructing it.  He needs to use every legal tool available to pressure those intransigent grifters to support it. How? By sending JD Vance to preside over the Senate.  By refusing to sign another bill until SAVE is on his desk. By influencing where the GOP spends its campaign cash. By deciding where the next military logistics depot goes. By calling Congress into special session every single time they seek to go home for a holiday or campaign for reelection. He should make their lives a living hell until they do what 85% of the American people want and which the Constitution empowers them to do, which is nothing more than force free and fair elections.

This is not business as usual. We’re at a tipping point and honest elections are the only peaceful way to fix it. Americans have historically used the ballot box to guide government. The last time that was taken away was in 1774 when Parliament passed the Massachusetts Government Act.  That didn’t end well for the tyrants in London, and it won’t end well for the Swamp in Washington. Americans — or at least 85% of them — demand their votes count, and want their elections to be honest. Standing in the way of the SAVE America Act while states openly manipulate their elections and lie while doing so is simply a step too far.  The Russians have a word for that too:  Poslednyaya kaplya. The last straw.

Follow Vince Coyner on X at @ImperfectUSA

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2026/06/the_last_straw_they_re_stealing_elections_in_real_time_and_pretending_it_s_normal.html