The question becomes whether Chuck Todd is lying this unabashedly, or if he is truly this ignorant about history

Understand here at the start, that these are the people who position themselves as the intellectuals in the country. The journalists love to act as our betters, the elite thinkers who went to the better schools and therefore can lord news and information over the unwashed in flyover country. Hold that positioning in mind as you witness Chuck Todd spewing some ridiculous claims that anyone saddled with common sense and middle-school level civics courses can see is asinine.

In some of the extended coverage of the January 6 anniversary that the press was emotively climaxing over yesterday, MSNBC cobbled together a rather impacted panel consisting of hostess Katy Tur, Andrea Mitchell, and Chuck Todd. As they sternly looked over the events of the day and the speech given by Joe Biden, they ruminated over what it all means. In the process, Todd belched out a claim that was both outlandishly stupid, and also agreed with by Mitchell.

• TODD: “Lincoln’s election was more accepted.” 
• MITCHELL: “Exactly.” 
• TODD: “In 1860. ”
• MITCHELL: “I was just thinking about that. Even the Civil War, we did not disagree with the passing of power.”

Just amazing. How they could say this not only with a straight face but without any type of contemplation or shading is an astounding display of ineptitude and historical ignorance. You truly are left with an inability to immediately reconcile if they are trying to gaslight an entire country because it is tough to accept that these avowed expert journalists can be this ignorant of some rather blatant historical facts.

Just the very fact that the country descended into a civil conflict not long after the election of Abraham Lincoln should have these two galaxy-minds reconsidering their comments, but the actual timeline and the details of that 1860 election completely undermine any claim that Joe Biden is experiencing a pushback that even approaches what Lincoln’s election provoked. 

Lincoln won the election on November 6, 1860, and following the result, the Southern states immediately began the process of seceding. Many of them called secession conventions the very same week that Lincoln won the presidency. A number of members of Congress resigned over the election, as did members of President Buchanan’s cabinet. South Carolina began raising up an army to defend itself within days of the Lincoln victory and it became the first state to officially secede from the union, doing so before Christmas Day, through a unanimous vote at its convention. 

This is the reaction Chuck Todd and Andrea Mitchell are saying was “a peaceful transfer of power” in 1860.

By February of that year, seven states had all voted to secede from the Union, and they convened to form their own union. These states all gathered to draw up their own Constitution, elect a President and Vice President, and Jefferson Davis was inaugurated as President of the Confederacy — all before Abraham Lincoln had even been sworn in. Yet, these eggheads are trying to sell us the concept that Lincoln was ushered into office in a more efficient manner than Biden? 

And just to underscore the level of idiocy on display by these two, one other detail needs to be registered in order to completely blast their claim into confetti. How can Abraham Lincoln be said to be “more accepted” than Biden when he was not even permitted to be voted on in the South? In that 1860 election, Lincoln did not even appear on the ballots in the Southern states.

This is the current condition of our national media. The supposed intellectual elites who love to speak to the audience in levels of condescension cannot even grasp the basics of a noted historical election in this country. It is the result of a desperate need to frame today’s environment in a manner that is favorable to their preferred leader. The need to prop up President Biden today means yesterday’s history is as disposable as a Post-It Note with a typo.