…as opposed to misdirection. Gerald Seib, in his Monday piece for The Wall Street Journal, wrote about the need to restore confidence in America’s democracy.

His need is misplaced, however. We Americans have a deep and abiding confidence in our republican form of democracy right along with our faith in voting (another of Seib’s misplaced concerns) as the means of executing our republican democracy.

this year’s election can be seen as the culmination of a two-decade period of decline in faith in the basic building blocks of democracy. That period began with the controversial Florida recount in the 2000 election, then expanded four years ago to charges of foreign interference in an election.

No, this year’s election has demonstrated our faith in our republican democracy and our voting: 150 million voters—easily a record number in his words—voted. That’s no lack of faith.

On the other hand, this year’s election can be seen as the culmination of a two-decade decline in faith in what is increasingly recognized as an intrinsically mendacious system of media, of news reporting and opinion providing. Our media have increasingly mixed news and opinion, masquerading the latter as the former while the former is increasingly unsupported by identifiable sources. Our media have increasingly provided “opinion” unsupported by fact, identifiable sources, even logic.

Our media culminated its descent (so far culminated, the descent isn’t slowing) with its open spiking of stories detrimental to Progressive-Democrats like Joe Biden or favorable to Republicans like Donald Trump. That culmination includes printing outright lies, for instance about what Trump said about our soldiers, while openly refusing to retract their stories when those lies, for instance about what Trump said about our soldiers, are disproven.

And this:

Now President Trump and his allies head to court with charges of widespread vote fraud, charges so far unsubstantiated, raising doubts about the integrity of voting in states across the map.

Leave aside the fact that no one is going to prosecute a fraud case—or a widespread error case, or a case involving State Executive Branch officials violating State Election laws, even if for the Very Best of reasons—in the press. Such cases will be prosecuted in court, and that includes providing evidence to support the allegations.

No, contrary to Seib’s assertion, what Trump and his allies are doing is seeking to preserve confidence in the integrity of voting by holding to account the personnel responsible for overseeing and protecting the several voting systems. Personnel who, by coincidence, have created doubt through their mishandling of their responsibilities primarily in Progressive-Democrat-controlled jurisdictions.