When Republicans win close elections, the results are illegitimate
That’s the accusation from the Democrats.
But when Democrats win them, they’re hard-fought victories as well as evidence for the increasingly blue nature of the city or state in which they occur, or the country as a whole.
When did this begin? I think 2000 was a kind of turning point. That situation was unusual to begin with because it really really was a national election that was almost unbelievably close, so close that declaring a winner was nearly impossible by the usual means. The Democrats—and I was one of the Democrats at the time—generally felt robbed, although I have to say I was not among those who felt that way. At the time, I figured that if Gore (not my favorite candidate in the world, although I had voted for hm) had ended up losing the election it was because the system played itself out relatively fairly in a situation in which it truly was almost impossible to figure out who was the winner. The cards just didn’t fall his way.
But a lot of Democrats felt angry and betrayed, and never considered Bush a legitimate winner. And now this sort of accusation has become more or less the norm in close elections, as Liz Shield points out:
Do you notice that whenever there are close elections, possibly resulting in a recount, the narrative the media and its left-wing puppet masters trumpet is that the winner, if a GOPer, is illegitimate? Are there any consequences for these people for undermining the faith in our election system? There were all kinds of public shame and ridicule when candidate Trump talked about “rigged” systems. Meanwhile, a few Democrats are scraping out victories from recounts in California, but no one is talking there about illegitimacy.
This is what has happened with the Georgia governor’s race. The winner is illegitimate because it should have been the Democrat. “I certainly would not have treated the ‘winning’ candidate as the normal head of the state, & we should not do so here,” former Obama admin Norm Eisen wrote. Right out of the Trump playbook: if our candidate loses, we will treat the real winner as illegitimate.
“I acknowledge that former secretary of state Brian Kemp will be certified the victor in the 2018 gubernatorial elections,” Georgia gubernatorial loser Abrams said. “But to watch an elected official — who claims to represent the people of this state, baldly pin his hopes for election on the suppression of the people’s democratic right to vote — has been truly appalling.”
The argument now seems to hinge on this idea that every effort Republicans make to reduce or prevent voter fraud is a case of suppression of the liberal vote. Requiring voters to show IDs or even citizenship is now voter suppression. And “voter suppression” means that every election that is close would have “really” been won by the Democrat but for this phenomenon of constant voter suppression.
The flip side of this is that Republicans are rather quick to shout “fraud” when close elections are won by Democrats. Democrats respond by saying there’s no “evidence” of vote fraud. You can find many articles like that, as well as articles from the right saying “of course it exists.” An example of the latter is this:
When it comes to election fraud, the question is not “if,” but “how much?” For years, The Heritage Foundation has been documenting instances of proven election fraud in an online, searchable database.
…the database is only a small, illustrative sampling of election fraud.
In fact, to quote from my own op-ed, which apparently inspired Gibble’s reaction, “Heritage’s database is not comprehensive, so for every case we identify and track through to conclusion, many more likely go undetected or hidden in court records that are not easily accessible.”
Not only is there plenty of proof that some degree of election fraud exists, but common sense dictates that there is plenty of motivation to commit election fraud. In addition, as I’ve written recently:
Arguments that election fraud doesn’t exist always remind me of those people who swear they can invariably detect when a man is wearing a toupee. The logical flaw is so obvious, and yet they don’t see it (despite their supposedly eagle eye for hairpieces). But here it is: what about hairpieces that are too good to detect?
So if election fraud exists, what about voter suppression? Does it exist? Well,it certainly used to exist—particularly in the South at the hands of Democrats via the poll tax. I assume that even now, each side wishes to maximize the number of its own voters and to minimize the number of the opposing party’s voters. The point is to make sure that the rules for voting are reasonable and as fair as possible in order to reduce both voting fraud and suppression of bona fide voters.
We have to change the tone of how we talk about elections. They are not supposed to be something the government does for you. They are supposed to be about citizens taking responsibility. Blacks don’t have a “right” to vote that is being denied; they have the responsibility to register and turn up on election day with ID. The same goes for everyone else.
