Originally Posted by
steelreserve
I don't think you would need thousands of people. Maybe only a handful in a core group. You would need potentially a couple hundred people at the state and local level who were willing to sort of go along with suggestions and pretend they didn't know any better - but do a few hundred people like that exist among politically-involved Democrats? When the prize for doing your small, plausibly-deniable part, is (in their minds) stopping Hitler? You betcha.
And yes, it is normally correct that even on that somewhat reduced scale, schemes like this will eventually come unraveled because someone spills the beans. This one is a little bit different for a few reasons. One is that all they had to do was keep an indisputable, absolutely damning bombshell from coming out for a little over a month - and after that, what's done is done. Another is that if they pull it off, then they have power. Control of the institutions. Many if not most of the consequences go away. The winners write the history books. Another difference is that unlike many other elections, I think this is the one where they've pushed all their chips into the middle of the table. They are not just after the title of President, or the distinction of leading the country for four years. This one is about using the levers of power to make drastic changes that will cement their own power for the next ten elections, and then to ram through drastic changes to society that otherwise would likely have resulted in their removal from power. The prize was ten times bigger than usual.
There are also many motivations other than direct personal gain for taking part in, or at least getting out of the way of, "conspiracies" and the like. Consider the Mafia. Clearly, money is a big motivator there, and maybe some influence. But your average Mafia foot soldier is not driving around in a Maserati or telling the mayor what to do. What's his motivation to keep his mouth shut? It's that if he doesn't, some very unpleasant things are likely to happen to him. Consider a street gang, where there isn't even money and influence on any meaningful scale. Why do they have such loyalty?
What happens to, say, Tom Wolf or Gretchen Whitmer, if Trump wins and the Democrats get blown out? They are in so deep (even without any election fraud) that they could very well be getting a ride to federal prison on January 21 if that happens. If they try to help cheat and get caught - well, they were already fucked. But if they help deliver a victory for Biden, it all goes away. Pretty strong motivation there.
To use an extreme example, consider al-Qaeda. What does the average recruit stand to gain from being in al-Qaeda? Nothing at all. No money, no power - in fact, the only practical effects they get out of it are danger and hostility. Yet thousands of people are in it anyway - why? Because of an idea. The idea that they are doing the right thing, that they are doing their duty to defend their civilization and save the world from an unspeakable evil.
Are there Democrats who believe that is what they are doing, fighting a battle to the death of good versus evil? Listen to the things that they are saying; they are absolutely fanatical. And for this, we are not talking about needing people who are willing to blow themselves up on a crowded bus - just people who are willing to "lose" a stack of papers, or willing to let a few boxes be sneaked in through a back door, or to look the other way while somebody else does who-knows-what. Does enough fanaticism exist for that? Absolutely. I have never, in my entire life, seen the kind of hate coming from any group of people in this country as is coming from the American left right now. I am more than willing to bet that the scale has been tipped far enough that your average Democrat is willing to shrug off nearly any amount of wrongdoing as long as the result is that they get what they want. Can't make an omelet without breaking some eggs, no? So that goes a long way toward explaining both the reason why people would do it, and why the ones who see something would ignore it.