Not good enough

An idea circulating in conservative social media for years asserts that if Republican margins are big enough Democrats can't steal elections.

That notion has always annoyed the hell out of me, and its ultimate uselessness has just recently been revealed in a huge way. In the first place, our country is so thoroughly polarized, that I think large margins are going to become increasingly rare, especially in the case of presidential elections. The most recent one actually may have featured a large Republican margin, but cheating was on an unprecedented scale, so the margin didn't matter (or will not have mattered if the Democrats get away with their fraud). In the second place, the idea, as stated, seems to represent an acceptance of some very significant amount of Democrat fraud on a permanent basis, a phenomenon that we just have to live with. 

I say, no, we shouldn't have to live with it, and our plan 'A' shouldn't require larger margins of victory than we can reasonably anticipate (although we should always work to get as many votes as possible). Republicans at the state and local levels need to mobilize, to publicize fraud and methods of voting that lend themselves easily to the commission of fraud, and  to continue uncovering dodgy technologies that can be manipulated by domestic partisans (and foreign enemies) to change election outcomes. And especially, in cases where they control two or even three branches of state government, effect laws that ensure fair elections. The spectacle of Republicans actually dominating a state government, but moving about aimlessly, like lobsters in a water tank at the grocery store with their claws bound by plastic bands, is absolutely maddening.

And if the GOP can't take this matter seriously and make it an issue requiring eternal vigilance (instead of doing what Republicans generally do now, which is to make a show of grumbling after they lose elections and then promptly abandon any effective strategy for enforcing transparency), then we need a new GOP.