We all knew that heads would explode at the Washington Post if President Trump won reelection. But who knew that, with Joe Biden about to be declared the winner, heads at the Post would explode anyway?
Post writers Touluse Olorunnipa and Cleve Wootson, Jr. have produced a hysterical front page “news” story with this passage as its centerpiece:
For the past six weeks, Trump has staged the ultimate loyalty test for the party faithful as he forced Republican officials to opt between siding with him and the nation’s democratic process. Through public displays of support and lengthy silences, the vast majority of elected Republicans chose to back Trump.
Nearly two-thirds of House Republicans and 18 state attorneys general signed their names to the failed Supreme Court lawsuit seeking to have justices overturn the will of voters in multiple states. Others have gone on television to parrot the president’s baseless conspiracy theories about vote-rigging. Some are using rhetoric reminiscent of the Civil War to express their fealty to the president’s cause.
The authors don’t try to explain why it’s inconsistent with the “democratic process” to file legal actions claiming that the election flouted the democratic process. No such inconsistency exists unless Trump resists the transfer of power once his legal options are exhausted. There is no indication that Trump will do so.
As for “rhetoric reminiscent of the Civil War,” one searches the Post’s hissy fit in vain for an example of it.
The authors claim that Trump and GOP lawmakers are engaged in “an unprecedented attack on the peaceful transfer of power.” But Trump has every right to challenge the election if he believes it was stolen from him. There is no attack on the “peaceful transfer of power” unless Trump refuses to transfer power.
The authors lament that, according to a poll, 77 percent of Republicans believe there was widespread voter fraud in the election and 70 percent believe Biden’s win was not legitimate. But after Trump’s win in 2016, there was widespread belief among Democrats that Trump owed his victory to Russian interference in our democratic process.
I don’t recall the Post complaining about this refusal to accept Trump’s victory as legitimate. What I recall is that the Post fueled this sentiment with non-stop stories about “collusion” by Trump with Russia. Talk about a “baseless conspiracy theory.”
The latest Post story also ignores attempts by Democrats and their allies in the deep state to undermine the transition to a Trump administration, for example, by peddling the Russian collusion hoax and setting up Trump’s national security adviser, Gen. Flynn, for prosecution.
That’s interference with the “peaceful transfer of power.” Alleging voter fraud in court isn’t.
Finally, if Democrats wanted the results of this election to have wider public acceptance, they shouldn’t have insisted on voting procedures that removed traditional safeguards against fraud. But the Democrats (like any political party, I assume) were more interested in obtaining power by winning the election than they were in having their opponents widely accept their win.
The Democrats made a rational decision and now must live with the consequences. They will find it easy to do so. Even the Washington Post probably will, once its lefty reporters calm down or, more likely, find something new to throw a fit about.
Notice: All comments are subject to moderation. Our comments are intended to be a forum for civil discourse bearing on the subject under discussion. Commenters who stray beyond the bounds of civility or employ what we deem gratuitous vulgarity in a comment — including, but not limited to, “s***,” “f***,” “a*******,” or one of their many variants — will be banned without further notice in the sole discretion of the site moderator.