Back when you were a kid, playing childhood games in the neighborhood, was there someone who yelled “NO FAIR!” when they didn’t win? Usually there was at least one child who absolutely couldn’t abide a loss. Not at High-Ho Cheerio, or Candy Land, or Freeze Tag, or Kickball. Not even Tic Tac Toe. No game was too trivial not to be contested. I recall gently asking one such wailing child, “Do you really think it’s only fair if you win every single time? It wouldn’t be fair, see, if I won every single time, would it? ” My reasoning fell on deaf ears. He continued howling NO FAIR through the tears. Apparently the concept of fairness was created only for him; it did not extend to others.

Such kids have now grown up, or at least grown older. Many are running in tomorrow’s midterm election. Over half of Americans will find one or more candidates on their ballots who deny the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election. Don’t waste your vote on such persons.

Two years ago, I wrote that one presidential candidate lived by another threadbare childhood taunt: “I’m not! You are!” Or “I didn’t! You did!” It matters not whatever wrong thing he has done. When confronted with the wrong-doing, the process is simply to deny, deny, and deny. Forcefully. Loudly. Repeatedly. And to turn the accusation back on an opponent. For bullies, it works surprisingly well.

But it didn’t work in the 2020 election. The bully lost.

And what did he do then? He did exactly what he’d been saying he would do: proclaim his personal doctrine of unfairness. Forcefully. Loudly. Repeatedly. His cries were amplified by various media outlets. His followers were hoodwinked. On January 6, 2021, they assembled at our Capitol in order to undo an election they had been told was illegitimate. Because their candidate declared NO FAIR, some brought weapons, zip ties, and wore body armor. They broke through barricades, windows and doors. Most of them had been strident supporters of “law and order,” yet they viciously attacked the police who were there to defend our democratic systems. They roamed the hallways of the Capitol, chanting violent threats against duly elected representatives of both parties. They did it because their leader, their hero, had told them, and continued to tell them, over and over, that it was NO FAIR. What terrible vengeance would have taken place if our lawmakers had not been whisked to safety, with only a very few moments to spare?

In this election, the original candidate of NO FAIR is not on the ballot. But his minions, his sycophants are. Bullies always have their cowardly, opportunistic hangers-on, those who seek to ride their long coattails to a measure of their own glory and power. They repeat and repeat the claim of unfairness. Ever more forcefully. Ever more loudly.

Don’t fall for it.

A vote for one of these election deniers is a vote against democracy. Ironically, it’s a vote for unfairness.

I ask you, much as I asked that whining child many years ago: Is an election fair only when your candidate wins? Imagine a system rigged so that the other candidate always wins. Would that be fair?

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And if you claim that your vote will be cast solely on the need for change because of inflation, or high gas prices, consider this: does your candidate have a plan to fix things? When the party line is NO FAIR, there is little room for workable public policy.