Abe was the real winner last night. I have been evoking his famous quote about nobody being able to “fool all the people all of the time” for the entire campaign, and his faith in the public, American values, democracy, the Constitution and the Founders’ vision was beautifully and inspiringly validated last night. It was particularly satisfying that the People were, ultimately not fooled despite the nefarious effort of the Axis media, pollsters and corrupt “experts” to deceive them. Creeping totalitarianism was kicked in the metaphorical nuts last night. Good.
And now, a brief musical interlude…
I will await with anticipation the flowers, candy, hams and notes from all of the doomsayers, cynics and faithless out there (you know who you are) who rolled their eyes at my insistence several months ago that the ugly mess Democrats had made during the past four years, the cover-up (and not a very good one) of Biden’s senility, the gaslighting, hypocrisy and lies by the party and its media allies, and most of all, the Soviet-style elevation to attempted anointed leadership of a DEI radical leftist without any genuine qualifications for President would end in a national election rebuke.
Meanwhile, anyone who is not Trump-Deranged should feel almost as much satisfaction from Trump’s revenge on the Axis (“the resistance,” Democrats, and the their toadying mainstream media), which was not only a resounding Electoral College victory (And we see one of the great virtues of the much-maligned EC: showing a mandate for a winning candidate who has won a clear majority of the states and the varying values they represent when the popular vote is close. This was a Democratic Party theme after the very close 1960 election, the first close election since the 19th Century. (And watch how high his Electoral College soars after California,New York, Illinois, and the rest of the states that signed onto The National Popular Vote Compact go! Just kidding. “National Vote Compact? What elephant?”) Will Republicans and Trump supporters, having taken the Senate back with brio and the White House and very likely to keep control of the House as well, take moment to give the sneering, condescending, hateful, fearmongering Left the momentary but emphatic, “So there! You got what you deserve. To hell with bygones: you’ve been trying to undo our country, and your President called us garbage and enemies of democracy.” The Duke understood…
.If the Democrats and their media are capable of a course correction and a return to fairness and sanity, they will take last night’s result as decisive evidence that they have been perverted, and that they need to do some serious introspection, read some history books, get some ethics training, and reform. A panelist on Fox News last night opined that the loss would be good for the Democrats, because it would be a slap in the face (or a punch in the mouth) to shock them into returning to the party’s traditional values, and not to continue the march to the elitist, racialist, DEI-besotted “we know what’s best, Little People!” single party distortion of the republic that the Biden Administration embraced. The final insult was that they tried to foist off a phony, undemocratically-selected, babbling hack as a trustworthy leader, counting on her ability to avoid direct answers, to deny her previous positions, hinting at diametrically opposed positions depending on her audience…
…and to rely on teleprompters while the Left called the other party and its candidate fascists and an existential threat to democracy.
That is what the Left, and certainly the now totally disgraced news media, should do, because regaining the trust they have squandered is paramount for the future of the nation. I’m sure they won’t. Oprah’s galpal Gayle King whined to the CBS morning audience today, “What about checks and balances?” See, when the other party holds the White House, the Senate , the House with a conservative SCOTUS, it’s undemocratic! This comes from a supporter of the party that would have tried to pack the Supreme Court if it had the kind of majorities the GOP will have over the next two years. Funny, I didn’t hear the news media or any Republicans make that fatuous protest when Barack Obama had a similarly supportive Congress…
No, they won’t snap out of it—they are too far gone. Harris could have signalled a commitment to restoring the traditions of respect and official deference to newly elected Presidents by graciously conceding last night when it was obvious to anyone not in denial that the jig was up. Like Hilary in 2016, she didn’t, couldn’t or wouldn’t, but at least Hillary had good reason to be stunned, and she was ahead in the popular vote. Because Harris couldn’t show any class, courage or contrition, I don’t fault Trump for not mentioning her name last night. No Presidential candidate of a major party has ever been so disgracefully savaged during a campaign.
I’ve run out of time, but I’ll be back. The riots haven’t started yet; Trump winning the popular vote might stifle them, but I doubt it. We should all celebrate Abe’s victory, but heed the warning of Samuel L. Jackson…
Ethics Alarms 
Bridget Phetasy, who writes for the Spectator, posted the best tweet so far a little more than an hour ago:
Bridget Phetasy
@BridgetPhetasy
There will be a lot of ink spilled about why Americans elected Trump and Republicans in a red wave but I can sum it up. “He’s not Hitler. I’m not racist. Fuck you.”
