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Say it with me: He lost

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Say it with me: He lost

Apr 27, 2022 | 8:00 pm ET
By Kate Queram
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News From The States: Evening Wrap

Evening, newsletter fam! I’m participating in a company-wide diversity training today, which means you’re getting a truncated edition tonight. It’s the government gazette! It’s the political post! It’s got one section, and it talks about democracy!

The Big Takeaway

If you’re a Republican running for office — any office, really — you could make a convincing argument that President Joe Biden hasn’t accomplished much since taking office in January 2021. You could point to his social spending plan and his voting rights agenda, both stalled in the U.S. Senate because of opposition from lawmakers in his own party. You could point to record-high inflation, which is happening on Biden’s watch, even if it isn’t exactly his fault. You could point to his decidedly unfulfilled pledge to unite the country

My point is that there’s plenty of legitimate material to throw at this man, but you’d never know it by listening to Republican candidates, who have largely chosen to stake their campaigns on culture wars and conspiracy theories. Their fantasy of choice? That one-term President Donald Trump actually won the 2020 election, a non-fraudulent contest that was called — for Biden — nearly 18 months ago.

Here’s Joe Biden speaking at his own presidential inauguration, which they only let you do if you win a presidential election. (Photo by Patrick Semansky-Pool/Getty Images)
Here’s Joe Biden speaking at his own presidential inauguration, which they only let you do if you win a presidential election. (Photo by Patrick Semansky-Pool/Getty Images)

I am exhausted by this topic, and I am sure that you understand it’s a lie, but I am still morally and journalistically required to tell you that it is a lie. Trump lost. He lost decisively. He lost because he exhausted us, and because he downplayed a literal pandemic, and because women finally just could not. He lost even though he told us he won. He lost fairly and on his own, despite multiple (and ongoing) attempts to blame the loss on (nonexistent) widespread fraud. Trump — and I cannot stress this enough — lost.

I belabor the point because half of Americans — and two-thirds of Republicans — still believe he won, and because GOP candidates across the country are actively promoting that fallacy as truth. Some do it to curry favor with Trump, who still holds tremendous power within the GOP and has so far endorsed at least 80 Big Lie believers vying for state and federal office. But for many others, it seems less of a strategic move than a wholehearted dive into an alternate reality. 

Take Idaho, where two of three GOP candidates for secretary of state said during a televised debate Tuesday that Biden hadn’t won the election. One of those is state Rep. Dorothy Moon, who said the 2020 results were untrustworthy because “all of the battleground states decided to go to bed” and resume counting ballots in the morning. 

Idaho GOP secretary of state hopefuls, two of whom uphold the Big Lie. (Photo by Aaron Kuntz/Idaho Public Television)
Idaho GOP secretary of state hopefuls, two of whom uphold the Big Lie. (Photo by Aaron Kuntz/Idaho Public Television)

This did not happen, just like there was no widespread voter fraud, but truth is a pesky gnat that Moon was happy to swat away in her (failed) quest to eliminate same-day voter registration and tighten voter identification laws.

That same night in Pennsylvania, four out of five GOP candidates for U.S. Senate said it wasn’t time for their party to move past the 2020 election. One of them — Kathy Barnette, a conservative commentator — said she knew there were “irregularities” in the election after losing her congressional race by more than 20 points. (Barnette made sure to stress that she’d never claimed she won that election — “just that it was wrong” — which is an interesting clarification for someone who supports the guy whose entire identity is based on claims that he won an election he lost.)

Two candidates took issue with mail-in voting, which expanded in Pennsylvania during the pandemic. One said state Democrats “exploit[ed]” state law to allow voters to cast their ballots by mail without an excuse. Another said, “The blood is on the hands of every single Republican state senator” who voted in favor of the measure. (It’s not clear whose blood he means, or why it’s limited to Republican hands.)

Artist’s depiction of multiple GOP debates this year. (Illustration via absent84/Adobe Stock)
Artist’s depiction of multiple GOP debates this year. (Illustration via absent84/Adobe Stock)

We’ve become sort of used to this type of statement, which is the point — once we’re inured to something, we’re less likely to protest it. But I urge you to resist that familiarity. It is objectively alarming to have multiple candidates for office across multiple states using their campaign platforms to lie, with no consequences, about election security. That it happens all the time is only cause for more concern. Aside from being ludicrous (I cannot actually believe we are still talking about this election), it’s dangerous. It sows doubt and discord among voters. It discourages voting. And it informs policy that seeks to restrict voting access for minority groups and other marginalized communities.

The attacks are designed to keep Republicans in power, which Republicans justify by blaming their own actions on Democrats. Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose took to Twitter on Sunday to say that the state’s election integrity could be “undone” if Democrats win there in November. A breath later, he touted his own endorsement from Trump, who’s under active criminal investigation for possible election fraud.

LaRose didn’t seem to note the irony. 

“He’s given me his full support,” he tweeted. “Join the team and chip in to our campaign.”

Elsewhere in reality: Local party officials tell D.C. Dems to stay out of Oregon primaries

From the Newsrooms

One Last Thing

A bus-sized asteroid apparently flew “safely” by Earth yesterday. Honestly, not being put out of our misery is exactly what we deserve.

Presented with the opportunity to come to Earth, even the asteroid was like, “Nah I’m good.” (via Giphy)
Presented with the opportunity to come to Earth, even the asteroid was like, “Nah I’m good.” (via Giphy)

This edition of the Evening Wrap published on April 27, 2022. Subscribe here.

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