Democrats, Media Working Furiously to Delegitimize Trump

U.S. Rep. John Lewis, a Georgia Democrat and civil rights icon, is so upset over President-Elect Donald Trump’s incoming administration that he will be boycotting the inauguration.

It was reportedly the first time Lewis has boycotted an inauguration since his congressional career kicked off in 1987.

It’s odd, though, that the media still insists on underestimating Trump. This is a Republican candidate who won Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, Florida, North Carolina, and Ohio.

Except it wasn’t.

According to a Washington Post story unearthed by National Review writer Austin Yack, Lewis also boycotted the 2001 inauguration for President George W. Bush.

Bush wasn’t the real elected president, said Lewis, echoing protests of the infamous 2000 recount.

Washington and the mainstream media can be forgiven for forgetting this.

The Bush inauguration and the recount fallout were 16 years ago, and many mainstream media outlets (such as The Washington Post) now prefer to hire reporters who were in grade school at the time. What cannot be condoned is the weight the media and pundits lent Lewis in his second boycott of a Republican inauguration.

What got the media excited, however, wasn’t Lewis’ boycott. A number of people had suggested they would not attend.

Lewis was maybe the first to tie the boycott to the “legitimacy” of Trump and the 2016 election.

The big sell was how Lewis tied his feelings that Trump will be an illegitimate president to Russian hacking. This was the hat trick to get media attention.

Moral Authority
Lewis is often referred to as a “civil rights icon” because he is one. He marched at Selma, Alabama, almost 52 years ago, and he was beaten viciously as he protested segregation and voting rights violations.

Today, half a century later, Lewis rejects the verdict of the voters. It’s ironic, but the media allowed it because of his record half a century ago. It doesn’t matter that moral authority doesn’t justify everything. You can use such authority for so many things.

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But while questioning the legitimacy of the next president, Lewis is stretching, and he knows it. Lewis is hiding behind his pre-congressional reputation, and the media and pundits are helping throw cover over him.

There are signs it is getting old. On MSNBC on Monday afternoon, after Democrats and Lewis used Trump’s Twitter retort to Lewis in a fundraising pitch, liberal civil rights activist Al Sharpton was asked about using the issue to raise money. Sharpton danced around the question.

Sharpton then said the process that elected Trump “was not legitimate.”

Piling On
After Lewis’ interview aired on NBC, the floodgates of opportunism opened.

Many of the big boycott announcements came from Democrats who harbor ambitious plans.

U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), said he would boycott. Ellison is running to be the next chairman of the troubled Democratic National Committee.

Former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, a Democrat, had a particularly odd week. O’Malley wasn’t really expected to go to the inauguration. On Saturday, he apparently declared himself a rebel.

“Now is not the time for reconciliation. Dietrich Bonhoeffer didn’t reconcile with the Nazis. MLK didn’t reconcile with the KKK. Now we fight,” he tweeted.

This was the guy who tried to run as the moderate Democratic presidential candidate in 2016.

Hotels
The questioning of Trump’s legitimacy is not just confined to the election. The media is obsessing over comparing President Obama’s crowd numbers at the 2009 inauguration to Trump’s Friday numbers.

The Washington Post writer Dave Weigel is one such crowd analyst; he thinks he is onto something regarding hotels. He knows this because he drove back to D.C. from Maryland recently.

“Driving back through D.C. from Maryland, saw a couple of hotels advertising last-minute inaug vacancies. Not a thing in 2009,” he tweeted, not seeming to understand two things.

One, hotel rooms have likely been added in eight years, especially in the D.C. metro area. (The media made a similar mistake about Florida, forgetting how many new Republican voters migrate to the Sunshine State every four years.)

And two — anecdotes are not market research.

Of course, Trump may have lesser crowds. It may rain. It could be cold. But the D.C. Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management is planning for between 800,000 to 900,000 people to attend.

That’s still just an estimate.

It’s odd, though, that the media still insists on underestimating Trump. This is a Republican candidate who won Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, Florida, North Carolina, and Ohio.

And the media thinks poor inauguration numbers could mean something — perhaps that Trump is not legitimate?

Long after the election, the delusion continues.