The clear and present danger of Trump's enduring 'Big Lie'

Pro-Trump rioters storm the U.S. Capitol following a rally with President Donald Trump on Jan. 6. His supporters gathered in the nation's capital to protest the ratification of Joe Biden's Electoral College victory.

Samuel Corum/Getty Images

December 23, 20215:00 AM ET

Heard on Morning Edition

It's been nearly a year since the United States suffered an unprecedented attack on constitutional democracy.

When a violent mob stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, the goal was to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and install Donald Trump to a second term.

Call it an insurrection or a coup attempt, it was fueled by what's known as the "Big Lie": the verifiably false assertion that Trump won. Joe Biden won 306 votes in the Electoral College, while Trump received 232. In the popular vote, Biden won by more than 7 million votes.

Many are warning that over the past year, that "big lie" of a stolen election has grown more entrenched and more dangerous.

"I've never been more scared about American democracy than I am right now, because of the metastasizing of the 'big lie,' " says election law expert Rick Hasen, co-director of the Fair Elections and Free Speech Center at the University of California, Irvine.

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Words matter. So these journalists refuse to call GOP election meddling an ‘audit.’

Contractors for a private company examine ballots from the 2020 election in Maricopa, Ariz., part of a partisan review triggered by Republican lawmakers that is now being imitated in Pennsylvania. (Matt York/AP)

By Margaret Sullivan

Media columnist

September 14, 2021 at 6:00 a.m. EDT

There’s a simple but powerful idea behind the Philadelphia Inquirer’s recent decision not to use the word “audit” when referring to an effort by the state GOP to investigate the 2020 election:

Words matter.

The words that a news organization chooses to tell a story make a difference. If a journalist calls something a “lie,” that’s a deliberate choice. So is “racially tinged.” Or “pro-life.” Or “torture.”

Such decisions carry weight. They have power.

Acknowledging this power and being transparent about those choices is exactly what the Inquirer did the other day when it embedded within a news story a bit of explanatory text, under the headline: “Why We’re Not Calling It an Audit.”

In clear language, the paper explained that it’s because “there’s no indication” that this effort, which follows months of demands from Donald Trump alleging baselessly that the election was rigged, “would follow the best practices or the common understanding of an audit among nonpartisan experts.”

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