The media's newest sensationalist story: Election Disaster!

Just stop asking Donald Trump if he will "accept" the results and leave office. It's not his choice.

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None of us should in any way take all the great polls as evidence that we can let our guard down. But for now, Joe Biden is winning the election and it’s impossible — again, for now — for political reporters to pose the election as a horse race.

The Cook Political Report today put Florida in the “lean Democrat” column from the “toss-up” slot. Once Florida’s not a toss-up, the horse race narrative is in big trouble for the media.

And you know they love posing every election that way, because it keeps people clicking and watching. So now they have a new sensational story du jour: Election disaster!

In the last week I’ve read story after story about the possibility of Donald Trump not leaving office if he loses the election — and what would happen. Everything from attacks on mail-in ballots and endless days of counting, to GOP governors certifying the election for him and on and on and on.

More than that, they keep asking Trump if he will “accept” the election and leave office, as Fox News’ Chris Wallace once again did last Sunday. Asking the question — and getting Trump’s “well see” — leads to even more stories, like this one from the Washington Post: “Trump’s assault on election integrity forces question: What would happen if he refused to accept a loss?”

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Case in point — like the 5th story like this I’ve seen in 5 days.

I’m not saying we shouldn’t be prepared for all the possibilities, nor put anything past Donald Trump. But normalizing this discussion only encourages him and emboldens him and normalizes something that is unconstitutional. These stories also present the worst case scenario and by the end of the story they talk about how it’s probably implausible. But they do their job in getting the clicks — and there has been plenty of cable TV news coverage in this regard as well.

As Biden has said, any trespassers will be removed from the White House who don’t belong there. Once the new president is sworn in, the White House needs to be vacated. It won’t get to this, but if it needs to they’ll be escorted out.

Of course we should do everything we can to make sure Joe Biden’s win is as big as possible, thus negating any possibility of Trump contesting it. But the media needs to stop enabling Trump in doing something reckless and unconstitutional.

Something great

Yesterday on my SiriusXM show we played all of Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s amazing and powerful speech on the floor of the House, taking on Republican Representative Ted Yoho of Florida for his having called her a “fucking bitch” on the steps of the Capitol.

The way she delivered this speech, and the dots she connected, were masterful. It’s so rare in this society to see a woman delivering a speech calling out the misogynistic actions of men in power in such a setting as the House of Representatives because women haven’t often had the platform to do so in the past, or might have been fearful of the ramifications.

But AOC is fearless. And the fact that she has that platform and could use it to speak for all women who’ve felt the same kind of attack is enormous. It’s why we need more women in office and in positions of power. Everyone — and every man — should watch this speech.

CSPAN @cspan

Rep @AOC: "I do not need Rep. Yoho to apologize to me. Clearly he does not want to. Clearly when given the opportunity he will not & I will not stay up late at night waiting for an apology from a man who has no remorse over calling women & using abusive language towards women."