(MSNBC) The GOP’s shameless bid to normalize election denialism
Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel unveiled a jaw-dropping new rhetorical tactic today in an attempt to rebuff the “election denier” label. “They keep using this ‘denier’ phrase,” McDaniel said on Fox News, referring to how Democrats call Republicans election deniers. “Listen, the Democrats have been inflation deniers, they have been crime deniers, border deniers, fentanyl deniers, education deniers."
In other words, she equated the Trump-induced GOP trend of rejecting the legitimacy of the 2020 election with Democrats’ differences in opinion on issues like economic policy, immigration policy and Covid-19 safety protocols in schools.
One of these things is not like the other. Democrats and Republicans have long diverged on what smart and ethical policy looks like. But election denialism is something else altogether. It’s a refusal to accept empirical reality, insofar as there is no evidence of fraud that could have overturned the 2020 election. And it constitutes a hostility toward democratic politics, in that despite a lack of evidence, many MAGA Republicans are now refusing to say whether they’ll accept their own election losses and creating new institutions and laws designed to discourage people from voting.
It seems the GOP’s anti-democracy messaging is getting more dangerous by the day.
Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel unveiled a jaw-dropping new rhetorical tactic today in an attempt to rebuff the “election denier” label. “They keep using this ‘denier’ phrase,” McDaniel said on Fox News, referring to how Democrats call Republicans election deniers. “Listen, the Democrats have been inflation deniers, they have been crime deniers, border deniers, fentanyl deniers, education deniers."
In other words, she equated the Trump-induced GOP trend of rejecting the legitimacy of the 2020 election with Democrats’ differences in opinion on issues like economic policy, immigration policy and Covid-19 safety protocols in schools.
One of these things is not like the other. Democrats and Republicans have long diverged on what smart and ethical policy looks like. But election denialism is something else altogether. It’s a refusal to accept empirical reality, insofar as there is no evidence of fraud that could have overturned the 2020 election. And it constitutes a hostility toward democratic politics, in that despite a lack of evidence, many MAGA Republicans are now refusing to say whether they’ll accept their own election losses and creating new institutions and laws designed to discourage people from voting.
It seems the GOP’s anti-democracy messaging is getting more dangerous by the day.
