I keep hearing democrats crying about “election deniers,” and how the 2020 election results have been “certified,” yada, yada, yada.

“Certified” by who?

“Certified” by the same corrupt partisan officials who conducted the election in their respective cities and states, and then rubber stamped by other partisan politicians and partisan judges?   

According to Lisa Marshall, for the CU (Colorado University) Boulder Today, news publication, “In the days following the 2020 presidential election, as states re-counted and certified votes and President Joe Biden’s win became more objectively certain, Republicans, paradoxically, became less confident in the legitimacy of the vote, according to new CU Boulder research published today in the journal PLOS ONE.”

Note: PLOS ONE is a peer-reviewed open access mega journal published by the Public Library of Science since 2006. The journal covers primary research from any discipline within science and medicine.

“The study also found that, regardless of political party, the more an individual consumed and trusted Fox News, the less faith he or she had in the electoral process.”

Could that be because the mainstream media stuck their heads in the sand and basically failed to report about any election abnormalities at all, while FOX at least addressed some of the issues and concerns?

Could that be why?   

‘“We have never seen this before in the weeks following Election Day: The more evidence accumulated that Biden won, the less confident Republicans became that the election was legitimate,’ said senior author Leaf Van Boven, a professor of psychology and neuroscience who studies judgment and decision making in politics. ‘In a healthy democracy, you would see that moving in the opposite direction, Democrats and Republicans would become more confident in the election’s legitimacy.’”

Yes, that would be nice, but the more we learned about the 2020 election, or better said “installation,” the less confidence we had it its legitimacy.

And, the reason “we have never seen this before in the weeks following Election,” is because we have never seen a presidential election stolen like this before!

“The study comes as some conservative thought leaders have begun to distance themselves from Fox News for giving voice to what they call ‘conspiracy theories,’ and two voting technology companies are suing the network for perpetuating claims the election was rigged.”

Haven’t we arrived at the point now where “conspiracy theories” really aren’t theories anymore?

And anyone can sue anybody for anything. The act of being sued should not be attributable to the questioning of integrity. “The study” makes biased assumptions, connections, and conclusions that are not really valid.     

And who gave the order to stop counting votes in the swing states on the night of November 3/4, 2020 by the way?

Just sayin’.  

“The new research relies on a psychological explanation, known as ‘cognitive dissonance theory,’ to explain the bizarre turn American politics has taken in the past year.”

Oh, really?

“Cognitive dissonance is when one’s personal attitudes and identities are inconsistent with their beliefs. To ease that discomfort, people rationalize the facts to restore consistency and turn to social networks to reaffirm that rationalization.”

I guess I would say we turned to social networks to validate our lying eyes with the lying eyes of others…, but, that’s just me.  

“After the 2020 election, the explanation for many was that the election must have been rigged [which it was], and the reaffirming social network was Fox News, Van Boven said, ‘If you expect your candidate to win and then your candidate loses, you are shoved into a state of cognitive dissonance. What you thought was supposed to happen doesn’t happen and that feels uncomfortable, so you make sense of it by rationalizing the outcome.’”

Or, when “what you thought was supposed to happen doesn’t happen, and that feels uncomfortable,” you blame the Russians!

Or, you recognize the actual chain of events, and refuse to be an election denier denier.

I don’t remember this being raised when Hillary lost, regarding democrats. I do remember Russian collusion being blamed, however. What would the resident eggheads call that?

Collusion delusion?

“For the study, the researchers took advantage of an unusual ‘natural experiment,’ a hotly contested election with an unprecedented number of mail-in and absentee ballots, which meant the outcome would not be known for days.”

You mean an election with an unprecedented number of UNVERIFIABLE and illegal mail-in and absentee ballots, that were conveniently discovered and counted in the middle of the night?

Those ballots?  

“They surveyed a diverse sample of 1,200 people and asked them how much faith they had that the votes were counted correctly. Half responded between Nov. 4 and 8, just after Election Day when many states’ vote counts had not been confirmed. Half took it between Nov. 9 and 15, after all states had confirmed counts, most media outlets had declared Biden the winner and Biden had delivered his acceptance speech.”

“Participants also reported how much they trusted and consumed 15 media outlets, including Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, The New York Times, USA Today and The Wall Street Journal.”

“As days passed, Republicans grew less confident that the votes were counted fairly, while Democrats grew more confident. Both findings are problematic, said Van Boven, ‘In healthy democracies, citizens are confident that votes were counted as intended regardless of who won.’”

That’s because “as days passed” we learned more about the democrats’ efforts to manipulate the vote, and the legal system’s choice to not address the problems with the vote at all.

We definitely cannot be considered a “healthy democracy” at this point.  

“The researchers were surprised to find that Republicans trusted and consumed only one of the 15 media outlets, Fox News, more than Democrats or Independents did. Democrats, in contrast, trusted and consumed all of the media outlets, except Fox News, more than Republicans or Independents.”

‘“If an individual trusted and consumed any of the other media outlets we measured, aside from Fox News, they trusted the election outcome more,’ said Van Boven.”

And that is because the “other media outlets” pumped out their dutiful propaganda about how this was the most secure election in history, which it obviously wasn’t.

“What made 2020 different? Studies have shown that voters whose candidate loses tend to temporarily lose faith that votes were counted correctly, but if the democracy is healthy losers ultimately consent. 2020 was different. Voters personally identified more closely with their political parties than in past elections, said author Dani Grant, a doctoral student in social psychology. ‘There is a lot more cognitive dissonance if you are not just dealing with disagreement about abstract policies, but you feel like your actual identity is under threat,’ said Grant.”

And it is.

Without fair elections, democracies aren’t democracies.  

Just a reminder that the Texas lawsuit questioning the validity of the 2020 election results was joined by more than a dozen state attorney generals, as well as more than 100 members of the U.S. House. This was a little more than a case of personal cognitive dissonance.

“Trump did not promptly concede, as George H.W. Bush, Al Gore, John McCain and Hillary Clinton did. And the media landscape had changed.”

And the way we accumulated and counted the votes had changed as well.

And why would President Trump “promptly concede” when the election was obviously being stolen from him?

“We now exist in a media landscape that is sharply polarized, and we need to take some initiative to seek more diversity. Otherwise, we may just be reaffirming our preexisting beliefs and notions to make us feel better.”

A diversity of truths?

How does that work?

Perhaps you should direct your concerns towards how our elections are conducted, rather than how the media portrays how our elections ae conducted.

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