A careful examination of articles posted in the so-called “mainstream” media reveals a telling bias.

All claims, including those made by President Donald Trump, that the official 2020 presidential election’s results were invalid (that is, that without fraud, cheating, interference, and rigging, President Trump would have been declared the winner) have been summarily dismissed — without meaningful in-depth analysis of all the evidence, witness testimonies, and observed statistical anomalies during the counting process — as “unproven.”

But how can one prove that the 2020 presidential election was “stolen” (if it was “stolen”), when the courts mostly refused — based on such technicalities as a lack of standing of the plaintiffs or a lack of jurisdiction of the respective courts — to evaluate the presented evidence based on its merit, and FBI and other law-enforcement agencies mostly refused to seriously and thoroughly investigate numerous claims, supported with evidence and eye-witness testimonies, indicating wide-spread election fraud, cheating, and other significant “irregularities”? It appears that those who had the authority to investigate complaints related to elections, and the so-called “mainstream” media, just did not want to see the voluminous evidence that might likely constitute the proof invalidating the official results of 2020 presidential election. Although the First Amendment confirms the peoples’ right to petition their government for a redress of grievances, said right — apparently, in opinion of the government — does not imply the right of the people to be listened to by their government.

On the other hand, all claims that the 2020 elections were “the most secure” in American history, that there was no “outcome-determinative fraud” (a quote from President Trump’s third indictment), and that claims made by President Trump and others that the 2020 presidential election was “stolen” were false, have been accepted as true with no proof whatsoever. Not because those who alleged 2020 presidential election fraud refused to see available evidence that the election was fair and honest (to my best knowledge, no such evidence has been presented), but because the deniers of fraud refused to accept any possibility that the election might have been illegitimate; all without factual and publicly verified evidence. Such unproven denials have mostly been based on categorical claims of those who were intimately involved in the process, and hypothetically, could have committed or facilitated fraud or cheating (or enabled via inaction).

The categorical claims that there was no systemic fraud, or that if there was any, then it was so “rare” that it was not “outcome-determinative,” were supposed to suffice in lieu of hard proof — at least in the government’s and “mainstream” media’s opinion. But how could they possibly know it for fact without thorough investigation? The fraud deniers may not have seen enough evidence of cheating, because they closed their eyes, seemingly in order to “save” public trust in American elections. As the saying goes, “There are none so blind as those who will not see.” Also, if fraudulent votes were manufactured and counted as if they were legitimate, without thorough inspection to determine validity, no matter how many times done, could not have rectified possible forgeries. So, those categorical claims were devoid of proofs and there is a reasonable chance that many of them were false.

It is worth noting that the “official” version of “truth” regarding the actual or presumed fairness and honesty of the election was made unfalsifiable by imposition… by the government’s and the “mainstream” media’s presumptions of what is true and what is false, and what inquiries and investigations into the security of the 2020 election are allowed. In modern science, unfalsifiable theories are never accepted as factually true. And so the claims that there was no “outcome-determinative” election fraud should not be accepted as such. Unless one wants to protect his or her false beliefs or deceive the public, or test the limits of human naïveté.

In one sentence, all claims that the 2020 presidential election was “stolen” were rejected as
“unproven” despite voluminous — even if not verified by the courts — evidence suggesting wide-spread election fraud and cheating, and all claims that the 2020 presidential election was not “stolen” were accepted despite being actually unproved. (Please, keep in mind that categorical claims not supported by publicly available and verifiable facts and other evidence do not constitute valid proofs.)

The Washington Post repeatedly called President Trump’s “unproven” claims “false” despite presenting no proof that his claims regarding the allegedly “stolen” election were actually false.

Below are a few examples:

President Trump’s false claims of vote fraud: A chronology

Trump’s election lies and the Republicans who corrected him

The 2020 election was neither stolen nor rigged: A primer

Also Politico, which wrote that “Trump’s election fraud claims were false” all without a proof.

Several district attorneys followed the suit of clear bias. For instance, Ms. Fani Willis, the Fulton County District Attorney in Georgia, charged that President Trump “falsely declared victory” and “falsely claimed voter fraud” despite presenting no evidence that his statements were actually false.

Do you see the difference? When President Trump claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen, the so-called “mainstream” media (and recently several district attorneys) declares any such claim as false because they insist that there is no proof of said claim. But when the “mainstream” media and DAs claim that Trump’s claims are false, meaning that the 2020 election was neither stolen nor rigged, they tacitly assume that their claim is true although they consistently have failed to prove it. Which practically rules out any objectivity on their part in this important matter.

In order to expose and counter “mainstream” media’s double standard in this matter, all those committed to truth and logic need to demand that the media proves its claims or takes them back as unproven or false. In particular, when the media claims that President Trump’s assertions about a rigged election are false, the response should always be: “Prove it!” And when the media claims that the 2020 election was neither stolen nor rigged, the response should be the same: “Prove it!”

If the media fails to prove its claims then said claims have to be characterized as unproven each and every time they are made. Moreover, one could consider calling those claims false claims in order to let the media taste their own medicine (figuratively speaking). For instance, one could consider using the following language: “Politico falsely claimed that Trump’s election fraud claims were false” or “The Washington Post made unproven claims that the 2020 election was neither stolen nor rigged.”

So please, speak up against media bias and double standards in this regard every time you have a chance to do so. If enough Americans do just that, said bias and double standards will become obvious to everyone, and the dispute regarding fraud and cheating during the 2020 presidential elections may become factual and logical.
 

Mark Andrew Dwyer’s recent columns are posted here, here, and here.

Image: Free image, Pixabay license, no attribution required.