MSNBC Now Pushing Idea Trump Wasn't Actually Elected...At Least Not 'Democratically'
There are some in the left-wing media who still, over two years after the presidential election, have not come to terms with the fact that President Donald Trump fairly and legitimately defeated Hillary Clinton.
Indeed, the constant chorus of “Russian collusion” and other unsubstantiated nonsense are all part of an effort to delegitimize Trump’s victory.
Newsbusters reported that no less than two MSNBC contributors worked that particular angle — that Trump’s election was not legitimate — on Wednesday’s broadcast of “Hardball” with host Chris Matthews. One contributor claimed Trump had “robbed the American people of their right to vote” while the other insinuated that the president was not a “democratically elected leader” and had instead gained the White House through colluding with the Russians and defrauding voters.
At issue was the story surrounding “hush money” payments made by former Trump attorney Michael Cohen to porn star Stormy Daniels and former Playboy Playmate Karen McDougal, both of whom alleged affairs with then-businessman Trump years ago and were paid to remain silent about their years-old allegations, but which made it out into the media regardless.
First up was MSNBC legal analyst Glenn Kirschner, who ran through the litany of allegations surrounding the “hush money” story.
“When you look at all of that in aggregate, you can walk into court and prosecute the president successfully without breaking a sweat and, finally, Chris, you know, he — the president didn’t rob a bank. He robbed the American people of their right to vote — of full value of their vote. For that, he needs to be held accountable.”
Kirschner’s assertion that Trump “robbed” the American people of the “full value of their vote” by allegedly paying to keep affairs from a decade ago a secret from the public is patently absurd. Countless politicians have done the exact same thing over the course of this nation’s history, and while it is an admittedly sleazy thing to do, it is not a crime.
Later in the program was Natasha Bertrand — MSNBC contributor and reporter for The Atlantic — who took issue with the suggestion from Trump that his supporters would “revolt” if a Democratic-led House attempted to impeach him over alleged but unverified “crimes.”
“It sounds like a dog whistle,” she said. “It sounds like he’s appealing to his supporters saying, ‘Look, if I get impeached, it’s not legitimate, it’s a move by the deep state to remove me, your democratically elected leader,’ even though we’re learning now that may not be the case because he severely limited voters’ knowledge during the election — and may or may not have worked with the Russians — but I think that it was definitely a signal to his base saying this is what you guys should do.”
“You should be up in arms figuratively, not necessarily literally, if I — if the Democrats in the House move to impeach me,” she added. “Of course, I don’t think at this point the Democrats will do that because they have signaled they won’t do it if they did not think that the Senate would remove him, but I don’t think there’s any other way that you can slice it. I think that Donald Trump was clearly sending a dog whistle there.”
Again, Bertrand is suggesting that Trump paying off his accusers “severely limited voters’ knowledge” and alleged collusion with Russia render means he wasn’t a “democratically elected leader” — in other words intimating that his election was illegitimate.
Matthews suggested that had the stories about Daniels and McDougal been widely spread among the media prior to the election, it could have cost Trump crucial votes in swing states like Pennsylvania, which in turn could have resulted in his losing the election.
However, MSNBC guest and former federal prosecutor Elliot Williams thought otherwise, and said, “I don’t know about that.”
The remarks by Kirschner and Bertrand are essentially saying that unproven allegations of non-crimes are grounds for undermining the legitimacy of a democratic election process, one that Trump managed to win fair and square, in spite of the daunting odds stacked against him.
Furthermore, while they criticize Trump’s suggestion that his supporters would “revolt” if he were unfairly impeached, they are in essence fomenting a rebellion of their own among the left’s supporters by suggesting that his 2016 election was illegitimate and non-democratic.
This is just the latest example of anti-Trump media hacks attempting to rationalize and explain away why their preferred party’s candidate lost in such stunning fashion to a man they utterly despise.
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