Yet Many Americans Incorrectly Believe It Was Stolen; Therein Lies the Challenge for Journalists, Jeh Johnson Points Out. Democracy is under threat, said Jeh Johnson, former Secretary of Homeland Security. An ABA Task Force report on Friday will announce actions to counter autocracy.
by Hope Kahn, National Press Foundation
American democracy and the rule of law are under serious threat, said Jeh Johnson, former Secretary of Homeland Security.
“More than one-third of Americans indulge in the erroneous belief that the 2020 election was stolen,” he told NPF’s 2024 Election fellows in Detroit, Michigan. “Despite the challenges of COVID, numerous audits, recounts and lawsuits … the 2020 presidential election was probably the most transparent and secure in the nation’s history.”
Over 60 court rulings across the country — issued by both Democrat and Republican judges — revealed no fraud or other material irregularities.
With a report from the ABA Task Force for American Democracy being released Friday, Jeh, who serves as co-chair, said that “there is a rising dangerous and naive fascination with alternative authoritarian forms of government.”
“Less than one-third of millennials consider it essential to live in a democracy,” he said.
Around 25% of Americans believe violence is justified if their candidate for office is not elected, polls say. “Political rhetoric condoning or suggesting violence is escalating and becoming mainstream while actual political violence is also on the rise. This should not be regarded as coincidence.”
As a boy in the 1960s, Johnson said the largest and all-too-common word in his lexicon was “assassination.” “Within a five-year period, five national leaders were assassinated. Medgar, Malcolm, Martin, Bobby and Jack.”
Prior to July 13, it had been 43 years since anyone took a shot at a president, a former president or a candidate for president, he said. As of 2022, threats against members of Congress were 10 times higher than they were just 5 years before since the 2020 election. A Reuters study published in August of 2023 revealed then 213 incidents of political violence in this country since January 2021 and an overall high level in political violence not seen since the 1970s.”
Journalists have the obligation to help protect democracy, Johnson said.
“Much of our problems lie with false, irresponsible and overheated political rhetoric that ricochet across social media in an instant … so my pleas to you are these: always tell the truth, the whole truth. There are no alternate universes. Fact check over and over again. Don’t simply accept what some other reporter or journalist has said.”
Johnson said the line he is most quoted for over the last five years was a misquote. “Some sloppy reporter said ‘Jeh Johnson says that anything over a thousand [immigrants] a day is a crisis,’ and it got repeated by other reporters who didn’t bother to do the work to fact check.”
While Jeh says the press need to help protect democracy, he also said that most public officials are suspicious of reporters.
“At the beginning of an interview with a reporter, I always ask what is your what is your understanding of off the record or what is your understanding of deep background.”
Johnson advises journalists to avoid mass emails when hunting for an interview. “‘Hi there’ is not the appropriate way to open a conversation with a former cabinet official … It’s not a good way to build a relationship with a new source.”
Speaker: Jeh Johnson, former U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security, spoke to the National Press Foundation 2024 Election Fellowship held in Detroit July 28, 2024.
Summary, transcript and resources:
This fellowship was sponsored by Arnold Ventures. NPF is solely responsible for its content.
This video was produced within the Evelyn Y. Davis studios.
