A recent op-ed piece published by The Washington Post highlights the problem of Snowflake Syndrome among voters who cast ballots for former President Donald Trump. The author, Greg Sargent, notes that the current Republican agenda centers on the following: restricting voting rights, sowing doubt about the COVID-19 vaccine, and downplaying the Jan. 6 insurrection.
The problem is that there is no justification or substantial evidence to support any of their arguments regarding these initiatives. In fact, all are connected to false narratives and misinformation that has been, in some way, influenced by Trump. For example, the nationwide push for voting rights restrictions is supposedly an incentive to increase voters' confidence in the integrity of the United States' voting systems. But Sargent pushed back against that argument describing it as "bad-faith nonsense."
"Broadly speaking," Sargent wrote, "this "confidence" storyline is bad-faith nonsense: It's being widely abused to keep alive the myth of the stolen election and to justify an unprecedented wave of efforts to disenfranchise the opposition's voters. It is not designed to build confidence in our elections, but to further undermine it, for illicit purposes."
Sargent noted the problem with Texas lawmakers' efforts outlined in House Bill 241 as he discussed the argument presented by Texas state Rep. Steve Toth who co-authored the bill. Toth's proposed bill would focus on examining election results in 13 counties. However, 10 out of those 13 counties were won by President Joe Biden. The writer noted that Toth's only concern was about the blue counties, not election integrity, as a whole.
While Toth said he would support a statewide effort, he also argued the undertaking would be too expensive and time-consuming. Asked if he would consider including some smaller counties, Toth replied, "What's the point? I mean, all the small counties are red."
"Republican voters don't lack confidence in the system in counties they won; they lack it only in counties populated by a lot of Democratic voters," Sargent wrote, mocking this attitude. "So let's focus on auditing those!"
Toth's comments are revealing. They show Republicans aren't actually interested in election integrity — that's as important in red counties as it is in blue — but they just don't want to accept that Democrats can legitimately win elections.
In reference to all of the GOP-inspired antics, Sargent concluded by saying, "So enough with the bogus Snowflake Syndrome narratives already. It's a tired act — not to mention a transparently disingenuous and even dangerous one."