#1,090: When Red Wins, It's For Real; When Blue Wins It's a Steal

Upon Sinclair (left) and Sinclair Lewis (right)

Sinclair Lewis (1885-1951), the first American writer to win the Nobel Prize for literature, has long been one of my favorite 20th-century authors . . . the other being the similarly named Upton Sinclair (1878-1968). Both were American originals; both wrote satirical novels exposing the social, political, and cultural detritus lurking just beneath the surface of American society. In works such as Babbitt (1920), Main Street 1922), Elmer Gantry 1927), Dodsworth (1929), and It Can’t Happen Here (1935), Lewis raked the leaves of small-town America, satirizing such topics as fraternal organizations, medicine, the nouveau riche traveling abroad, and the potential for America to willfully join the fascist cause. Likewise, Sinclair dug into social issues such as the meatpacking industry in The Jungle (1906), the controversial Sacco and Vanzetti trial (Boston, 1928), the rise of the anti-Semitic Henry Ford (The Flivver King - 1937), and the 11-volume (1940-1953) Lanny Budd saga, which mapped global events through the eyes of the son of an American arms manufacturer.

Both Sinclair Lewis and Upton Sinclair were highly political. In the case of the latter, his first campaign for office came in 1906 when he ran for Congress in New Jersey’s 4th congressional district, polling a mere 3% of the vote. In 1934, now living in Southern California, he ran in that state’s gubernatorial election as a Democrat. His platform was known as the End Poverty in California movement (EPIC). Although he received nearly 880,000 votes, he lost to incumbent Republican governor Frank Merriam, who garnered 1,138,000 votes. Sinclair’s loss was due mainly to a tremendous outpouring of cash on the part of the movie industry - most notably MGM, whose head, Louis B. Mayer, was chair of the California Republican Party.

Although Sinclair Lewis never ran for office, he was just as politically engaged as Upton Sinclair. Spending as much time as he did researching, contemplating, and then writing It Can’t Happen Here, he had definite ideas about the dangers of fascism and the relative gullibility of the American public. Indeed, one of his best-known, most long-lived quotes was: When fascism comes to the United States, it will be wrapped in the American flag and carrying a cross. Whether or not this prophetic statement (which may or may not have originated with Lewis) comes true, it sure as heck has both his finger- and voice-prints all over it.

Were the two still alive and writing today, I am certain that they would be publishing novels annually about both the strident fatuousness of current Republican leadership, as well as the unimaginable gullibility of far too many “just plain folks.” The subject of keeping elections fair and honest quickly comes to mind. Claims that millions of "illegals” are fraudulently casting votes for Democrats abound - even though every study, case at law, and common sense indicate precisely the opposite. Before the Justice Department became defanged and restaffed by ITs scatterbrained sycophants, no one in their right mind would have given a nanosecond’s worth of time maintaining that the Democrats committed the ultimate crime by stealing the 2020 election from The Fondling Father. As of last week, the country’s newest A.G. (Todd Blanche) is still a staunch supporter of the 2020 vote-stealing lie. Thanks to the “big lie,” thousands upon thousands of federal and state officeholders contend that it is in the very DNA of those they refer to as “the ultra-left communists” and “illegal immigrants” to steal elections from ‘patriotic Americans.”

The fact that American conservatives - both citizens and officeholders - are still kvetching about #47 having had a presidential election stolen from him nearly 6 years ago, has led to a slew of lawsuits (virtually all of which the Regime has lost in state and federal court), threats, and paranoiac political proposals such as the Save America Act (H.R.22, which requires individuals to provide documentary proof of U.S. citizenship when registering to vote in federal elections), and The Insurrection Act, which was signed into law by President Thomas Jefferson on March, 3 1807). This act (which has been declared at least 68 times in U.S. history) grants the president the legal authority to deploy the U.S. military in the various states in order to enforce federal law. It is an exception to the Posse Comitatus Act, a law which has been on the books since 1878. This act forbids federal military forces from conducting civilian law enforcement. While the Insurrection Act’s terms for when it may be invoked are not terribly well-defined, it definitely does not place the military above the law or grant it the bounds of all other laws once deployed. From a Constitutional point of view, there is a huge question as to whether POTUS can call out the Feds to conduct enforcement over elections . . . since voting is, constitutionally, a state matter. All the same, Felon47 has threatened to station armed federal troops at voting stations throughout the country. . . especially in places where a high percentage of voters are black, brown, naturalized citizens and tend to be Democrats.

To listen to or read pieces about these - and other - potential means of “saving” election victories for Republicans from the hands of treasonous Democrats might make one wonder what a party that controls all 3 branches of government plus a majority of states needs to be so fearful of.

Just the other day, this conspiracy, which has many believing that the only way Democrats can win elections is through treachery, hit a new - and utterly absurd - low. This past Tuesday (Aug. 11, 2026 “My Pillow” founder and outspoken election denier Mike Lindell, lost big in the Republican gubernatorial primary to Lisa Demuth, speaker of the Minnesota House of Representatives. Despite receiving an endorsement from POTUS last month - in which he referred to his most loyal of deep-pocketed supporters as “Pillow Man” and called him “one of America’s greatest and most hard-working Patriots” - Lindell lost by about 11 percentage points (179,683 to 134,282). On the day of the primary, POTUS continued to push “Pillow Man’s” campaign, saying that he deserved a “BIG WIN.” IT wrote on social media that “Nobody has worked harder, and given up so much, in fighting for free and fair Elections.” As of today, some 4 days after his primary defeat, Mr. Lindell has not conceded. Instead, he suggested to reporters, without providing a scintilla of proof or evidence, that there might have been what he called “anomalies” in the election process. Not surprisingly, POTUS, who has never given up his false claims about his own 2020 “loss,” did not immediately echo Lindell’s claims about the Minnesota race.

Why all the silence?y from POTUS? Because if he had, that would be admitting that even Republicans can steal elections from fellow Republicans, which would make him appear and sound like the West’s biggest dipstick . . . which we already know him to be. To my way of thinking, this vote-rigging, election-stealing crock is about as serious and threatening as it gets. Gilding the Oval Office and much of the nation’s Capitol is one thing; getting people to believe they shouldn’t vote because their votes won’t be counted is far, far worse. Lining your pockets - as well as those of your family, hyper-wealthy friends, pseudonymous businesses, and corporate collaborators - with inside information and billions upon billions in ill-gotten gains should get you a minimum of 20 years in Leavenworth; convincing your fans and followers that the Democratic Party is nothing more than a criminal syndicate bent on eliminating all traces of MAGA should get you subpoenaed for treason. It is all terribly reminiscent of something Upton Sinclair once said back in 1934 while out campaigning for California governor: “It is foolish to be convinced without evidence, but it is equally foolish to refuse to be convinced by real evidence.”

The real evidence that Democrats didn’t steal the 2020 election (or elections in general) is as clear as the nose on your face. Just ask former A.G. Bill Barr. Just read the piles of trial transcripts from the 60 courts that rejected IT’s claim of fraud. Check out the 2021 Intelligence Community Assessment that found no signs that foreign actors touched any technical part of the voting process, including registration, ballots, counting, or reporting. Then, too, a Homeland Security program checked about 60 million voter registrations and flagged roughly 24,000 possible non-citizens. This comes to about 0.04% of registered voters, a figure that shrinks further once false positives are removed.

Good old Upton hit the nail on the head: “It is equally foolish to refuse to be convinced by real evidence.”