The New York Times is accepting, even supportive, of liberal Democrats who protest the disappointing results of free and fair elections. Democratic Georgia gubernatorial nominee Stacey Abrams' classless attempts to poison the well after her close defeat at the hands of Republican Brian Kemp were greeted with consolation on the front page of the New York Times in “Democrat Ends Bid in Georgia For Governor,” by Alan Blinder and Richard Fausset.
The paper also supported attempts by liberals to overturn Donald Trump’s victory in 2016. But after Trump hypothetically raised the possibility pre-election of not respecting the results, there were accusations of dictatorship.
Blinder and Fausset wrote for Saturday’s edition:
Stacey Abrams, who galvanized Georgia Democrats in her quest to become the first black woman to be elected governor anywhere in the United States, ended her campaign to lead this state on Friday.
Ms. Abrams, who sharply criticized what she saw as an “erosion of democracy” in Georgia, said she would not concede the race to her Republican rival, Brian Kemp, but she acknowledged that he would become governor.
She said she saw no legal path to overturn the results. “The law currently allows no further viable remedy,” she said.
“Let’s be clear: This is not a speech of concession because concession means to acknowledge an action is right, true or proper,” Ms. Abrams said amid a blistering attack on Mr. Kemp’s record as the state’s chief elections regulator and on the balloting process in Georgia. “As a woman of conscience and faith, I cannot concede that.”
Biased labeling was on display:
Ms. Abrams made her announcement as the state became eligible to certify the election results, and it left Mr. Kemp, whose brash allegiance to hard-line conservatism made him an object of national fascination and scorn, poised to become governor in January.
As Ms. Abrams ended her campaign, she returned to a theme that had surfaced throughout: that Mr. Kemp, who was the Georgia secretary of state until the Thursday after the election, had used his position to suppress voting and ease his path into the governor’s mansion.
....
Mr. Kemp declared victory two days after the election and appointed a chief of staff for his transition. He also resigned as secretary of state, ending his oversight of the elections. Many Democrats, and even some Republicans, thought the decision came too late.
....
He had not been the Republican establishment’s first choice -- the retiring Republican governor, Nathan Deal, endorsed one of Mr. Kemp’s primary rivals before eventually offering his full-throated backing -- and his hard-right tone sent waves of concern through the Georgia business community, which wields enormous influence.
The reporters eventually admitted Abrams “ran largely as an unapologetic liberal,” although even that formulation contained some fudging: Did she mostly run as a liberal or was she actually a liberal?
Blinder and Fausset accidentally raised a liberal bias point:
Each side in the race tried to paint the other as extremist. Mr. Trump called Ms. Abrams “one of the most extreme far-left politicians in the entire country” and said she would “have Georgia turn into Venezuela.” Democrats said Mr. Kemp’s shotgun ad showed him to be “reckless” and “irresponsible.”
So if calling Abrams “extreme far-left” is an example of the Republicans painting Abrams as extremist, then what is the Times doing when it talks of Kemp’s “hard-line conservatism” and “hard-right tone”?
They concluded with consolation for Abrams.
But his record still gave Ms. Abrams’s campaign a rallying cry even after the polls closed: “Count every vote,” her campaign manager repeatedly told the television cameras, asserting that it was not yet time for Ms. Abrams to concede.
On Friday evening in Atlanta, Ms. Abrams held true to that.
“I don’t want to hold public office if I have to scheme my way into the post because the title of governor isn’t nearly as important as our shared title -- voters,” she said. “And that is why we fight on.”
That’s not how the paper treated candidate Trump, comparing Trump’s hypothetical comments to actual dictatorships abroad under headlines like “For Some Immigrants, Trump’s Warning on Election Results Sounds All Too Familiar.” After the election, of course, liberals went out and actually tried to overturn the results through dubious pushes for recounts and pressuring members of the Electoral College -- to applause from the Times, which had in the meantime forgotten all about the dictatorial dangers of refusing to accept election results.
