15 Comments

Dear Chris,

You wrote this:

"There is no evidence of widespread voter fraud in the election."

To your credit, you always add this as a note to distance yourself from the unproven claims of voter fraud in respect to the 2020 elections that President Biden won.

But I think that professional journalists in your shoes need to do more to counter, reshape and reassert in the public consciousness, the correct historical narrative about the TRUTH and the FACTS of the 2016 Presidential elections. You must never give up, you can do more, and more is expected of you at this crucial juncture that your country finds itself. Christiane Amanpour demonstrated how and why this is practical and doable, in her comments reported yesterday to mark her 40 years of work for CNN.

Perhaps ypu should know this; in several other countires - that is, aside from even within the United States of America - the majority consensus is that Donald Trump lost the election fair and square. It is therefore a scandal of monumental proportions that huge swaths of the Republican Party are sold on the horrible lie that Trump lost because the election was rigged against him. There is simply no evidence (widespread or "narrowspread" - to coin a term) to this wild, mindless and shameless claim. No one in the Trump campaign nor from within the Republican campain has thus far put forward in the public domain, a single shred of evidence to this effect. Its been nothing but innuendo, suppositions and deflections from top to bottom. Rather unfortunately however, many a mainstream media in the US continue to pretend to neutrality, through repetition and rehashing of these baseless claims ad nauseam, in the name of fairness. How does the endless, daily, in-your-face references to this massive, serially court-debunked lie serve the cause of truth telling in journalism?

The corruption of the US electoral space is happening in real time, and it is sad to watch from where I stand. It is being directed and orchestrated by the lying machine that is personified in Donald J. Trump, with his continuing assault (together with his emboldened minions and supporters) upon the very foundations of democracy in your country. Excerpts from retiring Mitt Romney's book interview would seem to suggest that some within the Republican Party now see clearly how this posturing in the defense (and wicked advancement) of a solidly manufactured lie portends a great danger to the fabric of American society in the short to medium term.

What is more, it should give reasonable and fair-minded American citizens the pause, that a thuggish dictator, alongside his craven lieutenants within top echelons of the Kremlin in Russia, stands today as the one world leader openly cheering former President Donald Trump. By extension, and in the same token then, majority members of the Republican Party currently beholden to the former President, are retrogradely united with President Putin in celebration of their palpable, cooperative, authoritarian ambitions.

The United States of America is trouble. Take it from this observer from overseas.

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Prior to the pandemic, I travelled the world for business a LOT. While you generally don’t want to bring up politics in a business conversation, it always amazed me how many foreign clients would ask ME what Americans were thinking when “we” elected him! My best answer was that we Americans were not as smart nor as “exceptional” as we liked to think we were....

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So we are left with Trump...to quote the twice-impeached, quad indicted, and civilly liable for sexual assault former President - "SAD"

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Alas, the only candidates willing to point out how unworthy Trump is of the nomination -- Christie, Hutchison, and Hurd -- don't stand a chance. The rest of them are cowards, or are running for VP or a Cabinet post. The moment it was over for me was when Pence (!) said he'd vote for the man who was willing to see him hanged even if Trump was a convicted felon.

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The sooner the Caudillo returns to actually govern DeSantistan, the better the news cycle be for all.

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DeSantis’ choice to take Trump’s side in his battle with the law was, in retrospect, fatal. His entire campaign was based on being a fighter who never backs down, and prospective voters are seeing him repeatedly back down from the most existential fight his campaign needed to win. I keep going back to the Kobe-Gasol metaphor from the 2008 Olympics, but the way to the nomination was to run through Trump’s bleeping chest. All he had to do was find a message that said, “Donald Trump’s indictments are his own fault, and we should nominate a standard bearer who isn’t facing 91 felony counts in four jurisdictions.”

Some Trump voters would brand him a traitor, but GOP voters at large saw him charge into the game of thrones against the Orange Mountain with a wet stick. They were not impressed. “Never Back Down” became code for “...except for my lord and master. Would you like another pillow? Are you comfortable?” This is not how you projecting fighting strength, and everyone saw it. That bell can’t be unrung.

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Chris has just described exactly what today’s GOP is...a CULT!!!

NOTHING will move the deplorables that worship Trump like a god. It’s so sad and very scary for the future of this country.

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I agree, Chris. This is what I feared from the get go. DeSantis failed to launch and here we are, yet DeSantis isn’t a decent candidate, either. The fact that Trump has a good chance of winning the White House says a lot about how far our country has declined. This shouldn’t be.

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Hitler understood that you tell the Big Lie constantly and you make supporting the Big Lie the test of whether you are part of the movement or not.

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How incredibly disheartening and depressing.

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The other way to look at this is that it is no longer the Republican Party. I mean, it is in name, but it has now flipped. It is the party of base, which includes neo-Nazis, various other white supremacists, and truly despicable racists. Formerly normal candidates like Chris Christie are no longer welcome. They literally want to kill Mike Pence. Same goes for Mitt Romney. The only ones speaking MAGA these days are DeSantis and Ramaswamy.

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What a country.

If there is any possibility to use polls as IQ indicators, it's so delightful to have my suspicion confirmed of how stupid my fellow South Carolinians are. So many childhood friends who have somehow lost the 'smarts' they had.

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God in Heaven.... Chris, i can barely type these words... would it have been better to not indict Trump at all... for anything? would he have been reduced to blathering about stolen elections as his sole talking point? day drinking is sounding better and better. thanks

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I haven't heard anything about the race in a while, now that I think about it. What happened to DeSantis? It's like he went to Florida for the hurricane and never came back.

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What happened?

I think it became clearer, as everyone watched him more, that he’s just a LOUSY politician and a plain LOUSY human being! Watching him in front of the public (which I try NOT to do) is totally CRINGEWORTHY.

Honestly? Given how uncomfortable he looks on a personal level in those interactions, I have to wonder if he’s “on the spectrum”. I’ve seen children with Asperger’s seem more comfortable in a conversation...

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