Rigged: How the Media, Big Tech, and Democrats Seized Our Elections
Recommended by: David Crane
Posted in: Partisan Politics
Purchase →The sub-title pretty much captures what the book is about. I submit it because immediately after the 2020 election, questions and concerns about election integrity were denounced as groundless and even unpatriotic and subversive. Whether or not Trump would have won but for all the shenanigans, the book conclusively proves we weren’t wrong in suspecting something was horribly wrong about the election.
I am very “blue”, but I believe in reading books from the “other” side. I started compulsively reading non-fiction political/historical books just after the 2020 election because the results told me I had a very poor understanding of about half my fellow citizens.
I saw Mollie Hemingway’s book, “Rigged: How the Media, Big Tech, and the Democrats Seized Our Elections” on Braver Angels library site I saw it received very good ratings on the Goodreads web site so I checked it out from the library. I was disappointed. I found her book to be a loud, unrelenting drumbeat about the evils of the “usual suspects”. Rather than bringing us together, I felt it was expressly written to drive us apart.
I seek out books that aim to tell both sides of a story and I found Mollie’s to be the opposite. It may as well have been titled “Waah We Lost Because of the Usual Suspects”.
She mentions Oregon a fair amount in her book because of its use of mail in ballots and the “horrible 2020 insurrection” in Portland. I’ve lived in Oregon for 46 years, I’ve been a poll observer, and I have significant family in Portland. I found her claims about election fraud baseless and her concern about our “insurrection” way overblown.
I do not feel the 2020 was particularly different from any other election I’ve seen in my lifetime, apart from the losing side gracelessly refusing to concede. If 2020 was rigged, they’ve all been rigged.
I suspect the high rating on Goodreads is something of an aberration. She receives a large percentage of 5 star ratings and mid range ratings fall way off. I think Mark Twain’s quote applies ” How easy it is to make people believe a lie, and how hard it is to undo that work again!”.
I question her connections as a Fox correspondent and her being a founding member of the Federalist Society. Neither are renowned for an even-handed approach.
I find it curious that she would have us believe Democrats could have the skill and power to rig elections and still let Susan Collins and Ron Johnson be re-elected. I’ve been a Democrat longer than I’ve lived in Oregon and I know we don’t have the skill to pull off a rigged election.
Even though their books received lower ratings, David French’s “Divided We Fall”, Chris Stirewalt’s “Broken News”, Ben Sasse’s “Them”, and Thomas Frank’s “Listen, Liberal” to be much better books for expanding your viewpoint.