Stopping the Steal

Stopping-the-Steal
Stopping the Steal

That was then-president Trump in the months following the elections in the year 2020. Of course, he won it. But Trump’s narrative was one of the elections being rigged. One conspiracy after another, over and over for President Trump built towards January 6th, 2021.

There are two active criminal cases and multiple election rigging allegations against Trump, but this week, the Georgian court has restricted some of the allegations that were leveled against him in the criminal confrontation. At the debate, the moderator David Muir was straightforward in asking him how could such blatant lies be spewed when there is no substantial proof backing it

Yes, that is the first lie. Such cases were not considered for the time when it was clear there was no case of such fraud available. But that also did not stop the pressure that Trump and his allies put on Republican state officials to invalidate a legally conducted election. Turning Point USA was present in an HBO documentary called, “Stopping The Steal” where some Trump-supporting Republican officials are offended that they could be asked to ignore the law in order to get Trump’s victory. We are now propagating the legal director of “Stopping The Steal“, Mr. Dan Reed. Dan, thank you for joining us today.

In fact, one of the things that struck me was the impression that Donald Trump and the people around him had actually planned to try to overturn the election’s result. I thought this was absurd: this has to be the most audacious and audacious political robbery ever perpetrated. I mean, really, when you think about there being an actual effort to try and seize the keys to the Presidency, it is really unbelievable. But I wasn’t really I mean a lot of it had been reported on, but I wasn’t really very sure about how it all came about.

Also, I thought, well yes I know a lot of people are saying that Trump tried to steal the election but maybe they want to just settle political scores. Maybe you know the proof is just not there. So I began to sort of poke around it a little bit. And what I realized was that, A, there was no actual effort in attempting to put the entire story across as a sort of attempt to project the 10, 000 feet view. And secondly, all the major players who I believe tried to obstruct this in a sense traitorous move, were Republicans.

Where I think the film is quite effective is setting out in a timeline for example all the things that Donald Trump did during the election. He comes into the White House in the early hours of polling day and says, “Frankly we lost Michigan News alert we did win this election at the White House, at rallies, and at different interviews, same things.” You combine this with what his team of lawyers, a group of elite strike force members, as referred to themselves, including Rudy Giuliani, are saying. And I have a couple of questions related to that.

One is that there were a lot of moments and I was covering the campaign. At the time, my attention was mainly on the transition that was already taking place. But I was, you know, I was very much paying attention. There were a lot of such moments that in real time, I felt were comic absurdism. They felt like they couldn’t be serious attempts. And I find Rudy Giuliani with what looks like his hair dye running down his face a very good case in point.

So what I understand now is when you look back at the events in their totality, with the events of January 6 in mind, and that it came so close to exploding to the point of no return, they begin to have a more nuanced perspective. And connected to this, I am curious, as you were looking through this footage, was there something different that you felt as opposed to what you might have felt when the events were happening in real life?

Yes, I think you put your finger on something important, which is how the ‘steal’ in other words the attempt to overturn the election in 2020 as it has come to be called, the steal it was being put into practice, was a whole chain of events which in themselves could be well considered rather inconsequential, or even ludicrous, and, I suppose, to put it in a word that you have just used, routine, and in fact rather slapstick. And I suppose it takes the passage of time and also the joining of those moments into one comprehensible the intention of those people was to steal the elections.

And it takes that to even begin to feel the chilling effect of, you know, the steady and purposeful execution of a plan if that is what it was. It Giuliani and co. went all over swinging states. And Trump went out personally to meet very inconspicuous officials. You know, I think as one of the Gabriel Sterling, one of the key players in the Georgia drama, says nobody apart from me should ever know who I am. I would have been unknown to everyone but this horrendous crime.

And so I believe, as you know, what you have is a series of quite kind of small events and small skirmishes, if you like, in the election story, none of which are dramatic enough to really draw anyone’s attention or to be sort of taken seriously. But I think it is not until January 6 that people are like, oh, my god. Hold on. What is this? But January 6, gosh, what a dramatic day it was, was not the most remarkable day in the steal.

Well, the steal was what happened was the pasa that happened prior to the 6th of January. You know, President Trump’s fathering of the constitutional lawyer John Eastman and inshallah convincing everyone that Mike Pence would just change the election results. So I think it’s that sort of it’s like the slow, the gradual, the choking of the democratic process which, from the vantage point that we have now, appears rather stoic but more so alarming as well. But at that time, I think you know, as you said you were there. It was a whole different world. It was bonkers.

Let me come back to the very beginning where you said, let’s say, you’re British. Let me try to represent the message over these last four years from President Biden or others for that matter as what all this mess, this escapade is all about for the world regarding American democracy, twisting the election results, how close it was to being a twisted scenario, the violence of 6 January? After finishing this project and after contemplating very hard about this, do you have any reflections on that?

REED: And America, i.e., the USA, this ultimate power center, despite, you know, the histories of ups and downs and whatever discourses one may have concerning the American democracy she has always shone the most blinding light among her peers, with regards to the democratic principles within the context of the world. How many times have you heard somebody say that? Oh yeah, well, so I’m a Brit, okay? So, I am deeply concerned, even, I dare say, somewhat scared when I start collecting this narrative. It’s yeah, made me a bit scared.

No, I am hoping you know, we are moving towards a new age in American politics, and with that, all this will be suitcases away, and it will be, we will look back and it will be like a nightmare in the distance. That was Dan Reed, the director of the new documentary ‘Stopping The Steal’ which will be out on Max on September 17. Thank you so much.

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