The ‘Simpsons’ Plotline That Happens for Real Every Election Year
The Simpsons has proven to be surprisingly relevant in modern politics these days — from the show’s accidental prediction of Kamala Harris’ candidacy, to the way Ted Cruz keeps referencing episodes in a failed effort to seem not horrible. So perhaps it’s not that surprising that one classic episode showcased a conspiracy theory that seems to crop up in every single election cycle.
Season Six’s “Sideshow Bob Roberts” finds Bart’s archenemy running as the Republican candidate for Mayor of Springfield, and winning in a landslide thanks to the help of a Rush Limbaugh-esque blowhard. But with a Deep Throat-like informant (Smithers) on their side, Bart and Lisa are able to discover Bob’s nefarious scheme: Most of the votes came from dead people, including Buddy Holly, Richie Valens and The Big Bopper.
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Pretty much this exact plotline keeps cropping up in the non-cartoon news, but the accusations are usually coming from the other side of the political aisle. If Rudy Giuliani is to be believed, “dead people generally vote for Democrats.”
When Trump lost in 2020, a group of Republicans, including Newt Gingrich, claimed that Democrats were “using dead people to steal Michigan's Electoral College votes from Trump.” Of course this was bullshit. A number of the alleged dead people who voted for the Democrats were actually alive. And some of them didn’t even vote.
What about Lisa’s discovery that her beloved cat Snowball 1 had “voted” for Bob? Well, again in 2020, Lara Trump, Donald’s daughter-in-law made the bold claim that “cats that have been dead are getting votes in the mail.” Although she stopped short of blaming the Dems for stealing The Big Bopper’s vote.
And before Lara Trump, Republican Missouri Senator Christopher Bond suggested that a live dog named “Ritzy Meckler” registered to vote, which was true, but it wasn’t part of a massive voter fraud scheme, just a dumbass prank.
Trump himself alleged that “close to 5,000” dead people voted against him in Georgia while refusing to acknowledge his electoral loss. Incidentally, this claim was completely invalidated by a study that was commissioned by his own campaign. Another study found that, while dead people’s names do occasionally show up on ballots, it’s “extremely rare” amounting to “0.0003 percent of all voters over an 8-year period.”
Incidentally, this particular conspiracy theory didn’t actually originate with The Simpsons, it’s been suggested in the past that everyone from Lyndon Johnson to John F. Kennedy relied on “cemetery voters.”
But this is still very much an ongoing issue. This year, right-wing organizations are suing to “purge” voter rolls, alleging that registered dead people can lead to voter fraud. In Michigan earlier this year, a judge dismissed such a suit, arguing that the group’s process for identifying the dead was “poorly-defined” and “would have risked removing eligible voters in violation of federal voting law, which seeks to ensure voters aren’t wrongly removed.”
Some have suggested that “Sideshow Bob Roberts” as a whole parallels Trump’s populist ascent. Which could be why his campaign never lets him anywhere near errant rakes.
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