As the political system ramps up for the 2024 general elections, I find myself not only thinking about the political situation and political events, but also, increasingly thinking about political messaging and how language is involved in shaping peoples’ perceptions.

According to polls, the fact remains that a majority of Republican voters have somehow deluded themselves into believing that Biden stole the 2020 election from Trump. With Trump’s consistent insistence that the election was stolen from him, in fact, if anything, this number may even be gradually increasing among Republican voters (but not Democrats or independents), despite these claims having been thoroughly disproven.

Ever since the 2020 election, I have noticed the seeming deference of media outlets, or reticence regarding confrontational language, by news reports typically calling the allegations by Trump and other Republicans of election fraud by the Democrats, “unproven,” or other similarly noncommittal language. The fact is that no, these election fraud allegations are not simply “unproven;” rather, they have been decisively disproven! (And to their credit, some newspeople have not minced words in calling these allegations disproven, but in my opinion, too many continue to shy away from such language.)

I believe that our language should consistently reflect this fact. That is, the allegations by Republicans should consistently be labelled as “disproven,” “false” or other unambiguous terms which make it clear that Trump lost. (Note: There are various other questions regarding these allegations, such as why only Trump would have been targeted rather than other Republicans, and whether Trump actually believes his allegations or not, but the issue here is how the language used in reports, affects the public.).

Does this language matter, and if so, how?

I think that it does matter. While it is clear that Republican voters tend to live in a conservative information bubble, even liberals are moderates may be affected by language which makes Trump’s claims seem relatively plausible, as I think the “unproven” or “unsubstantiated” language does. Furthermore, I think that the use of such language makes it easier for conservative news organizations to question the results of the 2020 election. Worse, I think that allowing the continuous questioning of the results of the 2020 election, creates general unwarranted skepticism about the election process (although mostly among Republican voters), and helps further pave the way for Republican efforts to manipulate the outcome of future elections in their favor, such as voter suppression schemes and attempts by Republican officials to override the vote. Fortunately, I believe that liberals and even moderates are effectively working to counter these schemes, and that even many Republican officials do believe in the sanctity of the election process by popular vote.

While I understand the tendency to “err on the side of caution,” and not to jump to conclusions, much as we have the principle of “innocent until proven guilty,” it seems clear to me that any standard required to objectively refute the claims of election fraud has more than been met. Perhaps in the beginning, that was not clear to some news people, although the claims seemed ludicrous on their face to me.

By now, however, it is abundantly clear that not only are they false, but that Trump is a deranged madman who refuses to accept that he lost the 2020 election. Tragically, there are many millions of MAGA morons who are unwilling to jump Trump’s sinking ship. Let’s not make it any easier than it has to be, for them to hold onto their delusions. It seems to me that our hesitance to draw a firm line regarding what behavior is acceptable versus unacceptable from a candidate, is why our system finds itself unable to find the courage to disqualify a candidate, Donald Trump, who has clearly disqualified himself under the 14th amendment.