The Lost, Not Stolen Report
Those who need it most will never consider it without word-of-mouth influence.
Earlier this month, a group of prominent Republicans published “Lost, Not Stolen: The Conservative Case that Trump Lost and Biden Won the 2020 Presidential Election,” a 72-page breakdown of evidence and court cases pertaining to the alleged fraud which former President Trump has been tenaciously claiming cost him the 2020 presidential election.
Importantly, the report is written by conservatives to conservatives, intended as a clear rebuke of Trump’s debunked claims, without being a rebuke of concerned Americans who have been misled by them.
The document’s executive summary doesn’t mince words:
“This Report takes a hard look at the very serious charges made by Trump and his supporters. The consequences of a president and a major party candidate making such charges are monumental.”
Those words, alone, are welcome in our increasingly populist environment. The executive summary continues:
“We conclude that Donald Trump and his supporters had their day in court and failed to produce substantive evidence to make their case…Even now, twenty months after the election, a period in which Trump’s supporters have been energetically scouring every nook and cranny for proof that the election was stolen, they come up empty. Claims are made, trumpeted in sympathetic media, and accepted as truthful by many patriotic Americans. But on objective examination they have fallen short, every time.”
Okay. First, let’s just ignore the peanut gallery response of this report being too little too late, and simply applaud any time good people stick their necks out for truth. No single effort is wasted, as long as there can be accumulation. Besides, it would be naive to suppose the report’s release wasn’t strategically timed.
The hard part, as ever, will continue to be making the report’s message known to—not to mention believed by—indoctrinated Trump supporters living in self-imposed perception bubbles. Too many conservative news outlets will never do the matter justice because doing so would alienate large, deeply distrustful segments of their audiences. Financially, they can’t afford it.
Not that news outlets on the left are innocent. But Trump’s debunked election fraud claims, as legitimized by conservative media, have been the epicenter of the greatest perceptional chasm in U.S. politics today. It’s been like a nuclear bomb to potential common ground on nearly every issue.
Even respected moderate conservative outlets are obliged to tread far more carefully than they should about the Big Lie, the Capitol riots, and other important topics that should be no-brainers. The effects of emboldened extremism have been stunning. (More about its effects on the left in later editions.)
For example, in October 2021—almost a year after the election—The Wall Street Journal (a moderate conservative outlet) published a selection of reader comments about the Big Lie, which were together headlined: “Readers to President Trump: Knock It Off.” I remember thinking when I first read it, what a way for an old, respected paper to avoid taking a stand about something so huge. Editorially, they’re attributing conservative dissent to readers alone. It felt cowardly to me because the WSJ had been doing a pretty good job of investigating and reporting its own findings about the 2020 election instead of simply parroting the reports of others. They already knew for themselves that Trump’s fraud claims were unsubstantiated and had reported accordingly. Whatever their private motives, the editorial board members still had a deeply angry and distrustful readership to appease just to remain credible among their own. In such a hostile environment, few national influencers might dare take a stand for right very boldly.
Even today, the WSJ’s lukewarm, timid version of anti-Trump editorializing continues. Last month, in an editorial published in the wake of Cassidy Hutchinson’s testimony before the January 6th Committee, the WSJ wrote, “Democrats want to use the Jan. 6 investigation to paint the entire Republican Party as a gang of insurrectionist nuts. The committee is steeped in partisanship. But that doesn’t mean Republicans should look away from the considerable evidence it is producing about Mr. Trump’s behavior...”
Praise indeed.
I thought, they’re right about the Democratic party’s material interests. But Democrats aren’t robots any more than Republicans are. And most importantly, objective truth is non-partisan. The paper’s rhetoric was leaving no room for humanity, good will, the rule of law, moral integrity, patriotism, or even common sense to play a role in the actions of any lawmakers involved. Even as the paper argued for honest curiosity, rhetorically, they were laying a hostile bed for it. I also thought when I read it, do they know how it sounds to use stereotype to complain about others stereotyping? However, if they believed that kind of posturing is what’s keeping them in business, I have to acknowledge that extricating themselves would be tough.
My point about the “Lost, Not Stolen” report is this: It’s credible. But those who need its information the most will never hear of its existence in a fair context, unless it’s by word of mouth. Full stop.
No mass media outlet subject to the unforgiving axe of consumer choice will successfully carry the report’s vital message into many of the living rooms, offices, minds, and hearts of people who distrust even neutral media so deeply. Yes, fake news happens. But how many of us in this divisive, impassioned age have the emotional detachment required to tell what’s most likely true or not based on universal, objective markers more than sentiment?
Word about the report has to be spread by average citizens, one courageous outlier at a time. And each person must be prepared with a plan for diffusing knee-jerk hostility. (Saying calmly, but firmly, “You’re entitled to your opinion. But so am I,” while maintaining eye contact might sometimes work.) None of us, alone, can do it. But together, we can be a force to be reckoned with if we can become at least as fearless, determined, and prepared as the voices of division and gratuitous rancor.
More on that to come in The Fearless Moderate.
Meanwhile, let’s give a loud, resounding “Bravo!” to the report’s esteemed writers: Senator John Danforth, Benjamin Ginsberg, The Honorable Thomas B. Griffith, David Hoppe, The Honorable J. Michael Luttig, The Honorable Michael W. McConnell, The Honorable Theodore B. Olson, and Senator Gordon H. Smith.
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