The book "The Steal: The attempt to overturn the 2020 election and the people who stopped it" brings us back to the days of counting that followed the 2020 election and the ensuing crises in swing states around the country that ultimately sparked and insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
The book profiles many of the people whose actions created the crisis and the people who defended the legitimacy of the vote, including Wisconsinites like Rohn Bishop, GOP chairman in Fond du Lac County. Authors Mark Bowden and Matthew Teague highlighted a few Republicans in Wisconsin who defended the election process.
Bowden says, "Both Matt and I never expected when we started working on this book that we would discover the real heroes of this story were very often Republicans and very often, as in Rohn's case, avid Trump supporters."
As the GOP chairman for the county, Bishop worked on the president's behalf, encouraging people to come out and vote. But when the election results came in, he accepted them and discouraged people in his party from denying the reliability of the election process.
Dean Knudson, a former Republican member of the Wisconsin legislature and a member of the Wisconsin Election Commission, was also featured in "The Steal." Like Bishop, Knudson defended the election's legitimacy and was roundly chastised by other Republicans for his actions.
Despite numerous recount efforts and analyses confirming the results of the 2020 election, some Republican politicians still refuse to accept the results, and others have used perceptions of fraud to further legislation that could disenfranchise voters. Teague believes this tactic is short-sighted.
"In a representative democracy where people feel free to voice their feelings, that's not going to work in the long term. In the long term, the only way for a party to succeed is to come up with policies that appeal to the plurality of the voters," he explains.
Bowden and Teague will be joining Lake Effect's Joy Powers for a virtual conversation through Boswell Book Company on Thursday, Jan. 13 at 7:00 pm.
