Yes, Trump’s Voter Fraud Claims Are Insane, but the Media Deserves Much of the Blame

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President Donald Trump has lost reelection. When all the votes are finally counted, he is going to lose by almost the EXACT margin I predicted at the start of this week (has it really only been a week?!)

In all likelihood, Trump always knew his early election night lead was not going to hold, and that is why he immediately began harvesting the crops of a voter-fraud narrative for which he has been sowing the seeds for many years. This way, he will not have to accept being a “loser,” and will not be perceived as such by his most ardent fans.

The fact that he is openly doing irreparable harm to our democracy by destroying faith in its foundations — for no legitimate purpose whatsoever, other than the protection of his own ego — is irrelevant to him. He is the only president of our lifetimes, and maybe ever, who has blatantly and consistently put his own selfish needs ahead of those of the country he pretends to serve.

This desperate gambit would be outrageous if were simply done prematurely, but it is happening without any actual evidence to back these nonsensical conspiracy theories. And yet, almost all of Trump’s #Cult45 fans, most of his media sycophants, and many GOP politicians are buying it all, or at least pretending to, hook, line, and sinker.

It has now become an article of faith within the Trump Cult (formerly known as the Republican Party) that this election is being flat-out stolen from the president. All of this based on nothing more the terrible optics of his big early leads evaporating (for perfectly logical reasons related to the pandemic) in Democratic states and cities, some horse manure cooked up by nuts on the internet, and Trump’s legendarily unreliable word.

Trying to prove something did not happen is always exceedingly difficult, especially when people are deeply emotionally invested in believing it did. However, it must be noted that Trump lost this election because he apparently could not hold onto Georgia and Arizona, two states which are currently run by Republicans.

But the primary point of this column is not to make the case against Trump’s voter fraud claims. Rather, it is to explain why the media is almost as responsible as Trump for inspiring his fans to so readily and fervently believe him.

If the mainstream media had been remotely fair to Trump over the last four years — and not transitioned from cheerleading President Barack Obama for eight years to becoming a rabid pitbull overnight — then maybe the media would still have some credibility with Trump supporters. However, since they have so dramatically relinquished any claim to objectivity, especially this year when they have actively campaigned for the country to shut down, and for Trump to be somehow blamed for hundreds of thousands of COVID deaths, Trump fans have every right not to trust them as fair arbiters of the election outcome.

In a world where most major media outlets hadn’t not become overt arms of the Democratic Party, there would be faith among most Republicans that in the event major voter fraud WERE happening against Trump, the news media would immediately exposed and condemn it. However, it is perfectly rational to conclude that such a critical safeguard does not exist, and thus it is somehow possible that random/anonymous Twitter accounts posting videos of poll workers doing suspicious looking things might really be on to something significant that legitimate news outlets are purposely ignoring because of their obvious political agenda.

If the news media really wanted to be taken seriously when they declare, in the most melodramatic fashion possible, that Trump is lying about voter fraud and threatening our sacred institutions, perhaps they should not have forfeited their objectivity and integrity, all for a few ratings points and Woke Twitter love. It is particularly galling and ironic that they seem completely oblivious that it is THEY who have also betrayed a scared public trust, undermining faith in the institution of our fourth estate, therefore leaving us very vulnerable to the dangerous situation in which we now find ourselves where no one, on either side, believes anything which makes them feel bad.

In short, the news media needs to understand that it cannot have it both ways. It cannot abandon all semblance of fairness while refereeing the entire season, and then suddenly act shocked when half the crowd doesn’t trust them when they testify that the validity of a last-second “miracle” comeback in the Super Bowl is not to be seriously questioned.

They should also know that they are now SO distrusted by Trump voters that the MORE histrionically and universally they push back against the president’s bogus claims, the more his supporters are convinced that this is all just part of the conspiracy against him. This is how fundamentally broken our entire system has become, largely because the media abdicated its responsibility in favor of perverted self-interests.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.