Previously, I discussed about introductory content of TIME Magazine's bizarre confession article on how it attempts to prime the audience to Trump being a dangerous anti-democratic entity that incited violence and insurrection. Well, much of the article's body continues to resort to that deception tactic. Canadian lawyer and Vlawger, Viva Frei, has aptly called it "pathological framing" (and I highly recommend watching his video that comments on the same article).
In this post, I'll be looking at "The Architect", "The Alliance", and "Securing The Vote" and read in between the lines.
"The Architect"
This section discusses about Mike Podhorzer, senior adviser to the president of the AFL-CIO. Much of the first body section is a summary of how he put together the secret cabal. The meat and potatoes are found in the second-to-last paragraph, where it names who Podhorzer allied with. One as The Fight Table, the same organization that insisted that all votes in Pennsylvania should be counted, even though Act 77 violated the State Constitution.
The paragraph also contradicts itself when it named the liberal activists of the Democracy Defense Coalition as one of Podhorzer's allies and then, goes on to assert that the election-crisis task force was bipartisan. It doesn't take take a genius to figure out that it's not really bipartisan if the organization is predominantly on the left, something the article also admitted to back in the introduction.
In the conclusion, the article is guilty of what Viva Frei has aptly coined as pathological framing by implying that Trump is a "dangerous dictator" and that he would rig the election.
"The Alliance"
The article's contradiction of asserting that the secret cabal was bipartisan while most of the actors are actually left continues here. Followed by more flowery narration, the author specifically namedrops leftist and progressive organizations:
"Podhorzer began working from his laptop at his kitchen table, holding back-to-back Zoom meetings for hours a day with his network of contacts across the progressive universe: the labor movement; the institutional left, like Planned Parenthood and Greenpeace; resistance groups like Indivisible and MoveOn; progressive data geeks and strategists, representatives of donors and foundations, state-level grassroots organizers, racial-justice activists and others."
"In April, Podhorzer began hosting a weekly 2½-hour Zoom. It was structured around a series of rapid-fire five-minute presentations on everything from which ads were working to messaging to legal strategy. The invitation-only gatherings soon attracted hundreds, creating a rare shared base of knowledge for the fractious progressive movement."
Quite a "bipartisan" cabal you put together, eh, Podhorzer? And it's not just that most of the people involved are to the left politically, but that some of them are off the deep end. For instance, the "racial-justice activists" that the article so described are really opportunists that foment more racial divisiveness and resentment.
Unsurprisingly, the concluding paragraph is yet another instance of pathological framing where it tries to paint Podhorzer et al. as the "protectors of democracy" while Trump is the evil dictator. I also have to wonder which "Trump-skeptical Republicans" were won over? My guess is the Lincoln Project, though... it looks like they're dealing with a big sexual misconduct scandal (Ron Paul also made a great response). That aged well...
"Securing The Vote"
Under more dramatic narration, the key takeaway from this section is how the secret cabal "secured the vote" by bolstering mail-in voting. Mail-in voting was a big point of concern during the 2020 election season as the US never did mail-in voting at such a large scale before. TIME stated that nearly half of the votes were done through mail. As Minnesota laywer, Rekieta Law, stated in his video on the Georgia senate's recent absentee voting bill, the right to vote that is bestowed upon you by your respective state legislatures involves voting in person. Everything else is extra and absentee voting, of which mail-in voting belongs under that umbrella, is the extra part:
The article also tries to frame Trump's legal challenges as vehicles to sow doubt in mail-in voting and send a message rather than to achieve a legal outcome. Of course, it fails to mention how some of the challenges had gone through or were won, even though it happened way after. Georgia has referred 35 cases of election law violations for criminal prosecution and the state legislature has advanced additional bills to increase oversight. A judge in Arizona has ruled that the Arizona senate is entitled to look at the election ballots and equipment in spite of Maricopa County's assertion that it is illegal.
Closing Thoughts
It's not surprising considering how TIME opened its article. However, to think that it could get away with asserting that the secret cabal was bipartisan while naming predominantly leftist organizations is laughable. Its defense of mail-in voting is also very weak. The assertion that Trump's litigation was more style over substance is unfounded, not to mention has aged poorly.
