…And I’m definitely not alone.

There have been some excellent columns written lately about the new and wholly inane buzzword(s), “election denier.” I thought it might be helpful if I passed along some thoughts from some writers whose work I admire: Victor Davis Hanson, Roger Kimball, and others. This includes prominently, almost assuredly, the next Governor of Arizona, Kari Lake, to illustrate how quickly the most bizarre words and phrases get adopted by the Loonocracy and become part of the national lexicon.

Hanson, in an article titled “Who Denies Election Results?” has this to say about this new exercise in Orwellian “newspeak”:

The accuracy of the 2020 vote was “unprecedented.”

Unfortunately, the history of U.S. elections is often a story of both legitimate and illegitimate election denialism.

The 1800, 1824, 1876, and 1960 elections were all understandably questioned. In some of these cases, a partisan House of Representatives decided the winner.

Presidential candidate Al Gore in 2000 did not accept the popular vote results in Florida. He spent five weeks futilely contesting the state’s tally—until recounts and the Supreme Court certified it.

The ensuing charge that former President George W. Bush was “selected, not elected” was the Democrats’ denialist mantra for years.

In 2004, then-Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., and 31 Democratic House members voted not to certify the Ohio election results in their unhinged efforts to overturn the election. Those denialists included the current sanctimonious chairman of the Jan. 6 select committee, Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss.

After 2016, crackpot Democratic orthodoxy for years insisted that Trump had “colluded” with Russia to “steal” certain victory from Hillary Clinton. Clinton herself claimed that Trump was not a “legitimate” president. No wonder she loudly joined #TheResistance to obstruct his presidency.

The serial denialist Clinton later urged Joe Biden not to concede the 2020 election if he lost.

This is just a small sample from this extraordinary analysis from Dr. Hanson; I highly recommend reading the entire article.

Roger Kimball wields his intellectual scalpel with his usual precision in an article entitled “Not Consensus, But Truth”; here are some highlights:

Perhaps the most popular meme floating about in polite society today is the contention that any hint of the 2020 presidential election being tainted is a “Big Lie.” It is so popular, in fact, that some journalists and politicians appear to present themselves to the Office of Acceptable Propaganda each day before setting off on their rounds. They collect their allotted quota of different ways of ridiculing and dismissing those imprudent enough to suggest that, as a matter of fact, there were lots of problems with the 2020 elections.

It is important that these approved scribes and politicians engage in this ritual because there are many different ways in which this rhetorical epithet needs to be expressed if it is to achieve its goal: to silence debate by intimidating people.

To this end, a number of different rhetorical registers must be sounded. Some are blunt and angry, as for example this tweet from a writer for The Bulwark, a marginal NeverTrump site supported by leftist billionaires: “Chris Sununu, Doug Ducey, Brian Kemp, and Glenn Youngkin . . . every single one of them is campaigning either for or with an election-denying lunatic.”

The obloquy is directed not simply against certain ideas, but also against the people who express, or might express, them. Thus we find Michael Steele, an anti-Trump Republican and former chairman of the Republican National Committee, castigating supporters of the former president as “lice, fleas, and blood sucking ticks.” The formula does have the advantage of clarity: I mean, partly because of its unsavory historical echoes, you know where you stand with Steele.

***

The aim, as I said, is to silence any and all criticism. The means is largely intimidation, but it is intimidation that aims first of all to create a consensus: a unanimity of sentiment so widespread that it no longer has to be prohibited because it is regarded as morally outrageous by polite society.

***

Was the 2020 election “stolen”? Perhaps that is not quite the right word. But, pace The Bulwark, what is “lunatic” is not distrusting the election but giving it a pass because, as every right thinking person will agree, it produced the desired result.

Perhaps, notwithstanding these intellectual dissections of this lunatic phrase, no one said it better than gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake of Arizona. Referring to the media’s constant attempts to slime her with the shibboleth “election denier,” she had this to say at a recent press conference,

Let’s talk about election deniers. Here’s 150 examples of Democrats denying election results. Look at this–this is from Joe Biden’s Press Secretary–‘remember, Brian Kemp stole the gubernatorial election from Georgians and
Stacey Abrams.’ A Democrat was saying that-is that an election denier? Oh look at this–‘just heard Republican Ryan Costello said it would be difficult for Stacey Abrams to win because she lost her state bid, but she’s still claiming she never lost.’ Hillary Clinton: ‘Trump is an illegitimate President,’–is she an election denier? This one says, ‘was the 2016 election legitimate? It is definitely a question worth asking.’ That was the Los Angeles Times. So it’s okay for Democrats to question elections but it’s not okay for Republicans? It’s a crock of BS, everyone knows it; we have our freedom of speech and we’re not going to relinquish it to a bunch of fake news propagandists. If you want a copy of these, I’m sure Anthony will help you get a copy and help you learn how to be a journalist but look it up. It has been happening for a long time.  –

Here is the video of her statement, which is, quite simply, delicious in vividly illustrating the gargantuan hypocrisy of the Democrats and their enablers, such as the Never Trumpers;

Our friends in Mississippi have a wonderfully descriptive phrase for a situation in which one had a particularly effective repartee to another’s statement which fits exactly what Kari Lake did to these reporters in that video: “She cut ‘em long, deep and wide”!

As the title of this post suggests, I have had to come to terms with the stark realization that I am, mea culpa, it seems, an “election denier” according to a tweet sent out by Mollie Hemingway about a CBS report identifying those in this dreaded category. Here’s her tweet and the truly incredible list of those identifying characteristics:

Holy bleeping bleep. CBS and @macfarlane assert without reason or sense here that if you want election audits, or use your right to object to a state’s electors, or even if you oppose *unconstitutional* changes to election laws, that makes you an “election denier.” INSANE.

I hereby fully, openly, and publicly confess to satisfying just about all those criteria and I do so in the genuine hope that the sinister Black Helicopters don’t land on the lawn as soon as this post goes out:

1. I have questioned, over and over and over again, the legitimacy of Biden’s election.
2. I have said, as is my right under the First Amendment, that the 2020 election was stolen from President Trump.
3. I have lamented the sad and tragic reflection on our Judiciary in the fact that many of our courts would not even hear, much less decide, complaints of fraud, many of which are now being adjudicated and proven in courts in several states.
4. I admired the fine advocacy which went into the Texas lawsuit and lamented its dismissal.
5. I thought Dr. Eastman and others made a very credible argument about objections to the Electoral College count on Jan 6 and consider it a crime against our Constitution that he is being prosecuted for advocating that cause for his client.
6. I supported the 2020 audit and also the audits now being conducted as a result of some of the aforementioned lawsuits in various states.

In conclusion, let me close with a little picture that sums up quite succinctly the whole ludicrous nature of this rank hypocrisy:

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