I must confess, Dear Reader, that I have my doubts about everything regarding the 2020 presidential election. How did the incredibly frail juggernaut that ostensibly is Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. prevail against the savvy campaigner and energetic President Donald Trump? Republicans won across the country, yet Trump lost. As The Federalist’s J.B. Shurk noted, Biden overcame many historic trends to magically win the 2020 election, and it seems more than a little fishy. Yet at the same time, I cannot help but doubt the theory that a Kraken emerged from the deep, wrapped its tentacles around Dominion voting machines, and ripped America’s representative government to the murky bottom of the sea.
As it turns out, there is a far less conspiratorial — yet to some degree a far more unsettling — explanation for Biden’s near-miraculous win. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg funneled cash into an organization called the Center for Tech and Civic Life (CTCL), twisting the election by funding election officials. This is likely far more effective and far more terrifying than it may at first appear.
First, allow me to explain what I am NOT saying. I am not saying that Mark Zuckerberg forced people to vote when they didn’t want to vote. I am not saying that Mark Zuckerberg created ballots out of thin air in order to tip the election for Biden. I am not saying that Mark Zuckerberg bribed voters.
I am saying that Mark Zuckerberg funded an organization that tilted the rules of the game against President Donald Trump. I am saying that Trump ran a brilliant campaign that should have delivered him a landslide victory, but that — thanks to media and Big Tech censorship of important stories, the constant drumbeat of an anti-Trump establishment, and an exceedingly clever scheme from Mark Zuckerberg — the president still lost.
The legacy media’s abhorrent anti-Trump bias helps explain Biden’s win, but such a bias has more or less been worked into the system. The president rails against legacy media outlets, and he circumvents them to bring his message to the American people. The alliance of Big Tech and the legacy media to effectively bury stories like the Joe Biden-Hunter Biden bombshell in the lead-up to the election represented an extreme — and quite possibly electorally decisive — move against Trump, but perhaps the most important game-changer came from Mark Zuckerberg.
Also VIP: Buck Up, Conservatives: There Are Silver Linings to a Likely Trump Loss
PJ Media’s J. Christian Adams referred to CTCL as “the real Kraken” and he makes a compelling case that the real explanation for Biden’s surprise victory wasn’t blatantly illegal fraud — although that probably did play a small role. Rather, “the real Kraken” that shifted the election in Biden’s favor was the CTCL, which Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan funded to the sum of $350 billion.
What these grants did was build structural bias into the 2020 election where structural bias matters most – in densely populated urban cores. It converted election offices in key jurisdictions with deep reservoirs of Biden votes into Formula One turnout machines. The hundreds of millions of dollars built systems, hired employees from activist groups, bought equipment and radio advertisements. It did everything that street activists could ever dream up to turn out Biden votes if only they had unlimited funding.
For instance, CTCL gave Philadelphia $10 million, more than doubling the city’s election office budget. What did that money do?
Those millions were used to hire local activists as city employees to drive around and collect ballots. The millions bought new printers and scanners to accommodate mail ballots. Philadelphia established brand new satellite election offices across the most Biden-friendly neighborhoods in the entire Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The millions bought scores of convenient drop boxes across the same neighborhoods where mail ballots could be conveniently dropped. Even though laws limited third parties from collecting and dropping off multiple ballots, people were photographed dropping off bundles of ballots at the boxes.
Philadelphia election officials used CTCL funds to pay the public relations firm Aloysius Butler & Clark, which designed billboards, posters, bus advertisements, and print ads. The result? Turnout exploded.
As Adams explained, “Hundreds of millions of private charitable dollars flowed into key urban county election offices in battleground states. The same private philanthropic largess did not reach red counties. Urban counties were able to revolutionize government election offices into Joe Biden turnout machines.”
Many people either couldn’t stand Trump or were just sick and tired of hearing the constant drum-beat of controversy (much of it manufactured by anti-Trump media outlets). Many people who never voted before or who rarely ever voted actually cast their ballots this year. While election officials may have twisted the law in order to let these people vote — and that is a serious charge — it will be very difficult to convince courts to throw out these ballots since the vast majority of people who cast them are likely real voters.
This changed the game, and it explains why Biden won the election even though many signs — besides the polls — pointed to a Trump win. For instance, Trump won almost every single bellwether county and state that largely predict the presidential result, but he still lost. Trump won a commanding 94 percent of the Republican primary vote while no incumbent who has received 75 percent of the total primary vote has lost reelection. Republicans also picked up seats in state legislatures, held on to some pivotal swing races in the U.S. Senate, and gained seats in the House of Representatives.
There are two possible explanations for such a bizarre election outcome: fraud and the Center for Tech and Civic Life. I’m hesitant to rule out fraud, and I’ve covered too many disturbing stories about mail-in ballots crossing state lines to think it had zero effect on the election. But it is completely possible — and perhaps plausible — that CTCL explains Biden’s bizarre election victory.
In a very real sense, Mark Zuckerberg stole the election — not through direct fraud but by changing the rules of the game. The American people should be outraged and we should demand election reform. This kind of targeted greasing of the skids should be illegal.
Trump is right to challenge these results, but it seems he will almost certainly lose the court battle. He needs to exit the White House with grace while still demanding election reforms to prevent this kind of thing from happening ever again. The polls that suggest even a third of Democrats think the election was stolen from Trump suggest that Trump can make serious headway on this issue.
I have criticized Trump for insisting that he won the election. If fraud determined the outcome, Americans cannot know who truly won. If, however, CTCL determined the outcome, Trump did truly lose — but only because Zuckerberg changed the rules on him. Biden ran an extremely weak campaign, but so long as the legacy media, Big Tech, and this CTCL election machine were 100 percent opposed to Trump, that could not help boosting Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. across the finish line.
Until Trump or the conservatives diligently rifling through election data can demonstrate true fraud, I’m going with Occam’s razor on the issue. CTCL made the difference, and it’s time to fight for election integrity.
Tyler O’Neil is the author of Making Hate Pay: The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center. Follow him on Twitter at @Tyler2ONeil.
