Opinion | Take on election deniers by calling them liars

But the worrisome trends don’t stop there. Doug Mastriano, the Republican nominee for governor in Pennsylvania, has been linked to a rabidly antisemitic social media site known to have provided an “online home for the man charged with killing 11 worshipers at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue.” (While condemning antisemitism, he has refused to disavow the site, to which his campaign paid $5,000 for “consulting services.”) In April, he spoke at a conference organized by Alan and Francine Fosdick, who have promoted QAnon conspiracy theorists, that “included the screening of a video claiming that the country is experiencing a ‘great awakening’ that will expose ‘ritual child sacrifice’ and a ‘global satanic blood cult.’ ”

Kari Lake, Republican nominee for governor in Arizona, has endorsed a candidate for Oklahoma state Senate who “produced such a stream of internet bile he can only be seen as a committed anti-Semite, homophobe and racist — one of the most vile people in political life, unfit for government and unwelcome in polite society,” as one Arizona Republic column put it.

Republican Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan has called the GOP nominee to succeed him, Dan Cox, a “QAnon whack job,” “a nut” and “not, in my opinion, mentally stable.”

Republicans’ reprehensible and radical views (including climate denial, xenophobia and advocacy for forced birth, with no exceptions from abortion bans, even for a 14-year-old rape victim) should be enough to disqualify them from office. But beyond all that, these and other GOP Senate, House, gubernatorial, secretary of state and attorney general candidates are running on the lie that set off the violent insurrection at the Capitol.

The GOP nominee for secretary of state in Arizona, state Rep. Mark Finchem, for example, “introduced a resolution to decertify 2020 election results in the state,” NPR reported. “Finchem — a longtime member of the Oath Keepers, a far-right extremist group — was at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and in an interview with NPR earlier this year he declined to call what happened there a riot or an insurrection.” Several members of the Oath Keepers have pleaded guilty and/or been convicted of crimes for their Jan. 6 actions.

Incumbent Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) is running against election liar Republican Blake Masters. Kelly had this exchange Sunday with CNN’s Jake Tapper:

TAPPER: I want to ask you about your Republican opponent in the upcoming Arizona Senate election.

He says Democrats want to — quote — “change the demographics of the country.” He has openly embraced Donald Trump’s election lies. He has the support of a lot of openly racist notorious individuals.

Your — the Arizona Republican nominee for governor says that President Biden isn’t a legitimate president. He — she says she wants her Democratic opponent in jail. The Republican nominee for secretary of state in Arizona, he’s a self-proclaimed member of the Oath Keepers. . . . What’s happened to the Arizona Republican Party?

KELLY: Well, unfortunately, I think right now that the folks you mentioned have some really dangerous ideas, and they’re not consistent with most — most Arizonans, even most Republicans in Arizona.

So I’m hoping we can move away from that. My Republican colleagues that I talk to in the United States Senate, I mean, these are good, good people, by and large, who are working really hard. And they don’t need those dangerous ideas in the United States Senate.

Jim Marchant, Republicans’ nominee for secretary of state in Nevada, says that he would not have certified President Biden’s Nevada win (a victory that had a margin of more than 33,500 votes). Michigan’s GOP nominee for secretary of state is arguably crazier. As the Atlantic reports:

Kristina Karamo, a community-college professor who’d previously accused Democrats of having a “satanic agenda,” went on Fox News again and again to describe how illegal ballots supposedly had been tallied for Joe Biden at the TCF Center in Detroit, where she worked as a poll watcher. She testified before the State Senate that sacks of votes inexplicably had been dropped off there in the middle of election night. She suggested that Dominion Voting software had flipped Trump votes to Biden votes statewide.

None of what Karamo described actually happened—as far as anyone has been able to confirm.

It is grossly insufficient to call these characters “election skeptics” or even “election deniers.” Their candidacies are based on the “big lie” (supported by fabulist tales and fraudulent claims). Their views are well beyond what was the mainstream in American politics before the MAGA movement came along.

Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), who describes “large portions” of the GOP as “very sick,” vowed on ABC’s “This Week” to campaign against election liars. “I’m going to work to support their opponents. I think it matters that much.” If lifelong conservative Republican Cheney is apparently willing to campaign for Democrats, this is no ordinary midterm election. The mainstream media should adjust accordingly.

The mainstream media cannot pretend that these Republicans are ordinary candidates in ordinary races. The language to describe them should be as blunt as Cheney’s — liar, insurrectionist, antidemocratic, radical, etc. They should be introduced and labeled that way when they appear on interview shows or in print and online pieces. And their lies should be debunked within headlines and lead paragraphs (“Election liar Lake says…,” etc.).

To do otherwise would hide the nature of the candidates, misrepresent the facts to voters and fail to fulfill the journalistic obligation to take the side of truth. An election teeming with militant liars should not be covered as an ordinary contest between two parties. This is no time for coverage based on false equivalence and whataboutism if we are to survive as a democracy with credible elections.