By Amrit Muttukumaru –

Amrit Muttukumaru

It is an understatement that President Donald Trump is an enigmatic and larger than life personality. He is revered by tens of millions of Americans and passionately disliked by an equal number. The results of the yet to be concluded Presidential Election would indicate that contrary to the impression peddled by most of the mainstream media, Trump has seemingly obtained the support of a fair number of minorities which include African-Americans and Hispanics. It is a fact that Trump with over 72 million votes has obtained the largest chunk of votes ever obtained in a presidential election with the exception of the over 77 million votes accrued by his opponent former Vice President  Joe Biden.

This writer is not stating that Trump will eventually win the Presidential Election. What he is emphatically stating is that there is credible doubt on the assertion propagated by the  mainstream media that Joe Biden has been lawfully elected. The reasons for this doubt include:

1) There is no debate that by far the most transparent mode of voting is through ‘in-person’ voting on the day of the election itself. In this form of voting there is no doubt that Trump was by far the winner. It is perfectly understandable that in the context of the Covid virus, there would inevitably be an unprecedented influx of mail-in voting not witnessed in ‘normal’ times. It is obvious that ‘mail-in’ voting is less transparent than ‘in-person’ voting. It is also obvious that ‘mail-in’ voting is far more susceptible to abuse than ‘in-person’ voting. What boggles one’s imagination is that there was a vast preponderance of mail-in votes for Biden in the vast majority of cases throughout the United States.

2) Are we to conclude that the Democrats are more vulnerable to attacks from the Corona virus??

3) There is credible evidence of several instances of abuse of ‘mail-in’ voting. As to whether this is sufficient to make a difference to the result has to be determined through DUE PROCESS. The abuse include credible allegations of (i) dead people voting (ii) determining authenticity of ‘mail-in’ votes which include verifying signatures being hampered (iii) in some instances Republican ‘observers’ of the counting of ‘mail-in’ votes having to use binoculars  and of windows being ‘boarded-up’.

4) Why did not the impressive Republican Senate success in several states translate into similar gains for Trump? It is disingenuous for anyone to claim this as proof there was no wrongdoing.

5) The United States has the ‘state-of-the-art’ resources and experience to carry out opinion polls and forecasts. After all it was America’s George Gallup who pioneered public opinion polls through his celebrated Gallup poll. In this milieu, how could the several opinion polls pointing to the runaway victory of Joe Biden be all so wrong unless there were base motives to influence the electorate in favor of Joe Biden?

6) To date none of the states have certified Biden’s purported victory. Hence, how can he be invested with the title ‘President-Elect’? In Sri Lanka we only have access to CNN on ‘Dialogue’ TV and this writer has heard some CNN presenters even referring to a ‘Biden Administration’! What right has the media to do this? Is it reasonable to expect anyone to ‘concede’ victory to another party simply because the media demands it? I emphasize, I am not holding a brief for Trump. I am only stating a principle.

7) Jake Tapper, a prominent CNN Anchor has even seemingly ‘threatened’ the employment prospects of Trump supporters under a Biden Administration by stating on twitter on 9 November 2020:

“I truly sympathize with those dealing with losing — it’s not easy — but at a certain point one has to think not only about what’s best for the nation (peaceful transfer of power) but how any future employers might see your character defined during adversity.”

Does this not indicate the raw bias of CNN against Trump?

8) One of the most internationally acclaimed CNN anchors is Christiane Amanpour. I urge readers to listen to Liz Harrington Rips CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on the subject of the alleged corruption of Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden and determine whether Amanpour is squirming with embarrassment or not?

What does it say of Joe Biden and the credibility of Amanpour and CNN?

Conclusion 

This writer re-iterates he is not holding a brief for President Donald Trump. All he is stating is that there are credible reasons to question the purported ‘victory’ of former Vice President, Joe Biden peddled by the mainstream media. These have to be credibly laid to rest through due process and not through media edict.

Much is also being made of foreign leaders congratulating Joe Biden. How can they do so when there is no official certification?  The applause of some leaders particulars from European NATO countries must be viewed from President Trump’s demand that they contribute an equitable share to the budget of NATO!

This writer has several reasons to oppose some of Trump’s policies which include his harmful approach to climate change, inequitable approach to the long festering Palestinian issue and inappropriate handling of issues of race. But this is no reason to overlook glaring questions on the integrity of the just concluded Presidential Election.

Whatever the final outcome, the US has lost its moral authority to uphold democratic values to the rest of the world and its mainstream media has taken a severe beating to its credibility. Even the US based social media monoliths such as Twitter, Facebook and Google have taken a major blow to their credibility.  Most of all, the people of the US are left thoroughly confused. All this will impact on the rest of the world given the pivotal position of the United States.