Regardless of who wins the Nov. 5 contest between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, a large swath of voters will undoubtedly claim that their preferred candidate was robbed. Democrats pretend that this phenomenon appeared out of nowhere when Trump refused to accept the 2020 election results after his narrow defeat to Joe Biden, but this couldn’t be further from the truth.
Of course, if Trump loses, the Right will likely rinse and repeat its claims of a stolen election. Around half of Republicans believe the last election was stolen, and there is too much money to be made grifting online in the MAGAsphere to let an opportunity to enrage their followers to go to waste. Most of the Trump camp’s election-related lawsuits were thrown out of court, and aside from a few illegal aliens or dead Democrats voting around the margins, no large-scale instances of voter fraud were proven.
Still, Republicans correctly distrust the press and are unlikely to believe the same corporate journalists who have been caught lying red-handed time and time again. Trust is earned, and the media stopped attempting to earn the trust of middle America a long time ago.
While denying election results is a relatively new concept in Republican circles, Democrats have a long history of refusing to accept Republican wins. Those on the Left have not accepted a Republican presidential victory this century. In their minds, the last time a Republican legitimately won the White House was George Bush the elder in 1988. Democrats still believe Al Gore bested George W. Bush, and it took over a month and a ruling by the Supreme Court to declare the winner of the 2000 election. In 2004, Democrats set the blueprint used by Trump in 2020 by claiming John Kerry’s loss was due to irregular voting in Ohio, despite the lack of any evidence.
Democrats still believe Donald Trump’s victory over former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was due to interference by Russia. Corporate media consumers are largely unaware that the claims of Russian interference had no basis in reality and came from the thoroughly discredited Steele dossier, a piece of propaganda compiled by the Clinton campaign.
Regime media darling Stacey Abrams is still somewhere pretending to be the governor of Georgia. She claimed incessantly that Gov. Brian Kemp’s victories were illegitimate, and the closest she ever came to accepting defeat was a tacit admission that she wouldn’t become governor following her first embarrassing defeat to Kemp.
“I acknowledge that former Secretary of State Brian Kemp will be certified as the victor in the 2018 gubernatorial election. Let’s be clear, this is not a speech of concession,” she said. “My assessment is the law currently allows no further viable remedy.”
Abrams’s behavior would certainly fit corporate media’s definition of a “threat to democracy” if, by democracy, it didn’t simply mean a victory by the Democratic Party.
As uncreative as they are predictable, Democrats are preemptively rolling out old faithful, their Holy Grail of denying election results: the dastardly Electoral College. As Harris embarrasses herself and the party in media appearance after media appearance while her lead over Trump in the swing state polls evaporates, her running mate, Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN), is attacking the Electoral College in classic Democrat fashion.
“I think all of us know the Electoral College needs to go,” Walz said at a campaign fundraiser hosted at California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s home on Tuesday. “We need a national popular vote that is something. But that’s not the world we live in.”
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On top of that, Axios reported on Thursday: “Some top Dems won’t commit to certifying a Trump win.”
Both sides have built-in excuses if their candidate loses, and half of the country will cry foul regardless of the evidence. We no longer have an Election Day in America. Some voters have been casting ballots since late September, and the best we can do is hope the results are clear by Thanksgiving. May the best candidate win (eventually).
Brady Leonard (@bradyleonard) is a musician, political strategist, and host of The No Gimmicks Podcast.