Before 9/11 happened, the big story of 2001 was going to be the recounts conducted by a consortium of media outlets in Florida. In the wake of a failed effort to challenge the electoral votes of Florida on January 6, 2001, many on the Left were eager to see what the media recount would find.

We previously discussed the double standard applied to the plan of Senator Josh Hawley and others to challenge the electoral votes on January 6, 2021. Democrats issued the four previous challenges, and on two occasions — in 1969 and 2005 — even forced votes on whether or not disputed electoral votes should be counted. But when it came time to question a Democrat win, well…

The ballot audit in Maricopa County, Arizona, and the forthcoming audit in Fulton County, Georgia, are facing a continuation of that double standard. Joe Biden beat Donald Trump by a little over 10,000 votes in Arizona, and just under 12,000 in Georgia.

Audits should be a relatively routine part of ensuring the integrity of each election. Yet the usual suspects at CNN and MSNBC, both outlets that specialize in infomercials for the Democrat Party, are attacking these audits, while officials are trying to obstruct them as much as possible. Imagine if, in 2001, then-Florida Governor Jeb Bush and Secretary of State Katherine Harris had tried similar tactics against the media recount of the razor-thin margin in the Sunshine State, or if Rush Limbaugh had called the Florida recount “fundamentally wicked.”

We never would have heard the end about the “assault on democracy.” Yet when grassroots Patriots rightly raise concerns about whether Biden’s 81 million votes were on the up and up, or even whether censorship by Silicon Valley tech giants rendered the 2020 election unfair, they get censored for it. Those concerns are dismissed or suppressed — all while the unfounded claims of voter suppression made by Stacey Abrams over the 2018 gubernatorial election in Georgia made her a saint of “democracy” to the left-wing hacks who purport to be journalists. The same goes for Hillary Clinton’s four-year refrain decrying how the 2016 election was “stolen” from her.

Of course, Silicon Valley censorship was part of what Time magazine celebrated as the “fortification” of the 2020 election — you know, the “control the flow of information” part of the “shadow campaign” exercised by the “well-funded cabal,” to use Time’s own words. Similarly, valid questions about whether bulk-mail ballot schemes or other failures to follow election law compromised election integrity and fairness (especially when there were successful efforts to thwart transparency) are treated as conspiracy theories. That’s true even though an experienced international election observer outlined how countries like Yemen handled election counts with more fairness than major urban areas in the United States.

These doubts come because many grassroots Patriots have reasonable suspicions based on the Left’s past conduct. That includes hyperbolic political rhetoric, like the lies and frivolous comparisons to Nazis from the likes of the late John Lewis, to name just one offender. But Lewis was only part of a larger pattern of lies and abuses that the Republican and conservative establishments failed to stand against.

Dennis Prager has noted the consequences of the Left’s decades-long track record of making these false allegations multiple times. Ask yourself, “How far would I go to remove from the White House an illegitimately elected Russian puppet who thought white supremacists were ‘very fine people’?”

We have noted that even though leftists got Donald Trump, they will likely lose in the future, as the issues that led to his rise to the White House remain. Already, the political chemotherapy he administered to the Republican Party is taking effect. Consequences for banks that redline the Second Amendment are pending in Texas, and the replacement of Liz Cheney by Elise Stefanik may help Republicans capitalize on a chance to win big in the 2022 midterms.

We also want to mention the commendable first steps toward election integrity. That said, we have a suggestion: The provisions on absentee ballots could be strengthened by requiring the use of certified mail with return receipt for applications and ballots both ways, with the postage for the applications and ballots to be returned via certified mail being prepaid by state and local election authorities to strengthen the chain of custody and eliminate the need for unsecure drop boxes.

Strategically, leftists’ current conduct will remind not just Republican voters but Republican candidates at all levels just why Trump rose in the first place. Those memories are going to be bad news for the establishment and the Left for a long time to come.