Hilarious. Pathetic.
Let's get something straight: This company wasn't hired to conduct an actual recount of Maricopa County ballots. Cyber Ninjas was hired to declare that Donald Trump won Arizona, apparently after putting on some remarkably unconvincing recount theatre, and the state GOP doesn't really care if these cyber-clowns have legal exposure to election fraud charges as a result. It's not even clear to me that there will be legal exposure, but it's clear that a secret, undefined recount process conducted by a private company in the name of transparency is horseshit. To spoil the surprise; after the GOP "finds the fraud" in Maricopa County (another spoiler: it will probably be mostly black and brown voters), then they'll go after Fulton County (Atlanta), Philadelphia County, and Wayne County (Detroit). Once one state's results are "overturned" in the right wing media bubble, it'll only be easier to push to overturn the others. And GOP party leaders know this. That's the plan.
Back in 2018, David Frum absolutely nailed what would happen:
- If conservatives become convinced that they can not win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. They will reject democracy.
I just voted in a local election, and one of the items on the ballot was a proposition to ban the practice of collective bargaining for the county's police department. So what was the most prevalent messaging surrounding the prop.? "Vote against de-funding the police!". It doesn't matter that the prop. has absolutely nothing to do with funding the police department, only the efficacy of the messaging matters.
Btw, I made the same ol' mistake I've made so many times with Trumpism - after January 6th, I thought "THIS is rock bottom. Surely, images of Nazi shit, Confederate flags, and violent assaults on police officers inside the capitol by the MAGA crowd will generate enough introspection to push the GOP back from the brink of increasingly anti-democratic Trumpism." Nope.
The ongoing radicalization of the GOP is probably the single-most threat to social stability in America, and I still haven't figured out an effective way to defuse it nonviolently. Help?
The "weeaboo" contingent comes to mind, if you're genuinely inquiring. There are plenty of not-democracy-hating weeaboos out there, for sure, but maybe not so many in this Florida-man-based company. Can't find anything about his educational background (not that that's always relevant), but the Google cache seems to betray that his Linkedin was set to private somewhat recently. Not 100% on those particular indexing mechanics, not a journalist, would be interested in a followup, too busy/lazy, etc. etc. How would you rank working for a firm called "Cyber Ninjas" vs. volunteering for a group called "Arizona Rangers", a group of private citizens cosplaying as cops while providing security for the "Cyber Ninjas", to protect against the ('nother spoiler: imagined) threat of Antifa attacks? The document shows that Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey denied a request for members of the Department of Public Safety and National Guard members to provide security. ... Instead, private security firms, including a volunteer organization known as the Arizona Rangers, have been hired to protect the ballots and election equipment.Another Cyber Ninjas document revealed security plans for the coliseum where the audit is being performed. Called "The Arizona Audit Security Overview," it lays out potential security breaches, numbers of private security guards and singles out "Antifa" as a security threat.