It is easier for the world to accept a simple lie than a complex truth.
— Alexis de Tocqueville
After almost three years — and as Democrats in Colorado and Maine ban Donald Trump from the Centennial State’s ballot — it is beyond time for the media to stop “reporting” that “Trump tried to overturn a presidential election” and to quit referring matter-of-factly: to “the election that Trump lost”; to “Trump’s defeat” and his “baseless” “false claims”; and to “Trump is challenging the results” of “Biden’s victory (in, say, Georgia)” and to “swing the election in his favor.”
It is equally time for news organizations to stop “reporting” that the four (who’s counting?) indictments are nothing more than valid or understandable (if ill-timed) reactions to punish Trump for his (“criminal”) attempts to “disenfranchise voters” and thus “subvert democracy.”
This is not a neutral, objective, and non-partisan view of of the facts of the 2020 election. Far from it. No. It is the (self-serving) DNC version. It is akin to asking “When did you stop beating your wife?”
Phrases like “baseless fraud claims,” “sham election investigations,” and “false claims of election fraud” come straight from the Democrat party. At a minimum, readers and viewers are used to circumspect “allegedlys,” to prudent “reportedlys,” and to cautious “accused ofs”. What happened to them?
At this point, a crucial question arises: What is Donald Trump‘s version of the 2020 election?
Remember that his whole message — as was that of the protestors on Jan. 6, 2021 (not a single one of them, to my recollection, brandishing weapons other than cellphone cameras for selfies) — is exactly, or almost exactly, the same — i.e., that it was the Democrats who tried to overturn (and, indeed, who succeeded in overturning) the 2020 election and thus democracy (hence his, and the protesters,’ far from unreasonable anger).
We could even use similar wordings: “the election that Biden lost,” “Joe’s defeat,” “false claims,” and “the Democrats tried to change/challenge (and succeeded in changing/challenging) the results.” Indeed, the 45th President called it “stealing the election” and thus … if anyone disenfranchised voters and undermined democracy, it was the party of Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Joe Biden.
Given that the charges are basically the same, shouldn’t a media outlet that was neutral, objective, and independent — instead of acting like the purveyors of (to use Trump’s expression) fake news — give equal space to both charges?
The way that even conservative outlets like Fox News and the Wall Street Journal, not to mention RINOs like Mike Pence, buy into and repeat the Left‘s “talking points” and double standards is disconcerting. (A WSJ editorial defended Donald Trump against “lawfare” (to wield war on people through the legal system, by imprisoning them or “merely” ruining them, a tactic the Democrats have already used on such Trump allies as Gen. Michael Flynn and Rudy Giuliani) while calling his “post-election behavior” in 2020 “deceitful and destructive” and referring to his “disgraceful” “malfeasance.” While National Review also pushed back against the Trump indictments, all the while feeling the need to point out that it “condemned Trump’s appalling actions in the aftermath of the 2020 election” as well as “Trump’s deceptions”: “Mendacious rhetoric in seeking to retain political office is damnable.”)
An otherwise outstanding post at the Power Line Blog by the usually outstanding John Hinderaker, gives us, paragraph after paragraph, evidence of cheating and lying by Democrats. And still, that can’t prevent Hinderaker himself from being polite and handing some rope to the opposition, ending said post with the words, Trump’s “obviously indefensible claims,” and with these immortal lines:
You have just written 15 paragraphs detailing the Democrats’ lying, cheating, and criminal interference in the 2020 election, John Hinderaker — not least in the very indictments that have been served up by Bolshevist prosecutors. Where do those two final sentences fit in except to prove that with enough pressure and broadsides, the Drama Queens‘ left-leaning propaganda will overwhelm even the most open-minded and the most honest brain?
Why is being a(n allegedly) “dishonest egomaniac with terrible judgment” worse than being a lying cheat with Bolshevist tendencies or than being a fellow Republican who cannot see that the other side are lying cheats with Bolshevist tendencies?
Across the Atlantic, the usually outstanding Nicolas Lecaussin (an author born in communist Romania whose IREF — Institut de Recherches Economiques et Fiscales — and IFRAP — Institut Français de Recherche sur les Administrations Publiques — try to take on the Deep State in France the way FEE or the Mises Institute do in the U.S.) pulls no punches with the Biden family but feels the necessity to come down on Donald Trump with une tonne de briques:
[l’]ancien président, que ses frasques et son détestable caractère rendent aussi imprévisible qu’ infréquentable (the former president, whose escapades and loathesome character make him as unpredictable as unfit to be associated with).
Why can’t a refuge from Nicolae Ceausescu’s communist nightmare see that OrangeManBad’s “loathsome” attitude is explainable by his disgust with America’s left-leaning politicians, the corruption that they engender, and their desire to turn (or “fundamentally transform”) America into a banana republic like Cuba or … Romania?
Republicans Follow the Rules of Golf …
While Democrats are Playing Ice Hockey:
