“Who won the 2020 election?” CNN’s Jim Acosta asked Donald Trump’s acting Department of Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf this weekend.ĬNN’s preening Jake Tapper also loves to throw around the phrase “election denier,” which he defines as anyone “who lies about American democracy in the 2020 election.” Why doesn’t this go for the 2016 election or 2024 election or 2000? Well, because Tapper spent years spreading the Russia “collusion” fraud, a concerted effort to delegitimize “American democracy.” If we accept Tapper’s parameter’s for any other election year, not only does he meet the definition of a denialist, but virtually every Democrat qualifies. This weekend, Dem operative Jon Karl interviewed the recently deposed Liz Cheney, who promised to work against “election deniers,” people who do not “respect the outcome of the election.” Among the people Cheney will reject are Ron DeSantis and Ted Cruz-neither of whom, as far as I can tell, deny that Biden is the legitimate president of the United States. It has long been the case that Democrats do not accept the legitimacy of elections. Because, if it’s not “dark money” stealing “democracy,” it’s confusing ballots, or “voter suppression,” or “gerrymandering,” or the Ruskies or the Supreme Court, or the Constitution.
If these latter concerns make one a “denier,” then surely someone who believes that asking a citizen to show an ID before voting is tantamount to Jim Crow is also one. But the left likes to lump together nuts who believe child-porn rings are operating out of DC pizzerias and the millions who have concerns about the prevalence of low-integrity, mail-in ballot systems or executive actions that allow late, undated ballots to be counted after Election Day. Both positions are wrong, but one is a critique of federalism while the other is bonkers. There are those who maintain Donald Trump was a Russian asset since the 1980s and others who believe that the Electoral College is an antiquated institution. Certainly, not all “election denialism” is identical.