The only thing more annoying than left-wing delusions slipping the bonds of social media and escaping into civil discourse is that journalists tend to treat these fantasies as deserving of serious consideration.
It’s bad enough that Democratic legislators and activists knowingly pollute the discourse with ridiculous rumors and conspiracy theories meant to excite the base, juice fundraising numbers, and boost personal “brands.” We don’t also need news anchors to play along.
CNN’s Dana Bash and Jake Tapper featured segments this week, entertaining the notion that President Trump may attempt to cancel the upcoming midterm and presidential elections.
“Governors Gavin Newsom and J.B. Pritzker are two closely watched Democrats who may run for president in 2028,” the cable news talking head said. “Both are increasingly sounding the alarm that a free and fair election may not even happen.”
Oh, come off it.
The governors are doing this not because they believe a word of what they are saying, but because they understand this slop plays well with the piggies at the trough. Bash is old enough to understand this, which renders her doe-eyed “just-asking-questions” routine as phony as it is irresponsible.
“This is the thing that I hear most from Democrats,” Bash continued, straight-faced, “which is just the first election nationally that we’re going to see the midterms. And that is: How do we know that they’re not going to be messed with? I mean, it’s the kind of thing that we heard on the Republican side, pushed by Donald Trump erroneously going into 2020 and others. But I haven’t heard Democrats, this concerned, talk about the ecosystem and versus the reality that’s driving that.”
She can’t possibly be so dimwitted to have missed what she just said: When Trump and his MAGA base questioned the elections, it was erroneous. When Democrats do it — well, they might have a point!
To “discuss” the governors’ very serious concerns, Bash turned to former Obama White House senior advisor Dan Pfiefer, who (naturally) embraced the election paranoia and ran with it.
“I think we should be very concerned that Donald Trump can mess with these elections,” he warned. “I think we have to be prepared for everything. … I would rather prepare for the worst and hope for the best than be caught flat-footed when Donald Trump does the worst.”
Bash then asked Pfiefer for practical advice on how to “prepare” for something that is rattling around primarily in resistance fever dreams.
“The first thing is to call it out,” responded the former Obama aide and Pod Save America co-host. “To start talking about it now. … Make everyone aware, right? Get people fired up, make people understand that these things are coming, so they’re not surprised when they happen.”
Later, Pfiefer clarified that he doesn’t believe the president is “going to cancel the elections,” but may instead choose voter intimidation tactics, such as stationing ICE agents outside of polling places. Pfiefer also suggested that House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) may refuse to seat Democratic members in close races, “if control of the House is at stake.”
Elsewhere on the same network, Tapper also paid homage to Govs. Newsom and Pritzker, passing the segment to former ABC News reporter Terry Moran to explain what it all might mean.
The National Guard has been deployed to places such as Los Angeles, Moran alleged, as part of a larger plot to “prime the American people to see military forces on the streets of our cities when there is no justification. There’s no disaster. There’s no riot burning down square miles of any city. There was one car on fire in Los Angeles. And that’s clearly what this is.”
Later, Tapper hinted there may be a secret connection between the National Guard deployments and the pending White House executive order to change the name of the Department of Defense back to the Department of War.
“It’s interesting that this comes as all these National Guard troops are being deployed to major cities, having nothing to do with war, theoretically,” Tapper said with a wink-and-a-nod.
Added his guest, former Obama aide David Axelrod, “Right. No. We have an active military now, and they’re landing in American cities.”
It is incredible that, after everything that has been said and printed about Trump’s reckless disregard for election integrity — with much of the sharpest criticism coming from CNN — Bash should promote self-serving Democratic scaremongering and legitimize the left-wing base’s worst neurotic conspiracy theories.
For crying out loud, CNN is the network that originally repurposed an explicitly antisemitic propaganda term from Adolf Hitler’s pen for the purpose of condemning denialism about the 2020 presidential election results.
Yet here we are, with lead CNN anchors mainstreaming the baseless election conspiracy-theorizing of two potential 2028 Democratic presidential hopefuls. It is Stacey Abrams (D) all over again, where shameless and unapologetic election trutherism is treated with care and earnest consideration instead of scorn, so long as it’s a Democrat who is sowing the distrust.
What’s the overarching message with these CNN segments anyway? That undermining trust in elections is bad only sometimes, and reasonable at other times? Or is the message really as venal as, “It’s okay when we do it”?
If these people didn’t have double standards, they’d have no standards at all.
Becket Adams is a writer in Washington and program director for the National Journalism Center.
