One Man’s Stand Against Donald Trump’s Election Denialism

The Board of Supervisors runs Election Day voting and certifies the results, and Gates may have seemed like a promising lever to press on. He’s a lifelong and loyal Republican who founded a teen-age Republican club while in high school and later became a member of the Federalist Society, the conservative legal organization. On Christmas Eve, 2020, when Gates was shopping with his family, he received a voice mail from Rudy Giuliani, who was serving as Trump’s lawyer. “Maybe we can get this thing fixed up,” Giuliani said. Gates refused to play along, and, together with his colleagues on the board, asserted that the election had been fair. This made them into targets. “Denial” depicts the attacks that arrived via social media, voice mail, and e-mail: accusations of treason, images of nooses. On the eve of the midterm elections, Gates and wife went into hiding after he received death threats.