[Maru]

Gore's loss led to rigged speculations in FL. With Barack Obama, there was Birtherism which gave way to claims that he wasn't even eligible to run. When Trump won, people wanted to throw out the Electoral College, blamed a broken system and declared it wasn't democratic enough. Then there was the disputed results in 2020 where we still see court rulings, prosecutions and investigations to this day. 2024 is guaranteed to be more of the same. When a candidate is reelected, there's usually less dispute, but I think had Biden not dropped out, we would've seen more accusations simply because it was becoming obvious he was ineligible (medically speaking).

It's not exclusively a partisan thing, either. Insider politics also play out during primaries. The Bernie Sanders, Tulsi Gabbards, etc. The special role that media plays in the success of those campaigns is also controversial. Most people see primaries as symbolic given the voting numbers for them are so low. There's almost no coverage for non-establishment candidates and there's even less coverage of candidates at a lower position of government.

We almost never see such fanfare about Congressional losses though, unless it's one or two seats that determine the outcome. Otherwise, if the Democrats/Republicans got wiped out, they "got what they deserved" and the result is considered punitive. Everyone loves a good Congressional shellacking. People hate the 50/50, though. Just about everyone hopes for and expects a clear winner.

National politics on the whole is trash though, and there are many reasons to give it adequate side eye. All this is a result of how media driven national politics is by comparison to local races. At the local level, even though coverage is less, it's relatively good faith coverage by comparison, especially by newspapers and independent sources. Donations and ad space is what determines those more often than not (and thus whether their own party likes them...). At a higher level, it's what candidate can get the most views and hits the right talking points within the current national dialogue. In other words, does the media actually want to feature them?...