The Real Steal – Maine’s Secretary Of State Bars Trump From Ballot

A long time ago in Athens, Greece all political power was held by a small group of aristocratic families. These powerful monied interests believed only they had the right to rule. Everyone else should shut up, sit down, and do what they were told.

Then the people decided differently. They rose up. They seized power themselves. They created “demokratia”.  We call in democracy and practice it in the form of a constitutional republic. The idea at its heart is pure and very simple.

It translates as “people power”.

The modern-day oligarchs who believe they own democracy want to turn the clock back a few thousand years. They want a rigged game, one in which they may give the people the illusion of choice but that is all it will be – an illusion.

Donald Trump threatens to destroy the system the oligarchs have built. He stands on the verge of returning to the White House and taking a wrecking ball to the Deep State, Permanent Washington, and the whole edifice created by the self-appointed “elite”. The oligarchs are terrified of meeting Trump at the polls. They are shaken by the thought of allowing the people to decide who rules.

And, so, the game must be fixed. Trump must be prosecuted. Trump must be smeared with false accusations. Trump must be stricken from the ballot entirely.

The latest abomination in this assault on democracy comes from Maine, where the Secretary of State, has taken it upon herself to decide that Donald Trump may not be on the ballot in her state. He will not be allowed to run for his party’s nomination.

Shenna Bellows is Maine’s Secretary of State. She was put in that position by the legislature. She was not elected by the people of Maine.

Prior to becoming Secretary of State Bellows was predictably enough on the payroll of a variety of left-wing non-governmental organizations. Bellows served as the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Maine from 2005 to 2013, following her consulting work for other not-for-profit groups.

Bellows has dedicated her life to the pursuit of a whole slate of leftist causes. Predictably enough she opposes election security measures like voter ID. She is a close political ally of Joe Biden and has made any number of online posts branding Trump an insurrectionist and supporting Biden.

Two and a half years ago, within weeks of January 6, 2021, Bellows had made up her mind that Donald Trump was guilty of fomenting an insurrection against the United States. She stated as much in a public post on Twitter. Bellows has visited the Biden White House at least twice in the last six months.

A visit by Bellows to the White House in June of this year appears to have been organized by a group called Issue One. Issue One purports to be a non-partisan group focused on protecting democracy. Its current primary focus appears to be on branding anyone raising concerns about election security as a conspiracy theorist and a threat to democracy. It advocates regularly for more governmental oversight of social media and controls on what can be said online. It also pushes for the federal government to take more of a role in controlling and running elections across the country. It tells us that election officials would run our elections securely and fairly if only we would stop criticizing them and monitoring their behavior.

Sit down and shut up, in other words.

Steven Cheung, a spokesperson for Trump's campaign, released a statement after Bellows' decision was announced calling her a "virulent leftist."

"The Maine Secretary of State is a former ACLU attorney, a virulent leftist and a hyper-partisan Biden-supporting Democrat who has decided to interfere in the presidential election on behalf of Crooked Joe Biden," Cheung said. "We are witnessing, in real-time, the attempted theft of an election and the disenfranchisement of the American voter."

Cheung added: "Democrats in blue states are recklessly and un-Constitutionally suspending the civil rights of the American voters by attempting to summarily remove President Trump's name from the ballot. Make no mistake, these partisan election interference efforts are a hostile assault on American democracy. Biden and the Democrats simply do not trust the American voter in a free and fair election and are now relying on the force of government institutions to protect their grip on power."

Down this road lies the end of the bold experiment begun in Athens well over 2500 years ago. Down this road lies the end of representative government and perhaps the end of civil society. You can only wage war on the bedrock institutions of our nation for so long before you finally destroy all faith in them.

This is not a Trump issue. It is not a Republican issue. It is not a Democrat issue. This is an issue for all Americans. Are we going to live in a free, democratic society or are we going to stand by and watch while the real steal occurs in broad daylight?