I’ll still remain reservedly cynical.
But, I can’t wait for all the calls for the Republicans to take the high road and to remember civility in politics.
That was Harold Ford’s constant refrain last night on the Fox News pundit panel…”we need civility on both sides” and “President Trump needs to be conciliatory in victory” and “both sides need to turn down their rhetoric”. It was almost nauseating. Finally, Ms. Conway turned to Harold and said (not a direct quote), “There is zero equivalence between Republican and Democrat rhetoric. All this civility you’re talking about?…it starts with YOUR party!”
I heard a pundit talking about how the Biden staffers should not cooperate in any transition efforts. Nice. What’s the over under on how many hours will pass before Hillary Clinton re-appears and urges all right thinkers to RESIST?
Good for her. For my part- we didn’t watch any of the coverage last night and only checked the internet maybe 3 times for updates.
I told my wife all weekend I was not watching any results. Then last night I agreed to periodically check out results with her. Then by 11pm I quit pretending to focus on anything else.
It was a totally unexpected result for sure.
Scott Jennings did a great take down of the CNN glitterati: Trump’s victory is the ‘revenge of the working-class American,’ says CNN’s Scott Jennings
They all sit there open-mouthed.
just saw the execrable Chris Coons on CNN. Asked how he could account for the big Trump and GOP win, he blathered on about how the public didn’t understand what a great job Biden had done.
The answer is so obvious: the Democrats lost because they ran a terrible candidate who ran a terrible campaign, and they still thought they could get away with it because they think the public is stupid. They thought that “she’s sort of black and female and not Donald Trump” was all they needed to win the White House. It was an insult.
Another answer is really obvious to me. The Democratic Party LIED AND LIED, all the while saying Trump lied all the time. They said Biden was fit as a fiddle and sharp as a take, when he clearly wasn’t. They said the economy was going great, when it clearly was struggling. Herbert Hoover got punished badly enough when he said that “prosperity is just around the corner.” I think he was just in denial. This was out and out lying. This was the equivalent of feeding someone shit and telling him it’s chocolate pudding. The Democrats didn’t even try to come up with plausible arguments, they out and out lied and gaslighted. Who’s going to elect leaders that do that?
Wow. The arrogance is staggering. So when all is said and done, it’s the people’s fault. The simpletons…the garbage…the deplorables…whatever we are today, just aren’t smart enough to look at the world around us, see everything going on, and conclude it’s all “Biden goodness”.
You know what? It was people like Coons and his surrogates in the media who tried to educate us – twenty-four hours a day – that Biden was doing a great job (and by extension, Harris was a great candidate).
Sen. Coons?…you suck at your job!
“they think the public is stupid“
Well, they’re half right.
I saw that. Bingo.
Civility my eye. After all the bullying and hate that went on the past three years, the democrats need to be the ones to act civil, starting with thanking the GOP for not doing to them as they did to it. Otherwise, there’s really no reason for us on the right not to reprint Leonard Pitts’ letter from 2020 and read it back to them, then act on it and start throwing them into jail or locking them out of public life.
Dana Perino issued the same sentiment. She stated that Trump should take a victory lap. Trey Goudy, though, put the “civility” obligation directly on Biden. He said Biden should pardon Hunter, Trump, the J6ers, and “encourage” New York and Georgia to drop their lawfare.
jvb
Well, MSNBC this morning said Donald Trump won because blacks and hispanics are sexist and refused to vote for a woman. They also broadcast that hispanics are racists who won’t vote for a black candidate. So not off to a great start on that side of the aisle.
It’s ALWAYS someone else’s fault with them, isn’t it? The inability for any kind of introspection is remarkable.
Damned uppity blacks and Hispanics. Don’t they know their places in the democrat party?
Congrats, Jack. You were right. But this is remarkable:
zerohedge on X: “Sorry to beat a dead horse, but can we go back to what happened
here? https://t.co/FkScNHivuU” / X
There were twenty million more votes for Biden in 2020 than for Harris in 2024? As one person has observed, those aren’t missing voters this year, they were phantom voters in 2020. The covid election really was stolen? As the Babylon Bee has headlined: “Trump Wins Third Election in a Row!”
