Back in 1775, Paul Revere gained immortal fame by (allegedly) galloping across the countryside shouting, "The British are coming!" Now, nearly 250 years later, the Associated Press is issuing a warning about something they see as being potentially even more dangerous. Rather than cautioning everyone about British troops in red coats, however, they are sounding the alarm over men and women in red MAGA hats who the AP lumps into a category of "election deniers." In the title of their article today, they claim that these diabolical election deniers are "moving closer to [the] GOP mainstream." They aren't just talking about random voters out in the street, either. They lead off the parade of villains with Senators J.D. Vance, Tim Scott, and Marco Rubio.

In the hours after the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, Ohio’s then-Republican senator, Rob Portman, voted to accept President Joe Biden’s win over the defeated former president, Donald Trump, despite Trump’s false allegations that Biden only won because of fraud.

But as Trump charges toward his rematch with Biden in 2024, Portman has been replaced by Sen. J.D. Vance, a potential vice presidential pick who has echoed Trump’s false claims of fraud and said he’ll accept the results this fall only “if it’s a free and fair election.”

South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, other possible VP picks, also declined to object to Biden’s victory over Trump, but have been less committal this year. Rubio said recently if “things are wrong” with November’s election, Republicans won’t stand by and accept the outcome.

Imagine the nerve of some of these Republicans demanding "free and fair elections." In the eyes of the AP, even if something clearly looks fishy, conservatives are expected to "stand by and accept the outcome." After all, this is America, not some third-world banana republic where the ruling party tries to throw its political opponents in prison. (Oh, wait...)

One has to wonder where the AP's outrage was over Stacey Abrams and the countless times she claimed that the Georgia gubernatorial election was stolen from her. And how did they manage to completely fail to denounce Hillary Clinton? She went around for years claiming that the 2016 election was rigged against her and that Donald Trump was an "illegitimate president." Even NBC News was forced to admit that about her. But if anyone dares to question all of the hanky panky that took place with mountains of mail-in ballots during the 2020 election, they are clearly stooges of Vladimir Putin or dangerous, delusional rebels.

I've yet to see irrefutable evidence that there was enough election fraud in 2020 to reverse the results of the presidential election, though we also can't rule it out entirely. But there is no doubt whatsoever that plenty of fraud was taking place. To this day we have no idea if Republican Claudia Tenney actually won back her seat in Congress representing what was then New York's 22nd Congressional District and we will never know. Multiple people were charged with election fraud for casting votes for the dead or voting or attempting to vote twice in the same race. Thousands of ballots were unable to be verified and the race was eventually called for Tenney by a margin of 109 votes.

Is any of that sort of fraud still taking place? Look no further than Bridgeport, Connecticut, and its mayoral races (plural). So it would be nice if the Associated Press could climb down from its high horse and stop lecturing us about "election deniers" and how terrible they are. There are very good reasons why Republicans are fighting to install election monitors in every precinct, particularly in the swing states. The only reason we know about many of the cases of fraudulent voting in NY-22 four years ago is because we had monitors in place checking all of the ballots against funeral notices and the early voting lists. If J.D. Vance and Marco Rubio want to raise concerns about ensuring that this year's elections are "free and fair," that is their right. Beyond that, it's their obligation under the oaths they took to protect the Constitution.