Republicans Are Already Committing Election Fraud

A House race in Virginia reveals the Republican strategy for beating the Democrats, which they got from the Russians in the 2016 election. Keep Democrats bickering with each, and put up phony independent candidates to split the Democratic vote, even if you have to break the law to do it:

A special prosecutor was appointed Tuesday to investigate claims that aides to Rep. Scott W. Taylor (R-Va.) illegally forged signatures to help an independent candidate get on the ballot, hoping to give their boss an edge over his Democratic challenger in the midterm elections.

Aides to Taylor, a freshman lawmaker from Virginia Beach, collected signatures for independent candidate Shaun Brown, who analysts say could siphon votes away from Taylor’s Democratic challenger, Elaine Luria.

With their email hacks and social media manipulation the Russians stoked divisions in the Democratic Party, in particular, inciting hatred against Hillary Clinton among Bernie Sanders supporters.

The Russians also backed Jill Stein's candidacy, splitting away Green-leaning Democrats. Here's a picture of Jill Stein with Vladimir Putin and Michael Flynn, Trump's discredited national security advisor.

Republicans have used the Greens to sabotage Democrats in the past; in particular, Al Gore lost in 2000 to Bush because of Ralph Nader and the Green Party (the GOP spent money to push Nader's candidacy in 2000 and 2004). The irony, of course, is that if Nader hadn't run, Gore would have won Florida, and Gore would have set us a climate policy that the Greens actually wanted.

Instead we had Bush and now Trump, in large part thanks in part to Green candidates Ralph Nader and Jill Stein.

It is often said that the perfect is the enemy of the good. Progressives can't expect everything to happen at once. Change at the national level is incremental, and unity is even more important ever since the Republicans stole a Supreme court seat in 2015.

We have to elect Democrats to ensure that the House and the Senate have Democratic majorities, even if those Democrats aren't all as progressive as we might want. Our representatives should represent the people of their districts, and if those districts are slightly right of center, their legislators should be Democrats who are slightly right of center.

If the Republicans retain their majorities, Trump will cement his lock on the Republican Party and turn this country into banana republic owned and operated by corporations and the wealthy.