An exceptionally revealing paragraph, in an essay from the Washington Post’s Margaret Sullivan, under the headline, “If American democracy is going to survive, the media must make this crucial shift”:
“We focus on the enemies of democracy, the villains, but we also need to focus on democracy’s heroes,” including those working at the grass-roots level, Ben-Ghiat told me, such as voting rights advocates and public officials in communities across the country. An occasional feature story on Stacey Abrams, the celebrated activist and former Georgia state lawmaker, is not nearly enough.
When all the votes were counted in the 2018 Georgia gubernatorial election, Stacey Abrams lost by more than 54,000 votes. She insisted she won. Ten days after the election, Abrams said that Brian Kemp would be taking office, but that she was not offering “a speech of concession.” She declared the election was “stolen from Georgians.” She told the New York Times she had won her election but didn’t get to have the job and that “I do not concede that the process was proper, nor do I condone that process.” She made similar comments in many interviews throughout 2019 and 2020.
Then in 2021, she had the audacity to claim that because she never filed a lawsuit, “I did not challenge the outcome of the election, unlike some recent folks did.” Yet she continues to contend, “the game was rigged against the voters of Georgia.” She says it was rigged, but she’s not challenging the outcome.
And in the eyes of the Washington Post, Abrams is the hero of democracy who needs more attention.
Apparently “protecting democracy” means only allowing the losing candidates that the Washington Post likes claim that elections were stolen, the voting results are false, and that the wrong candidate is being declared the winner.