Fox News, Newsmax retract crazy election fraud claims; OANN still raving

 

Facing lawsuits by voting machine manufacturers Dominion and Smartmatic, Fox News and Newsmax have issued elaborate retractions of the conspiracy theories they've broadcast supporting President Trump's fantasy about the election being stolen from him by magic Venezuelan voting machines. 

OANN, another far-right network that has repeated the lies, has doubled down on its spreading baseless rumors. Pro-Trump attorney Sidney Powell claims that such machines changed massive numbers of votes in critical states from President Trump to President-elect Biden using Smartmatic software developed for the late Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez.

In fact, Smartmatic provided voting machines for the recent election only in Los Angeles County, California. While Smartmatic founder Augusto Mugica is a Venezuelan national, his company was founded in Florida to supply electronic security to banking concerns and has its headquarters in Toronto. It did supply machines to the Chavez regime, among numerous other countries on various continents. 

But no evidence has been produced that the magic vote-stealing technology exists or that Mugica has any personal connection to the Chavez regime. If the technology did exist, it would be improbable to the point of absurdity that it could be installed and used widely enough and in enough states to be responsible for Mr. Trump's defeat, especially without being detected.

Contrary to Powell's claims, Dominion and Smartmatic are competitors and never use each other's software. Mr. Trump has a pattern of claiming fraud in elections he loses, 

The "Red Slime" lawsuit filed against the three far-right "news" agencies and against President Trump's legal team could potentially have a disastrous outcome for OANN if it persists in its refusal to retract its reports. Suits filed by Powell, Rudy Giuliani, and other Trump supporters based on the conspiracy theory have been contemptuously dismissed in state after state. But polls indicate that a vast number of Trump supporters continue to believe it even though the President's attorneys have consistently failed to prove their case in court, and the specific claims by Powell and others have been conclusively shown over and over to be false.

Fears that Mr. Trump would claim fraud if he lost the election have been widespread for well over a year. Mr. Trump also claimed fraud based on no particular evidence after losing the 2016 Iowa Caucuses to Sen. Ted Cruz. He declined before the election to accept its result unless he won. His horror of being a "loser" apparently prevents him from entertaining the notion that he could be defeated in a fair contest. His psychological quirks have provided the occasion for confidence in our democratic process to be severely undermined with absolutely no justification for it. The damage may persist for years or even decades. 

Mr. Trump, predictably, is more concerned about his own insecurities than the effect his manifest lie has on the nation. It's part of the price a nation pays for electing a psychologically unstable president.