#RiggedSystem: Debate proves media part of banana republic vote

by Kenneth R. Timmerman

Elections are about power: who has it, who doesn’t.

Until this year, we were told that the candidate with the most money would win. Why? Because money buys negative ads to influence an uninformed electorate.

Who keeps the electorate uninformed? The national media.

When I started to work as a reporter in the early 1980s, I thought my job was to inform my readers. Somehow over the past twenty years, the job description has changed. Now it’s all about “the narrative.”

“The narrative” is the daily spin the national media decides to put on the news. It determines what they will cover, how they will cover it — and what topics they will exile to Tinfoilia, that distant fringe world where Yahoo is not a search engine and America actually stands for something worth fighting and dying for.

Last night, the phony journalists were all waiting. You could see and hear them on Twitter and on the blogs. When will Trump say it? And they were disappointed. At least early on.

For the first twenty-five minutes, Trump and Hillary stayed on topic, and fought each other on policy grounds over their picks for the Supreme Court, and the life or death decisions those justices will make for generations of future Americans.

 

Most surprising part of this debate so far: how substantive it has been. But it’s early… #debatenight

— Buck Sexton (@BuckSexton) October 20, 2016

They sparred on taxes. Hillary promised flat-out she will “tax the rich,” which in Hillary-speak means anyone earning more than minimum wage. Trump said he will lower individual tax rates, lower corporate taxes, and grow the economy.

The media heads were drooping. Boring! Because they don’t want this election to be about policy, where the tired left-wing dogmas Hillary is spouting have been tried and failed repeatedly for generations.

They were just waiting for Trump to say it. They would know what “it” is when they heard it.

 

A few mins in, @realDonaldTrump seems more measured than in first 2 debates. lets see if it lasts. #debate

— Michael Smerconish (@smerconish) October 20, 2016

Hillary looked down repeatedly. A script? She seemed to have attack lines her staff had prepared. When Trump wouldn’t take the bait, she tried another. The media held its breath. Will he bite this time? Will he go off the rails?

Because that is the narrative. It’s all about Trump’s character, his “unfitness” for office. That is the narrative Hillary and her campaign gurus in the media have decided to push, because they don’t have anything better.

Finally, Chris Wallace — who ought to be shot for keeping the candidates on substantive topics — asks Trump if he will accept the result of the election. And Trump won’t say the words.

Now the phony journalists wake up. There it is, like the response in catechism class (okay, none of them has gone to catechism class). And he won’t say it. He won’t say that he will accept the results of a phony, rigged election.

Suddenly, they have their “gotcha” moment.

Never-Trumper Ben Shapiro was tweeting, and he caught it immediately:

Trump’s answer on “rigging” will the the takeaway moment. He absolutely blew it. https://t.co/8QRnWjQpUa

— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) October 20, 2016

At exactly 10:17 PM eastern time – fifteen minutes before the end of the debate –  CBS News, Reuters, USA Today, CNN and the BBC issued their writ for tomorrow’s headlines: “When asked if he will accept the results of the election, Donald TrumpDonald TrumpStephen Baldwin: Alec’s Trump not ‘very funny’Vulnerable GOP senator: ‘Trump needs to accept the outcome’ of electionFinal debate draws about 34 million network TV viewersMORE says ‘I will look at it at the time.’”

And then something horrifying happened.

No, it wasn’t Hillary’s phony horror that somehow Donald Trump would set off a remake of Bush v. Gore in an evenly divided Supreme Court come November. Nor was it visions of street fighting and riots.

Donald Trump started calling them out. He told the truth about our rigged elections.

“First of all, the media is so dishonest and so corrupt, and the pile-on is so amazing,” he said. “It’s so dishonest. And they’ve poisoned the mind of the voters.”

And then he used the live cameras, and in front of tens of millions of Americans, he delivered the news — the real news that the media has refused to cover during the campaign.

He told America about our rotten election system, the millions of dead voters who have been put back on the voter rolls. Why? So the Democrats can get the tombstone vote.

He told Americans about the “millions of people that are registered to vote that shouldn’t be registered to vote.” Oh yes, Virginia. That means you.

Voter fraud cases are finally being investigated in dozens of states, and the phony media continues to pretend, “there is no such thing as voter fraud.”

Trump even mentioned the James O’Keefe Project Veritas videos that captured on camera Democrat party operatives boasting about their dirty tricks campaigns, including massive coordinated voter fraud schemes.

Donald Trump wants this election to be about truth. The media would like it to be about illusions. (Even Alan Schulkin, the Democrat commissioner of the New York City Board of Elections, has admitted that Democrat operatives “bus people around to vote” and supports a photo ID requirement to prevent rampant voter fraud).

The ease with which ineligible voters can cast ballots in America, robbing legitimate voters of their voice, make elections in many Third World countries look good. And that’s a disgrace.

Here’s the real headline the phony journalists don’t want you to read: Americans are waking up the horror show. And the media is aghast. Because if Donald Trump wins in November, they will stand along with Hillary and Emperor Obama, exposed, cold and naked before the truth.

And that is truly horrifying to them.

Timmerman is a Donald Trump supporter. He was the 2012 Republican congressional nominee for Maryland’s 8th Congressional District and is the author of “Deception: The Making of the YouTube Video Hillary & Obama Blamed for Benghazi,” published by Post Hill Press.