A political power grab
This series aims to explore more of the money and international politics behind lockdown fascism later. But domestic political power grabs were part of the larger plot.
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican, unilaterally canceled the 2020 Democratic primary election in his state—using COVID as an excuse. There has been speculation that the entire stay-at-home crusade was designed to manipulate presidential primaries nationwide to keep the “wrong” candidate from winning. That would fit into the larger worldwide effort. Anyone who paid avid attention to the primaries in February couldn’t help but have a feeling of suspicion about the quick imposition of lockdowns.
New York state saw one of the most blatant attempts to cheat at elections under the guise of COVID. In 2020, Gov. Andrew Cuomo enacted what he called an emergency COVID budget, but one of the most significant things this budget did was change election rules to make it much harder for minor parties to get ballot access. Parties previously needed 50,000 votes to appear on the ballot in the next election, but this budget raised it to 130,000. Independent candidates previously needed 15,000 signatures, but this was upped to 45,000. Because of this, several minor parties lost ballot access.
What were these new rules doing in a COVID budget, of all things? There had to be some connection to the virus in order to slip the rules into the budget.
The U.S. Supreme Court is also involved in this worldwide power grab. This month, the court declined to hear a lawsuit challenging New York’s new rules.
It’s clear that the “new normal” was intended to be permanent—and parts of it are. Mask mandates that were originally said to last only for two weeks have now been imposed by some jurisdictions in perpetuity—to last six or seven months of every year forever in some venues. Manipulating elections is not just a bonus slipped into budget bills but actually helps install a permanent “new normal” by shutting out candidates who fight it.