A theme during and after the election, from the Trump camp, has involved allegations of “massive” vote fraud. The lies continue.
Prior to the election, Trump claimed that if he lost, it would only be due to widespread vote fraud. Even after he won, he claimed that opponent Hillary Clinton only bested him in the popular vote because she received “millions” of “illegal” votes. This is a narrative that refuses to die, and seems to exist largely to challenge the legitimacy of those who have committed to resisting Trump’s agenda. He won, but he didn’t win big, and perhaps believes that, had his win been more definitive, he might not be facing so much resistance now. Of course, this is not true: it is the calamitous nature of his agenda that prompts so much pushback, not his popular or electoral vote margin.
The latest round in this fight involves New Hampshire, which Trump lost. The claim being trotted out now is that Trump only lost that state because large numbers of Massachusetts voters were bused in to illegally vote. There is no evidence this happened. According to NPR:
White House adviser Stephen Miller doubled down on the Trump administration's groundless claims of voter fraud in New Hampshire — and across the nation — during in [an interview](http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-adviser-doubles-claims-voter-fraud-thousands-voters/story?id=45436933) on ABC's _This Week_ on Sunday. Earlier this week President Trump claimed, with no evidence, that voters from Massachusetts were bused to New Hampshire to vote illegally. A member of the Federal Election Commission [called it](https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/5381420/ELW-POTUS-voter-fraud-statement.pdf) an "extraordinarily serious and specific charge" and asked Trump to "immediately share his evidence with the public." On _This Week, _host George Stephanopoulos asked Miller, a senior White House policy adviser, to provide that evidence. In fact, he asked three times. Miller said the show was "not the venue" to supply evidence, but repeated the baseless claim multiple times. [He said](http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/week-transcript-12-17-stephen-miller-bob-ferguson/story?id=45426805) in part: > >>> >> "I can tell you that this issue of busing voters into New Hampshire is widely known by anyone who's worked in New Hampshire politics. It's very real. It's very serious." >> >>> > New Hampshire's secretary of state [has said](https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2017/02/10/trump-makes-groundless-voter-fraud-claims/fcnMJfLgOx0UAVhJeTS8TP/story.html) there is no proof of buses appearing at polling places, and that a large number of voters arriving like that would have attracted attention.
It’s clear that the Trump administration is intent on dealing in “alternative facts” as often as possible. It is virtually unprecedented for a sitting President to have his advisors take the media circuit and lie so brazenly to the public, day after day, week after week. Fact-checkers will be inundated with work for years to come, no doubt.
But the administration’s lies are even more damaging in the long run, as they further undermine faith in our institutions. Media trust is already abysmally low, and so is confidence in the federal government. This does not bode well for having a productive political discourse–indeed, much of the problem with last year’s Presidential race was that supporters of both candidates essentially lived in information bubbles, often having no idea what sorts of narratives were being presented to the other candidate’s supporters. Now, we have Presidential surrogates and officials antagonizing the media every day, which is great drama and probably good for the outlet’s ratings and circulation, but utterly worthless for having any kind of worthwhile political dialogue.
I’m not suggesting any solutions here, because I don’t really have any. It just fucking sucks.
Photo by Max Gaines 