President Donald Trump has subtly changed his message from challenging the election results to demanding his supporters be satisfied they can trust the election. His fired lawyer, Sidney Powell, stoked conspiracy theories Trump keeps promoting.
After recently questioning some of the wild claims of Sidney Powell, presaging her dismissal from Trump’s election legal team, Tucker Carlson’s monologue last night pivoted to stoking election-fraud suspicions. Emblazoned with the chyron “A SYSTEM CAN’T FUNCTION IF NO ONE TRUSTS THE VOTE,” Carlson announced, “This is a real issue, no matter who raises it or who tries to dismiss it out of hand as a conspiracy theory.” (President Trump has pinned this clip from the show to the top of his Twitter feed.) The Federalist, which has won market share by outflanking other conservative sites in its willingness to defend Trump’s most outrageous lies, has a series of stories reinforcing this theme. The media is pouring doubt on vote-fraud claims because “they know what everyone in America knows: there was nothing pure or secure or even ordinary about the election,” argues one column. “How can these essential self-governance contests be taken seriously if voters are concerned they can’t trust if American laws will be upheld, fraud exposed, criminals held accountable, and elections trusted?” pleads another.
