Arizona voters rejected Donald Trump and his movement at the polls in November, but Trumpism is ascendant once more, dominating our state’s public life.
Trumpism is the buffelgrass of Arizona politics, taking over the landscape even after it’s been rooted out or burned away.
That was evident last week at Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Phoenix, where self-proclaimed “auditors” of Maricopa County’s election took charge of 2.1 million ballots. The so-called audit run by pro-Trump conspiracists went off the rails right away, an echo of Trump’s chaotic presidency.
But you can also see the persistence of Trumpism in Gov. Doug Ducey’s deployment of the National Guard to the border, in Attorney General Mark Brnovich’s embrace of executions, and in the division of the state GOP. In Arizona, Trumpism has the initiative even after Trump himself left the scene, and even though Republicans account for just 35% of state voters.
While Trump enthusiasts make up a minority of Arizona voters, they dominate the party that still, barely, runs the state.
That’s why on Friday, there began an “audit” of Maricopa County’s votes that is intended to prove Donald Trump was somehow cheated.
It’s important to note that Maricopa County carried out every required audit and review of the election as well as three additional audits of its election equipment, done by independent experts. All of them validated the election results that gave Joe Biden victory in the county and state.
But Republican Arizona senators must answer to avid Trump supporters, who want to believe he was cheated, because he said so. So they hired a pro-Trump conspiracist with no background in elections to count ballots, investigate machinery and probe voters.
Doug Logan, the head of Cyber Ninjas, the firm leading the audit, had even worked with nutty attorneys Lin Wood and Sidney Powell after the November election and was listed as an expert witness for a pro-Trump, post-election lawsuit in Michigan.
Not surprisingly, the audit Logan is running on behalf of Senate Republicans has displayed all the arbitrariness and incompetence of the Trump presidency.
Morgan Loew, a Southern Arizona native who reports for Channel 5 in Phoenix, went to the coliseum Monday through Thursday last week and was able to wander unhindered through the building, even after Maricopa County’s ballots and voting machines were brought in.
He was only stopped by security when he showed up at the appointed hour for a press conference Thursday. The organizers of the audit arbitrarily blocked some members of the press from entering, Loew included.
Thankfully, some reporters made it into the floor of the Coliseum Friday, and Jen Fifield of The Arizona Republic noticed that people preparing to count ballots had blue pens. That’s prohibited in Arizona election work — red is the color you use, because ballots can be legally voted — and therefore changed — with blue pens.
Logan, the lead “auditor,” didn’t know that, Fifield reported. He was running the show not because he has election expertise but because he has that key quality of loyalty to Trump, which Senate President Karen Fann must demonstrate to her voters.
Ducey has had to prove his loyalty to Trump voters after committing a political sin — certifying the state’s election, including Trump’s loss, back in November. He’s chosen Trump’s favorite venue to prove his worthiness — the U.S.-Mexico border.
For months now, Ducey has treated the increase in Central American migrants largely arriving in South Texas as a crisis in Arizona, repeatedly citing the spike in apprehensions borderwide. No doubt, certain Arizona towns have had to deal with Border Patrol dropping off increasing numbers of families — Ajo, Gila Bend and San Luis, for example.
But Ducey was exaggerating about the border, Trump style, when he announced last week that he would deploy up to 250 National Guard troops to help with migration-related problems.
“I’ve been briefed by Border Patrol and law enforcement leaders on the situation in our border communities,” he said in a presidential-style video briefing. “Let me tell you, it’s just as bad if not worse than the coverage we’ve been seeing.”
Ducey apparently didn’t speak with the sheriffs whose jurisdictions cover about half the Arizona-Mexico border. David Hathaway of Santa Cruz County and Chris Nanos of Pima County both said there was no need for the National Guard and no evident crisis in their areas.
“It’s the governor politicizing this,” Nanos said. “In Pima County, I challenge him to show us where the crisis is.”
Even the Arizona Border Counties Coalition, which represents supervisors in the four border counties, said there was no need for the Guard. What is needed, the coalition said in a letter to Ducey, is state assistance with transportation, specifically buses and drivers.
That would not fulfill the purpose, though, which is to pluck the sensitive border nerves of Trump-supporting voters, whom Ducey will need in his next campaign.
So, of course, will Brnovich. And he’s appealing to them, as his term winds down, by trying to spend those months the same way Trump spent his last months — executing prisoners who were sentenced to death.
Trump’s Justice Department rushed through 13 executions of federal prisoners in his last seven months in office, more federal executions than in the previous 56 years combined. That reflected Trump’s enthusiasm for executions — “Death penalty all the way,” Trump said in a February 2016 campaign appearance.
Brnovich told KGUN 9’s Craig Smith on March 26 that he wants to carry out 21 state executions over the next approximately 21 months before his term ends.
“We’re gonna do everything we can, and do everything I can, to ensure that every 21 of those individuals (who) have exhausted their appeals ends up getting the death penalty before I leave office,” he said.
The Guardian revealed earlier this month that the Arizona Department of Corrections has spent $1.5 million buying pentobarbital, a drug used in executions, from secret sources.
Pima County Attorney Laura Conover has tried to slow Brnovich down in recent weeks by asking to review Pima County’s death-penalty cases, but Brnovich said no. Full-speed ahead.
While Trumpism dominates the Republican Party, and therefore Arizona politics, it may also contain the seeds of its own destruction. Arizona GOP Chair Kelli Ward has tried to channel Trump, promoting the party’s leaders as Arizona’s “America First team.”
She claims to have been reelected as chair in the Jan. 23 party meeting, but some Republicans — also Trump-voting GOP faithful — dispute her election. She’s trying to bulldoze their concerns with dismissal and bluster, the same way Trump would, but those tactics really only work for him.
The result is division — dissident Republicans have filed suit against her to force an audit or recount of her election.
For now though, even with the Trump faithful a divided minority in Arizona, they’re still driving the train.