Yes, it was obvious. I even saw some Democrats notice it this morning and ask “Did we actually steal the election in 2020?”
Please point me to these actually self-questioning Democrats.
Well, it was on X. They could have been Republicans pretending to be Democrats. However, I wasn’t discounting that Democrats could be self-aware. They can’t all be NPC’s.
Anyway- the most introspective of them all will probably make their way here now that Jack will have another party in the hot seat.
I thought this was hysterical:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/jake-tapper-s-stunned-reaction-goes-viral-after-kamala-harris-failed-to-outperform-biden-in-a-single-state/ar-AA1tC0nl
Tapper is flummoxed.
jvb
Why would anyone expect otherwise?
So, actually, no. There are a lot of votes yet to be tallied this week. California is only reporting 54% so that alone is another 8-10 million votes. The stray hundred thousand here, quarter million there, it does add up even if the results are already decided.
So……let’s assume that Harris gets another 6 million, Trump another 4 million. That’s probably a conservative total, but it’ll do for now.
Here are the total Democratic votes:
Clinton 66M, Biden 81M, Harris 73M.
Total Republican votes:
Trump: 63M, Trump 74M, Trump 76M.
Total votes: 2016 129M, 2020 155M, 2024 149M.
My 2016/2020 numbers are from Brittanica.com, the current 2024 count is from foxnews.com. Third party candidates are not included.
So that shows a steady increase for Trump each time, and yes a spike for Biden, and a decline for Harris this year.
I don’t see anything really nefarious about those numbers.
What I see is that the Democrats got a bunch of new voters out in 2020, many of whom either didn’t vote this time or switched to Trump. Trump has grown his support, but not startling this year.
My hunch would be that he also had a decent number of new voters in 2020, some of whom stayed home this time but he and his voter turnout people have beat the bushes to find new Republican voters (look at their jump in registrations vs the Democrats) and also got a decent number of low propensity voters out this year.
Zerohedge’s graph is exaggerated, and he also left out 2008 when Obama got close to 70M votes before dipping to 65M in 2012.
They don’t have to be conclusive to raise reasonable doubts, and those doubts should be alleviated or confirmed.
The election results give me hope that many US citizens are developing the ability to look at issues, regardless of the flawed personalities of individual candidates. What is best for the country seemed to drive the turnout and votes. That makes me smile.⁴c
I’m going to have to take a Facebook break. I can’t believe the educated, completely sane in any other fashion people who are posting mental health hotline numbers for LGBTQ+ people, posting about Trump will never step down, posting about how they have been crying since last night…
The Democrats and their journalistic advocates have a lot to answer for.
Do these whiners really expect anyone to take their allegedly howling at the moon seriously? They’re just going through the motions. You can’t do that more than once and be believed. They should all be sent to their respective rooms. Or maybe a collective room. What a bunch of jerks.
Someone just posted that Trump is going to be a dictator with unlimited, unchecked power.
I posted, “No, he won’t. The Constitution was not designed that way.”
Same on my Facebook feed, AM. Depressing and angering.
AM and Jack, I essentially never got on Facebook. Ten or fifteen years ago a HS (now former–Trump!) buddy signed me up. It was toxic from the start. I never go near it.
Neither have I.
PWS
Those folks should remember this article. Trump administration launches global effort to end criminalization of homosexuality
I don’t remember seeing that at all. Guessing that it didn’t get a lot of extendd play on MSM.
I wonder if McDonalds is hiring…
Ouch.
jvb
Most of them wouldn’t make it through training. Only about 50% did.
Just took a look at the raw vote tallies on Fox, and I see a trend. There are only two states (Vermont and Hawaii) plus DC where Harris got 60% or more of the vote. Even California was 57-40, rather that 65-35 or something like that.
It appears that many states are much closer in the popular vote than we’ve been seeing, which of course is one reason Trump is up 5 million in the total popular vote. My prediction is that California won’t be enough this time to overcome that.
That tells me that the folks talking about a genuine political realignment in this country may have a point. Or, of course, it may just be that they ran a terrible candidate — but they have been doing that three times in a row and we did not see this type of result.
Alvin Bragg — my sincere thanks for starting the ball rolling on this Trump victory, imperfect as he was and is. Without all the lawfare, it’s a real question if Trump even got the nomination. On the other hand, if the GOP ran a different Nazi/fascist would he or she have done even better? Who knows. I just hope the damage you have done to our systems is not fatal.
