ELECTION 2020: Payback For Russiagate

November 12, 2020

After trying to undermine Donald Trump with Russiagate, Democrats are now facing a reprisal from Republicans trying to undermine Joe Biden’s election, writes Joe Lauria.

By Joe Lauria
Special to Consortium News

Republicans must know that Joe Biden received more votes, in too many states, and by too wide a margin, for the 2020 election results to be overturned. Nevertheless, many Republican leaders are still backing Donald Trump’s claim that Biden’s election was not legitimate. 

After the Democrats played the fabulist Russiagate card to undermine Trump’s legitimacy, they should not be surprised by Republican efforts to undermine Biden’s. This is U.S. politics in a downward spiral.

The same way Trump laid the groundwork during the campaign by questioning the validity of mail-in voting (which goes back to the American Revolution), Hillary Clinton laid the groundwork during the 2016 campaign to undermine Trump by recklessly branding him a “Putin puppet.” 

That blossomed into four years of full-blown Russiagate, which was meant to question the validity of Trump’s election,  undermine his legitimacy and hamper his ability to act as president. 

Now the Republicans are questioning the validity of Biden’s election, undermining his legitimacy and hampering his ability to act as president-elect, and later as president. 

This is tit-for-tat for the Russiagate gambit.  Put bluntly, this is what the Democrats get for starting all this. 

Don’t be surprised if Fox and other Republican outlets gear up to question Biden’s legitimacy for the next four years, the way Democratic media stirred up Russiagate madness the previous four years. Russiagate may morph into Chinagate following stories of Hunter and Joe Biden’s business deals in China, which partisan, liberal media suppressed. 

All this is destabilizing the country and further delegitimizing the two major parties. It has set the stage for Trump to stir up the violent element of his supporters leading to clashes beyond what we have already seen in the streets.

Creating Myths

Meanwhile, the Democrats have begun mythologizing Biden and Kamala Harris to cement their victory against both the Republican strategy and the extreme displeasure from the leftwing of its own party, which has already emerged just days after it backed Biden. 

The other day my phone buzzed with a notification from The New York Times.   Was there an earthquake in Chile? A coup in Africa? Trump conceded? I reached for the phone. It read: 

It would be astounding that Times editors would promulgate such pap if it weren’t already clear that the newspaper had shed credibility with its Russiagate coverage and unbridled Democratic partisanship (though not nearly so bad as CNN’s on-air crying and jubilation.) 

This was bolstered by a series of stomach-churning newspaper illustrations transforming Harris literally overnight from a checkered prosecutor and politician into a goddess. Little girls across America will be helped by the prospect of debt-free, free university education and Medicare4All, not by the election of an opportunistic politician who has rejected those advances.  

Let me state it clearly:   

Answering Our Critics

Our unwavering commitment to journalism, that is, non-partisanship, has brought us our fair share of criticism from both Democratic and Republican readers for our coverage of both Biden and Trump. 

One Democratic reader called our coverage of the election “cynical” because we did not back Biden. It is not Consortium News‘ role to support any candidate. Journalism’s role is to critique both major candidates, pointing out their flaws. It is up to the voters then to decide.  

Joe Lauria is editor-in-chief of Consortium News and a former UN correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, and numerous other newspapers. He was an investigative reporter for the Sunday Times of London and began his professional career as a stringer for The New York Times.  He can be reached at joelauria@consortiumnews.comand followed on Twitter @unjoe . 

Feature image: Ted Eytan, Washington, DC, – Nov. 11, 2017.

https://consortiumnews.com/2020/11/12/election-2020-payback-for-russiagate/