Paul Krugman, a New York Times columnist, addressed Election Day 2022 in his own paranoid, hectoring fashion. “A MAGA America would be Ugly” is what it sounds like. He’s been repeating the same tired warnings since Trump’s rise. But does Krugman have any credibility in attacking so-called election deniers.
If you don’t feel dreadful on the eve the midterm elections, then you haven’t been paying attention.
It’s possible to talk about the traditional stakes of these elections, including their implications for economic and major social programs as well as civil liberties, reproductive rights, and civil liberties. These discussions are not wrong. Life will continue regardless of what happens on the political stage. Government policies will continue to have a significant impact on people’s lives.
However, I always feel guilty about writing about inflation and the fate of Medicare. These are my specialties. However, focusing on them feels a little like denial or evasion when the fundamental stakes right here are so existential.
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It’s almost a given that the G.O.P. If it can, the G.O.P. will transform America into Viktor Orban’s Hungary: A democracy on paper but an ethnonationalist authoritarian one-party State in practice ….
Krugman warned that the truth is worse than it seems.
….if MAGA is elected, we’ll likely wish that its rule was as gentle, benign, and nonviolent as Orban’s …. even if we get a temporary reprieve this week. The authoritarian right is threatening democracy. America, as we know it, is not lost but it’s on edge.
After years of media whining about Trump’s refusal to concede defeat in 2016, Krugman’s 2016 preelection screed is shocking: “How to Rig an Election.”
Let’s not forget that this election was rigged regardless of what happens. The election was rigged by state governments who did everything they could to stop non-white Americans from voting . The director of F.B.I. James Comey was responsible for manipulating the election. James Comey, the director of the F.B.I., was supposed to police crime but instead he used the position to spread innuendo to influence the election ….. The media obsession with Hillary Clinton’s email addresses rigged the election. Although she shouldn’t have used her server, there is no evidence that she did anything illegal .
Krugman later demonstrated why he cannot be trusted to call anyone else a danger for democratic voting. The text box for his column “The Tainted election” read “Coming up with illegitimacy.”
This was a tainted vote. It was not stolen in the sense that votes were incorrectly counted, and the result will not be overturned. The result was still invalid in important ways. The victor was rejected and won the Electoral College due to foreign intervention and grotesquely inappropriate, partisan behavior by domestic law enforcement This election was a scandal and we should never forget.
We should also not forget Krugman’s gross hypocrisy.