I liked what I saw of his speech, but I also liked his victory speech in 2016 which went a ways to reassure me. I hope he can govern for the whole country. In his first term, he proved the old adage — a rising tide lifts all boats, GOP or Dem.
You need to step back and realize that Trump is a moderate Democrat. Tulsi Gabbard is a moderate Democrat. Robert Kennedy Jr. is now a moderate Democrat. Elon Musk is a moderate Democrat.
Most of Trump’s circle is composed of centrists. The Democratic Party is a party of extremists. That is the party realignment. As more people understand this and as the stigma of being called a racist, Nazi, fascist, sexists, etc wanes, more moderate Democrats will become Republicans.
I tend to agree. When did you ever think you would see the rank and file union workers (and some of the union heads) vote Republican? That is mind boggling.
jvb
Oh, it isn’t just that they voted that way. They showed up on stage that way in their shop coveralls. They were not afraid of retaliation. You have to understand, betraying the union is a dangerous thing. They showed up representing the UAW at a Trump rally while their union leadership was at the Harris rally. Trump announced that he had the big Chinese auto plant being built in Mexico relocated to Michigan with UAW labor. The UAW leadership agreed to it being built in Mexico with non-union labor. I have heard that Whitmer has been in hiding since that rally.
Who really betrayed the union?
I would contend more that Trump is a moderate Democrat turned Republican. Gabbard and Kennedy (!) have switched to independents, and not the Sanders/King type of D (Independent?). Musk I suspect is more libertarian than anything else.
But, this is no longer Calvin Coolidge’s America, nor Dwight Eisenhower’s America. The whole country has moved away from the cold laisse faire economics and hard libertarian philosophies. Barring an actual revolution or hot civil war, we’re not going back to that.
At the same time, we’ve not swung to the British/European cradle to grave socialist nanny state. Not even close and I think the Democratic party has been embracing an extreme version of that.
There have been major realignments repeatedly in this country before. We saw one in the 70s and 80s, and I think again in the 90s and 00s. I think we’re seeing another major shift and the GOP is poised to take advantage of it.
As the saying goes, “A republic if you can keep it.”
I like Johnson’s approach in the House. I hope they can select a matching leader in the Senate. If the GOP can expand its House majority enough so that Gaetz and MTG and their ilk can’t repeatedly hold the country hostage, perhaps the Republicans can do some actual governing.
They’re not very good at it yet, but the time is ripe. Not even halfway decent governance, quarter way decent at this point would, I think, pay huge dividends. Americans, perhaps more than anything, would like a government that actually works and also stays in its lane and gets the heck out of our way.
The Democrats have sown nothing but division and racism. I earnestly hope the Republicans can do better.
It is a very low bar.
Trump is a pro-choice, pro-gay marriage Republican? Isn’t that a moderate Democrat? I just don’t see what makes him a Republican. He really hasn’t changed his stances since the 1990’s.
He really is more of a Democrat when it comes to some social issues. But he ran as a Republican. If the Republicans didn’t want him, they should have said so. Andrew Johnson was a Democrat who ran under the “Union Party” with Republican Abraham Lincoln. He never really changed into an actual Republican for the most part.
What color is the sky in your world?
His entire first campaign was filed with Republican talking heads saying he was a Democrat in Republican clothing.
Did you not notice any of the turncoats after the election?
I run a sports and recreation center. Yesterday, I left work along with a basketball team that had been practicing on our courts. Ten black teenage boys cheering and high-fiving over what they thought was Donald Trump’s impending victory.
I have a 14 year-old son. I’m white, but his mother is black. Almost all of his friends are black or mixed race. They’re all rabid Trump supporters. Their basic take is that they have been viciously discriminated against their whole lives in favor of girls and that they resent the non-stop trans propaganda in school that tells them they might be girls too.
Black men voted 23% for Trump. It seems that Obama’s influence in the black community might be overestimated. I don’t believe the finger wagging, condescension, and reprimands to vote for Harris based on race worked with the business owners in that meeting.
jvb
Peter Savodnik over at The Free Press has done an excellent job this morning.
https://www.thefp.com/p/how-kamala-harris-lost-to-trump
Writing in part:
“They didn’t lose because they didn’t spend enough money. They didn’t lose because they failed to trot out enough celebrity influencers. They lost because they were consumed by their own self-flattery, their own sense of self-importance. They should have spent the past eight years learning from the Republicans’ very honest, if flawed, conversation about the plight of America. But they insisted on talking to themselves about the things that made them feel morally superior.”
