Recently Democrats elected Hakeem Jeffries to replace Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House.
Jefferies, long considered a rising star in Democratic politics, is now the first black lawmaker to lead a major political party in American history. But within hours of securing his new position, conservatives began coalescing around a new - and for many, surprising - label for Jeffries: "election denier."
Excerpt from The Week.
Aaron Kliegman in his recent article for Just The News – Double Standard? Media Quick To Use The Phrase ‘Election Deniers’ – But Only For Republicans – notes that mainstream media has ‘refrained’ from labeling Democrats with the same term.
Jefferies has repeatedly denied the legitimacy of Donald Trump's 2016 election victory - Kliegman wrote. "The more we learn about 2016 the more ILLEGITIMATE it becomes," he tweeted from his Congressional account in February 2018. "America deserves to know whether we have a FAKE President in the Oval Office."
Jefferies has often accused Trump of "cheating" in 2016 and being a "Russian asset," arguing whether the former president colluded with Russia to win the White House...
In 2019, Jeffries claimed at a Congressional hearing that Trump had been put into the White House "artificially," despite Special Counsel Robert Mueller concluding Trump hadn't colluded with Russia...
Yet the same outlets that consistently used the term election denier in reference to Republicans questioning 2020 election results, haven't done the same for Jeffries...
Joe Concha, a longtime media critic at The Hill newspaper and commentator for Fox News channel, asked on Twitter on Friday whether the press will call Jeffries an election denier.
"Will the media label him an election denier in an effort to be consistent with the same applied to some GOP candidates in the 2022 midterms?"
No, and they probably never will. And for good reason. As has been pointed out by more sane voices, Jeffries has never engaged in the same activities or behavior that MAGA Republicans have engaged in during and after the 2020 elections, which include opposing and attempting to prevent his certification; filing endless lawsuits to disregard votes; pushing baseless conspiracy theories of voting machines; never attempting to replace state electors with fake electors; and never called for violence to overturn an election.
Basically, all they’ve been able to come up with are thirteen examples that Hakeem Jeffries criticized Trump’s legitimacy as president of the United States, which somehow makes him even more radical and extreme than the fascists who stormed the Capitol – because of the “fake Russia Gate” narrative dreamed up by Democrats and the liberal media, both of whom were desperate to explain Clinton’s loss. So, they allegedly made up Russia Gate out of thin air, and then convinced Special Council, Robert Mueller – a Republican – and his team to investigate Trump for no good reason, other than the fact that they didn’t like him.
Even though the investigation was nothing more than a fraud, according to MAGA Republicans, and a “witch hunt,” according to Trump himself, there were multiple indictments, a few that resulted in prison sentences for some involved, and others who were pardoned by Trump. One of those indicted and sent to prison for financial crimes, was Paul Manafort. Manafort recently admitted during an interview with Business Insider, of passing on campaign information to Russian agents.
Following the results of the Mueller investigation and report, a Senate Republican-led committee concluded in 2020, that Russia Gate was anything but a hoax.
WikiLeaks played a key role in Russia's effort to assist Republican Trump's campaign against Democrat Hillary Clinton and likely knew it was helping Russian intelligence, said the 966 page report, which is likely to be the most definitive public account of the 2016 election controversy.
The report found President Vladimir Putin personally directed the Russian efforts to hack computer networks and accounts affiliated with the Democratic Party and leak information damaging to Clinton.
Asked about the report at an event in Yuma, Arizona, Trump said: "I don't know anything about it. I didn't read it. It's all a hoax."
Excerpt from Reuters, August, 2020.
So, Jefferies criticized the legitimacy of an American president, who according to a Senate investigation, confirmed was not the innocent victim of a “witch hunt.” But it was all a hoax anyway, because reality, truth, whatever, has a liberal bias, and conservatives are always the victims.
Jeffries: "Well, here's the Republican playbook. Facts don't matter. Hypocrisy is not a constraint to their behavior... and they believe shamelessness is a superpower.
"My view of the situation has been pretty clear. I supported the certification of Donald Trump's election. I attended his inauguration even though there were many constituents and others across the country pushing me to do otherwise, and found ways to work with the Trump administration, and being the lead Democrat in negotiating historical criminal justice reform.
"That track record speaks for itself. At the same time, I will never hesitate in criticizing the former president, and I think I'm in good company throughout the world."
Excerpt from 'This Week' transcript with George Stephanopoulos, 12/04/22.
Jeffries brings up a good point here. Hypocrisy has never been a constraint to anything they say or do. They’re the ones who operate on facts, facts that are constantly triggering the libs, who operate solely on emotion. Visit any mainstream MAGA conservative newsite – the Gateway Pundit, World Net Daily, Town Hall, etc. – all of whom gave us irrefutable proof that Trump won the election and that January 06 was a peaceful protest. Republicans and Trump were never OG election deniers with their birther conspiracies of Barack Obama – that he was an “illegitimate” president. They were just “asking questions.”
The difference between the birther claims and Jeffries’ claims of Trump being an “illegitimate president,” is that one was based on racism, while the other was based on a number of investigations that concluded that Russia had indeed attempted to influence the outcome of an election. And as I previously pointed out, Jeffries never engaged in the same type of behavior as did Trump and his sycophants – all of whom did more than merely question election results – before and after the 2020 election.
To brand him as an radical election denier is dishonest and hypocritical.
Sources: The Week, Just The News, This Week with Stephanopoulos, Reuters.
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