December 19, 2020 --

The title of your lead editorial, December 14, "Trump's Challenge Is Over," should have been given this appellation:  "Blame President Trump First."   This, of course, is what the Trump-haters have been doing since he came down the escalator, June 2015, to announce his presidential candidacy."   Actually, it is logical that the people who blame American first (as Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick noted, nearly four decades ago) would also rush to blame a president who stands for putting Ameria first.  But does The Wall Street Journal, in the final analysis, have to pile on?

Today's editorial expands on a line in your lead editorial, weekend before last:  "Now Who's Contesting Election?"  You could not complete that editorial without injecting this Never-Trumper sounding cut: "Donald Trump's unproven claims of election theft are damaging to public trust...."   Look now at what you have included in the course of your December 14 editorial: "There is no doubt that mass mail-in balloting led to more election problems, such as varying rules for signature verification in different  Pennsylvania counties."  Only in Pennsylvania?   You go on to call for election improvements by legislatures, in the future.

Are you not concerned that courts -- which have rebuffed efforts to gain transparency for vote-counting, this election -- usurped the authority of state legislatures in establishing election procedures?  Are you not concerned about the curious case of the middle of the night halt in vote-counting in key states?  How, in the name of all that is holy, are signatures to be validated when huge batches of ballots are reportedly trucked from one state to another for "counting." 

What "trust" are we supposed to place when Republican observers are blocked from monitoring vote-counting.  Are you unfamiliar with the term "prima facie evidence?" Talk about Ockham's Razor.  

In brief, what trust are we to place in post-elections peculiarities that smell to high heaven; that seem justified for the sole purpose of ensuring that Donald Trump does not gain election for a second term?

O, the language of your December 14 lead editorial strives to be equable -- affecting  an on the one hand, and on the other hand, tone -- but that the mindset of the editorial is Never Trumper,  is perfectly clear.

Outrageous remarks are directed at people who seek -- in vain -- assurances that the vote-counting of the November 2020 presidential election was on the up and up. We are accused of sedition. 

The New York Times in a headline viciously and falsely accuses us of trying to subvert the Constitution.  And you pronounce that "legal challenges" to Election-gate "have run their course." 

But if that is so, why do you call for "[i]mproving ballot integrity" at some point in the future?

The explanation is unavoidable: we must, as you also declare, hurriedly "mov[e] on" -- and away from the Trump presidency notwithstanding  "his [many] accomplishments in office."   The deep state must prevail.

D. R. Zukerman, prop.
Lonely Pamphleteer Review