And:
“They seemed to think that Americans wouldn’t mind that they had pretended Joe Biden was “sharp as a tack,” that they actually orchestrated a behind-the-scenes switcheroo, that the party that portrayed itself as the nation’s answer to fascism nominated its standard-bearer without consulting a single voter.”
Well done, Peter, well done.
Someone yesterday was asking how Kamala Harris became the nominee without being on the ballot of a single presidential primary in her life. I had to explain that in 2016, Bernie Sanders sued the DNC for robbing him of the nomination. The DNC basically told the court that the DNC determines the nominee, period. The primaries, caucuses, conventions, etc are merely to allow the public to participate and give input, but the DNC determines the nominee. Lots of people thought that was just to get the lawsuit dismissed. I think Tulsi Gabbard found out otherwise when she tried to run and destroyed the DNC’s candidate. That is why I believe she is a Republican now, the DNC is against her, she has no future in the Democratic Party. That is why I think Donald Trump ran as a Republican, he knew how the Democratic Party works. You can run and win as a Republican if the RNC is against you (ask Ted Cruz).
I also heard it said that if Trump lost, Vance would still have a bright future. If Harris lost, both she and Walz are finished. I think that’s accurate.
But does Vance have a bright future now that Trump has won?
Seriously, Vance demonstrated repeatedly that he is a bright, articulate person and able to think on his feet. Harris and Walz demonstrated repeatedly that they are not.
I was leery of Vance initially, but the more I see of him the better he looks.
I think he does. Word on the social media streets is that people are really coming around to him; especially after the Rogan interview. There isn’t a subject that man (Vance) can’t talk about. And if there is something he doesn’t know enough about, he admits it. I mean, it is kinda refreshing.
Walz is probably the most relieved guy in the country after this outcome.
I used to say after 9/11 that the happiest person in America that Al Gore lost 2000 was Al Gore.
Ha! I think Walz is relieved that people will likely stop looking in his closet.
Truth. The democrats were so absolutely quick to label Vance “weird” and cast Walz as a “normal dad guy” and rabidly insistent on those two labels that I knew for a fact, the reversals were true.
Walz is flat out creepy.
There will definitely be riots, but they usually wait for the cover of darkness,
From local, self-anointed center left blogger Dave Cieslewicz (dubbed Mayor BikeShorts by an…um…anonymous local firebrand):
It Was Fundamental
MONEY QUOTE: “But I thought (Harris) turned out to be an excellent candidate who ran a pretty much flawless campaign.”
Thought I’d stumbled onto the Babylon Bee…
Harris managed to lose Joe Rogan. Talk about a strategic error. She didn’t just lose him, she pushed him into Trump’s camp.
Rogan refused to let Trump on his show for a long time. He explained that he didn’t want to help Trump’s campaign and following by giving him publicity. People pushed back and pointed out that what Rogan was saying was that if Rogan’s audience heard Trump’s true positions, they would like it and vote for him. Rogan was intentionally hiding Trump from them to keep them ignorant and make them vote how he wanted them to. He eventually relented, but expected Harris to come on the show, too. When she begged off coming on the show while in Texas, and then demanded that he go to California and only do 1 hour with her people in charge, he wanted to do it! I think it was explained to him that if he did that, he would lose all credibility. Trump didn’t ask for special treatment, nor did Vance. Giving in to Harris would come across as pure favoritism and partisanship and would likely end his career. But he really seemed to want to give in. When he tried to explain all this, Harris turned on him. I think that was the last straw.
Rogan wasn’t and isn’t a Trump fan. He really is a Democrat and wanted Harris to win. However, I think his treatment by Harris made him realize that his career would likely end during a Harris presidency, as all free expression would be stifled online. This was a wakeup call for him and probably a lot of his fans and even casual listeners.
“I think his treatment by Harris made him realize that his career would likely end during a Harris presidency, as all free expression would be stifled online. “
Oh that threat is still there. I watched Megyn Kelly last night and her guests quickly pointed out that it was the bloggers, the podcasters, the social media platforms that would be blamed for the Harris loss and that the left would now be coming for them with a vengeance.
