When the president of the United States has:
- explicitly declared his intentions to withhold federal election funding from states that are trying to make it easier to vote during a pandemic;
- appointed a major donor to his campaign with conflicts of interest to sabotage the US Postal Service—while stating that he opposes additional funding for the post office in order to prevent the opposition party from having universal mail-in voting;
- claimed that the defeat of lawsuits aimed at disenfranchising voters is the “biggest risk” to his reelection bid;
- deputized 50,000 “poll watchers” to intimidate people from voting across the country;
- advised his supporters to commit the felony of double voting;
- proposed postponing the 2020 elections;
- preemptively cast election results into doubt by suggesting the results may not be legitimate; and
- repeatedly refused to state whether he would concede the election in the event of a loss;
…then the evidence threshold has been more than satisfied for journalists to declare that he is trying to steal the 2020 election. Journalists and newsrooms have an obligation to report that the most powerful person in the country is trying to subvert the election and retain power illegitimately, and a failure to blow the whistle on a clear threat to democracy is journalistic malpractice.
Despite abundant evidence, corporate media so far have treated the question of whether Trump is trying to steal the election as a matter of opinion (USA Today, 8/16/20).
Yet, while one can find several op-eds (e.g., The Week, 8/11/20; USA Today, 8/16/20) pointing out the obvious fact of President Donald Trump trying to steal the 2020 election, it appears to be taboo for journalists at the biggest newsrooms in the country to straightforwardly report the fact that Trump is trying to do so.
The ACLU’s Dale Ho (Vanity Fair, 6/14/20), an attorney fighting against GOP voter suppression lawsuits, has argued that, ultimately, lawyers cannot litigate their way out of Trump’s election theft efforts, and that a “news media fight” has to be waged to prepare US voters’ expectations. However, it’s hard for US citizens to prepare if the US media aren’t reporting that Trump is trying to steal the election.
FAIR conducted a Nexis search for “Trump” + “election” + “steal” of the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Houston Chronicle, Chicago Tribune, Star Tribune, Los Angeles Times and USA Today—most of the biggest newspapers in the country by circulation—from July 7 to September 7. Out of all the results pertaining to the election, there wasn’t a single article reporting that Trump is trying to steal the 2020 election.
The closest things one can find to corporate media plainly stating that Trump is attempting to commit election theft are various scenarios of how Trump could steal the election, columns asking what would happen if Trump refused to concede the election if he lost, or reports on Democratic Party politicians asserting that Trump is trying to steal the election.
The news articles that do discuss the ongoing efforts to steal the election frame it as a hypothetical possibility (Washington Post, 8/16/20).
Slate (8/3/20) and the Washington Post (8/16/20) ran articles describing how Trump could potentially steal the election by “blocking the counting of mail-in ballots,” because more Democrats are in favor of mail-in ballots—which take longer to be counted—and the potential for Trump to prematurely “declare himself the victor” should initial results based on in-person voting show him winning. That’s in addition to preventing the Postal Service from delivering mail-in ballots to voters and to elected officials promptly.
Investigative journalist Greg Palast (Salon, 8/25/20) argues that “the real theft of the 2020 presidential election is not the lack of mailboxes,” but the “lack of commitment to counting ballots by both parties.” Mail-in voting and absentee ballots are already rejected at a much higher rate than in-person voting, especially from younger and minority voters, and some projections are estimating that absentee ballot rejections could be tripled in battleground states for November (AP, 9/7/20).
There have been reports of Democratic Party politicians like Beto O’Rourke (Houston Chronicle, 5/13/20) and Joe Biden (Washington Post, 7/23/20) warning that they believe Trump will “do everything within his power” to steal the election, and that “this president is going to try to indirectly steal the election by arguing that mail-in ballots don’t work.” However, corporate media also give space for Trump to air his accusations that it’s Democrats who are trying to commit election theft (Politico, 7/31/20; Fox News, 8/20/20; The Hill, 8/24/20), making this more “he said, she said” reporting, rather than an independent assessment of Trump’s plans and actions.
Other outlets ran articles (New Yorker, 7/21/20; Washington Post, 7/22/20; Politico, 9/4/20) and op-eds (CNN, 8/17/20) considering different scenarios of what could happen if Trump refused to leave office if he loses the election. Other op-eds (Washington Post, 7/9/20, 8/18/20) essentially advised Americans to trust the “bureaucracy and legal procedure,” even if it might “sound naive,” because “there are laws that stop others from using the authorities of the Executive Branch on behalf of anyone other than the legitimate president.” There are also laws forbidding officials from using government property for political purposes, but that didn’t stop the Trump campaign from turning the White House into a stage set for the Republican National Convention.
While contemplating different scenarios is valuable, these articles presume that American citizens are supposed to be passive spectators, rather than active political participants, since they include no calls to action, as a few other op-eds have (Intercept, 8/11/20; New York Times, 9/3/20). Neither do such articles point out why Americans need to contemplate these scenarios in the first place: President Donald Trump is trying to steal the election.
By referring to protests against assertions of re-election victory as an “insurrection,” Trump is threatening to use the military to enforce his claim to power—an anti-democratic stance Politico (9/11/20) legitimizes by referring to such protests as “riots.”
A bipartisan group of about 80 political operatives and academics have played out various scenarios where Trump loses the election but refuses to concede, and several of them have ended in violence (Newsweek, 7/26/20). Trump has already stated he would “very quickly” suppress Election Night protests against his claims of victory—what he calls an “insurrection,” a term that outlets like The Hill (9/11/20) and Politico (9/11/20) bolster by calling protests against his reelection “riots.”
Trump’s rhetoric seems to echo that of his longtime confidant (and convicted felon) Roger Stone’s advice for Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807 to declare martial law to seize power if “cheating” costs him the election.
Michael Caputo, assistant secretary for public affairs at the Department of Health and Human Services (who serves as a sort of political commissar over the CDC), likewise asserted that Trump and his supporters will need to use force to defend Trump’s impending victory against false charges that he didn’t actually win: “When Donald Trump refuses to stand down at the inauguration, the shooting will begin,” Caputo said in a video posted to Facebook. “If you carry guns, buy ammunition, ladies and gentlemen, because it’s going to be hard to get.”
It’s especially important for US media to inform their audiences about Trump’s election-theft efforts, because the US Constitution doesn’t actually grant citizens the right to vote for the president—only a college of electors [does]—with states having nearly unlimited power to decide how those electors are chosen (Atlantic, 3/29/20). Republican politicians have been almost entirely steadfast and uniform in their support of Trump, to the point that they have no official platform other than his reelection, and refused to even hold hearings when he was impeached by the House for abuse of power. Legal scholar Lawrence Douglas (Vox, 6/3/20) pointed out that there are no federal laws or constitutional procedures to guide Americans in a contested election where neither side refuses to concede, since the peaceful succession of power relies more on norms (which Trump regularly runs roughshod over) than on laws or institutions.
If the 2020 election is stolen, it wouldn’t be the first time in US history. In 1876, following the Hayes/Tilden election, electoral results in four states were contested, with Democratic and Republican officials sending competing electoral certificates to a divided Congress—a situation the Twelfth Amendment (which lays out the procedure for electing a president and vice president) doesn’t say anything about. (In the event, Republican Rutherford B. Hayes, who received 47.9% of the popular vote to Democrat Samuel Tilden’s 50.9%, was declared president in the Compromise of 1877, which involved withdrawing federal troops from former Confederate states and the end of Reconstruction.)
The establishment media’s first instinct is to legitimize illegitimate power (New York Times, 1/21/01).
In 2000, in Bush v. Gore, the Supreme Court bestowed the presidency on George W. Bush by stopping the recount of Florida votes—an usurpation strenuously assisted by corporate media (Extra!, 3–4/01), as exemplified by a front-page news analysis in the New York Times (1/21/01) in which R.W. Apple assured readers that images of the Oval Office and the sounds of “Hail to the Chief” are really what “confer the mantle of authority and legitimacy on a leader.”
While FAIR (9/27/19, 11/22/19) has often criticized the false objectivity of news coverage in the Trump era, the division between the news and opinion sections still remains a valuable distinction because of the implication that straight news coverage deals with delivering factual information, which leaves less room for disagreement. When the media are unable to present as fact that Trump is trying to steal the 2020 election, they are implying that there is room for debate about what his intentions are, simply because he hasn’t explicitly stated: “I am trying to steal the election.”
Trump is already notorious for lying, cheating and stealing, and has every motive to steal the election because he’s behind in the polls, and once he leaves office faces the possibility of prosecution for crimes he has already confessed to committing. During this critical time, it’s important for US media not to propagate the myth of US exceptionalism, which often makes false accusations of “election theft” against Global South countries like Bolivia and Venezuela, and misleads Americans into thinking election theft “can’t happen” here because the US has more “legitimate” institutions. US elections have been stolen before, and it’s important to make sure another election isn’t stolen again.
Chicken Little reincarnated as Josh Cho! Josh, get out of your bubble and talk to some conservatives to help you understand the other side. Most of us don’t mind absentee ballets. We mind mass vote by mail. We mind no ID being required (as if that is racist – actually thinking that blacks cannot get an ID is racist). We mind voter fraud. This president talks a big game ALOT. He’ll step down if he loses. I hope I remember your fear and remind you of it if he happens to lose. There was only one point that you made that was legitimate. When he suggested that NC voters to vote twice. I didn’t like that. Not enough to vote for the Harris/Biden ticket (as she has put it – by mistake, but it is still funny :) )
Why do you “conservatives” mind mass vote by mail? Vote by mail worked GREAT in my state — highest turnout for a primary election in history.
It’s true that Voter ID (among other voter suppression laws favoring republicans) are not just racist but also part of the Class War that disenfranchises the poor as well. You can’t allow those most negatively effected by white supremacy and capitalism have a chance to vote, eh?
And there IS NO VOTER FRAUD as you “conservatives” describe it. Don’t you remember, gwbush ordered the U.S. Attorneys in every state to find it and they couldn’t. The problem with voting in USAmerica is that too few people do it not that a tiny minority do it more than once, under the wrong name or under the confusing, discriminatory and tortuous rules (in mainly red states) aren’t “qualified” to vote.
You are correct that your pResident is a blow hard and a cowardly bully and will be sent home to Florida with his tail between his legs after Biden is sworn in and will be hiring teams of lawyers to prepare to defend himself against numerous indictments for some of his criminal activity.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-08-18/la-county-man-accused-of-voting-in-three-elections-as-his-dead-mother%3F_amp%3Dtrue&ved=2ahUKEwje8IvWnu3rAhUkYTUKHUX4CT4QFjAHegQIChAB&usg=AOvVaw2ZwUfIk73QU_MtXBZIBN4E&cf=1
Chet, you think so little of blacks that they can’t get an ID? Now that is racist
If you cared about voter fraud, you’d care that Trump explicitly told people to vote twice- a crime. But you don’t, so you don’t.
Email, do you read or just emote? Read my antepenultimate sentence
So… If he constantly promises or threatens to do shit, but never follows through on any of it, why should he be President again? Any moron can write checks with his mouth that he can’t cash with his ass– and that’s what you want in a leader? Seriously?
He’s the fucking President. He shouldn’t be working up material for his “tight five” on Open Mic night at the Giggle Pit, for fuck’s sake.
John, nobody likes his communication style. The alternative is a leftist that has failing mental abilities. A man who will appoint leftist judges and pass any laws that the left proposes. We vote for judges and fewer regulations. You’re voting for judges, taxes, and more regulations. You don’t care that your nominee is senile. What’s the difference?
Bullshit. The “communications style” is his underlying personality and character. You cannot separate the two without some serious denial of reality and cognitive dissonance. And, even if you could, the communications style of the President is fucking important. He’s the face of the nation and right now, I’m sick of the face of the nation constantly spewing lies and bullshit.
Your ends of conservative judges and fewer regulations don’t justify the means. And your means is a fat-assed conman who cares about nothing but himself. He’d gladly sell out the national security interests of the US if he thinks that’d get him a dollar richer, or get him more personal power, or have more of his brainwashed cult members kissing his ass. Plain and simple: he absolutely doesn’t care about anything other than himself. He doesn’t care about you, he doesn’t care about me, he doesn’t care about this country or any of its laws or norms. If it’d somehow make him richer or more powerful or get his ass kissed more, he’d gladly appoint liberal judges, raise taxes, and expand regulations.
John, you are just emoting. Orange man bad. Yes, the communication style of the president is important. But I place judges and regulations higher.
Can you state one act that has made him richer or his family richer? I can for for Biden’s son while his father was in office.
BTW, this is what a calm, reasoned response looks like. Try it. You might be more persuasive.
What are your thoughts on judges now?
Absentee ballots and vote by mail are he same thing.
“Objective” obfuscation
When it is in corporate media’s be$t intere$t$, they will start covering such stories clearly, honestly, and objectively, not before.
It’s clear that corporate media wants Trump. Without him, the corporate “resistance” media will have no viewers. They won’t admit it to themselves, but on November 4th, you’ll see media companies’ stock values decline — Disney, AT&T, Verizon. Fox will win either way as will alternative conservative media. Alternative left-progressive media outlets will get gutted like they were during the Obama era. They’ll be lulled into complacency by neoliberal platitudes. Welcome to the future.
I hate Trump but this alarmist nonsense reminds me of DHMO hoax. For example, Trump is NOT dismantling the post office. That process started way before him. Further more, post office handles between two and three billion pieces of mail a week, and if everyone voted by mail, post office could easily handled.
Then there is this nonsense:
” In 2000, in Bush v. Gore, the Supreme Court bestowed the presidency on George W. Bush by stopping the recount of Florida votes ”
Well who should be the one right decider who would make such decisions? Oh, I know, maybe if we had some sort of a court that would be supreme to all other courts … oh wait!
Funny thing is that two paragraphs before that the author wrote:
” Legal scholar Lawrence Douglas (Vox, 6/3/20) pointed out that there are no federal laws or constitutional procedures to guide Americans in a contested election where neither side refuses to concede”
If there only was some sort of a system where people who disagree could argue their case in front of some sort of a judge!
In other words, you can’t/don’t dispute these claims on any factual, legal, or logical grounds, but you dislike their having been made.
All the article is arguing, is that we call things that quack and waddle “ducks”. Which is a pretty unimpeachable suggestion.
So it’s factually, legally and logically correct you say? Are you familiar with dangers of DHMO?
https://www.dhmo.org/facts.html
I set up a 0$ monthly donation to you guys after previously donating several times because you refuse to cover the Assange show trial and extradition attempts. He is a journalist that has been held for over a year now on no charges in the country where he is currently located.
You do realize FAIR is an incredibly small nonprofit operating under a huge recession, while under a barrage of corporate media BS from all directions, right? Search for Julian Assange on the website and you’ll find plenty of references, even though there admittedly haven’t been pieces dedicated to him.
I have considered writing about him before, but I’m a freelancer who is more familiar with other topics than his case unfortunately. It’s not possible for any writer to cover every single beat because no one has unlimited time or omniscience.
I’ll start worrying about this after Alex Padilla counts my 2016 ballot for the Democratic Primary.
Or more obviously–until he doesn’t exist anymore as some kind of voting arbiter. Good luck though Josh with this thing. It does suck. And you aren’t all-powerful. I’m just saying–for me, and MILLIONS of others, we expect votes not to count, rightfully, because they won’t.
And your Donald Trump scarecrow is late to the game, pal.
“the Trump era”
“When the media are unable to present as fact that Trump is trying to steal the 2020 election”
You actually wrote this, Josh, and even on a site called “fairness and accuracy”
Take a break dude.
Trump has every right to be concerned about mail in voting. Mail in voting is ripe for fraud and the Dems will be for that.
There should be no mail in voting, if you can protest in groups then everyone should be able to go to a voting booth and vote.
I see… So “ripe for fraud” is the standard for curtailing an important constitutional right, is it?
Well, we better start registering all firearms and licensing all firearm owners and conducting unannounced periodic checks of how they store them and everything. After all: straw purchasing firearms is “ripe for fraud.”
I am no fan of Trump, but I do not find the Democrats any better, if not worse. In 2016 didn’t they say supposed Russian influence gave the election to Trump? Didn’t they say even back then, that it was time to launch impeachment proceedings? That is not exactly “conceding an election”. And don’t some Democrats already say if Trump wins this year, it is proof he stole the election? In fact, Democrat advocate already wrote a book on just that!
Trump’s “lying, cheating and stealing”? I suppose you think Clinton and Biden do not have a history of doing just that?
I was never a fan of Republicans, but the complete hypocrisy of Democrats and Democrat apologists is more than a bit much. Why FAIR is on this Democrat apologist bandwagon is a disgrace.
For the most concise and trustworthy news about Julian Assange go to CONSORTIUM NEWS.
The Republicans are not the only ones trying to destroy democracy. The Democrats are litigating to keep the Green Party off the ballot.
After cancelling my subscriptions to all the news papers, I used to read for many years, I’m seeking trustworthy news sources.
It didn’t take me long to find this article and made up my mind. Not going to pay for this summary of “bashing the village idiot in the white-house”. With exception of one, all references are pointing to articles from main stream media that pushes anti Trump stories. Regurgitating stories from bias media is not challenging the bias in the media.
Stop reading WaPo, NYT, POLITICO and other sources with a clear agenda.
I don’t like Trump, but this kind of propaganda I can get everywhere for free.
My money goes now to Matt Taibbi and others, who didn’t sell out their profession.