Better keep an eye on California’s 54% counted.
GOP content with a win and stops paying attention is where Cali Dems can stuff the ballot with lies to give the DNC the “popular vote” talking point.
Well, the Democrats took their eye off the Amish vote and look what happened. Trump won Pennsylvania by 130,000 votes after 180,000 Amish voted for him. The Amish don’t normally vote. However, after several P’Nut the squirrel-type raids on Amish farms, the Amish realized that their way of life would likely end under Harris and they registered and voted Trump.
Trump will have his hands full cleaning up the world mess Biden left him. I hope he can carve out a solid chunk of his attention to focus on reigning in and reducing the size and scope of the federal agencies. Fire every single activist in bureaucrat clothing that he can.
Breaking: Democrat Kamala Harris literally congratulates Hitler his for election win
I wonder if she needed a teleprompter to read her statement and members of her staff to help her respond to the President-Elect.
The teleprompter was last seen wearing a red shirt and a MAGA hat. The DNC is looking for another one.
Okay, the stunned media has now reverted back to its modus operandi of the past 8 years. Here are some headlines on my Yahoo home page:
Van Jones: ‘People who don’t have papers’ are ‘terrified tonight’ ~ The Hill
Me: Good
Trump reverted to familiar playbook, sowing doubts about the voting until results showed him winning ~ AP
Trump Has Many Grudges. Now He Has a Chance To Act on Them. (opinion) ~ Reason
America Puts Coup-Attempting Convicted Criminal Back Into The White House ~ HuffPo
Right-Wingers New Conspiracy: Trump’s Sweeping Win Proves 2020 Was Stolen~ The Daily Beast
Opinion: Kamala Harris Lost for the Same Reason as Hillary Clinton: Because She’s a Woman~ The Daily Beast
Trump Just Ran The Most Racist Campaign In Modern History ― And Won~ HuffPo
To be fair, nobody should expect anything else from Huffpo, Van Jones, the Daily Beast and AP.
Here’s Reason redeeming itself….https://reason.com/2024/11/06/voters-didnt-reject-women-they-rejected-kamala-harris/?utm_medium=reason_email&utm_source=new_at_reason&utm_campaign=reason_brand&utm_content=Voters%20Didn%27t%20Reject%20Women,%20They%20Rejected%20Kamala%20Harris&utm_term=&time=November%206th,%202024&mpid=954241&mpweb=2534-4903-954241
Reason as a whole didn’t like trump… but they were never on board with Harris either, and I didn’t see them pushing the extreme nonsense of the MSM. They were, of course, pro Chase Oliver.
I may have missed something though, I don’t check it more than once a week or so.
Ok- someone just noted and now I just noticed- the next President oversees the nation’s 250th Birthday.
That alone should have tipped undecided voters towards Trump and flipped some skeptical democrats into the undecided column.
Exactly zero people want to watch a party full of lectures about “despite all the evil America does and represents we can still head the right direction”. They want 8 hour long continuous volley of high explosives with the song “I’m Proud to Be an American” blasting at decibels loud enough to rattle the windows of Buckingham palace.
“…the party that would have tried to pack the Supreme Court…”
Another bonus from the election: Very likely a couple of new originalist justices, with 20 years or so ahead of them, replacing Thomas and Alito during the next four years.
The foundation for yesterday’s events was laid in the aftermath of the 2016 election, when the Dems decided to act like the German ultrarightwing circa 1919 (my longtime Usenet ally, Christopher Charles Morton, actually made this comparison in the comments section of the Cleveland Plain Dealer web site in November of 2016) turning their “Trump is Colluding with the Russians®™ to Win the 2016 Election” idea (developed to win the election) into the “Trump Colluded with the Russians®™ and Stole the 2016 Election” propaganda campaign, (their own Stab in the Back®™ conspiracy theory) designed to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power and sabotage the Trump administration.
The appointment of a special counsel to investing of firing James Comey obstructed justice led to a law enforcement investigation of this conspiracy theory, lending the illusion of credibility.
“Trump is a Traitor who Colluded with the Russians®™ and Stole the 2016 Election” became the narrative, the basis for opposing Trump. Any idea that disagreed with them became Russian Disinformation®™. And so many people believed it precisely because a Special Counsel was investigating it.