I can see making some accommodations for people who are working out of town or have long and unpredictable commutes to work, but these should be limited. The rest of the people need to get off their a**es and go to the polls. Family and neighbors can assist those without cars.
The feeling of being robbed goes back to the Clinton election, I think. there was such a feeling among Democrats, especially Boomers of “Finally! Our time has come. The world has changed. The Old Guard is out, the New Regime is in.” There was a feeling of inevitability delayed. Many of them were trained on Marxist inevitability of history. Remember when Ron Silver said “Those are our planes now?” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOkdHIglNTo
This carried throughout the Clinton Administrations, that all opposition and every accusation that Republicans made was invented and unjust, an attempt to deny the reality of the new masters, who were cooler and listened to the right music. The Clintons did nothing wrong, it was just an attempt to bring them down because conservatives couldn’t deal with a strong woman. (Ask Margaret Thatcher about that.)
It was entitlement. It was narcissism. Bush winning just seemed so wrong to the narrative that it must have been cheating somehow. Evidence wasn’t necessary. His brother was governor of Florida. What, precisely, do you think Jeb did that was illegal? The vote of the SCOTUS was 5-4, with all the Republican-appointed justices favoring Bush No, there were two decisions, and the more important one was 7-2. The 5-4 vote was a secondary issue.
Bush made the gentlemanly gestures of not stripping them of power in the Senate, allowing them to keep some of their perks – and of not prosecuting the Clinton staffers for vandalizing the White House as they left. The list of concessions and gentlemanliness goes on. If you think Republicans don’t remember that – it’s how we got Trump. Though even Trump let Hillary off the hook.
It’s pathological narcissism. (Which, BTW, is not mere hyperbole when I write it. I work personality disorders for a living.)
Family and neighbors can assist those without cars
Affirmative action, without diversity, is reconcilable, and sustainable.
Your title has it right, Neo.
I am more and more tired of this “vote suppression” theme. Here in NC, Democrats couldn’t come up with any citizens who were prevented from voting by the Voter ID law. The law as written made numerous allowances and work-arounds for people who don’t have driver’s licenses, who don’t drive any more because of their age, or who were born in Southern backwaters in the old days when sometimes birth certificates were not recorded for minorities. Nonetheless, the Fourth Circuit claimed it focused with “laser-like” precision on denying black voters.
What this all means is not that Democrats actually care about black voters. Rather, it means that requiring an ID cuts down on vote fraud, especially at the early voting sites, where the Fourth Circuit ruled that outlawing same-day registration and voting was “unconstitutional.” Now North Carolina voters have passed a constitutional amendment requiring photo IDs for voting. We’ll see what the Fourth Circuit does with that.
As a side note, an attorney, Thomas Farr, who consulted with the General Assembly on the Voter ID law, has been nominated by Trump for a US District judge spot. Chuck Schumer is opposing him because he’s a “white supremacist” for having worked on the law. I don’t know of Farr personally, but I rather doubt he’s actually a white supremacist, nor do I think Republican assembly members are.
Democrats are mistaken in thinking that we deplorables will go quietly into the night. Sooner or later all totalitarian movements default to violence. Antifa is the harbinger of things to come.
Geoffrey Britain at 7:14 pm said, “Democrats are mistaken in thinking that we deplorables will go quietly into the night. ”
Well, they’ve been right so far. What will it take?
(Me, I’m up in years and down in available energy. But that’s not at all the case for a lot of deplorables. So what will it take?)
Neo asks,
“… voter suppression? Does it exist?”
Kate touched on this for North Carolina. I read half of one of John Fund’s books “Stealing Elections: …” from 2009. In it he discusses the effort and court case to implement voter photo ID in Indiana.
The lawyers from left and right made the usual claims in court. Those without driver’s lic. could go to the DMV and get a photo ID for free. The left lawyer claimed that the free ID was too much of a burden and would disenfranchise voters. So the judge said fine, go find me at least a half dozen of these folks so I can question them.
The best one didn’t have a car or a license. The judge asked if he went shopping. Yes, he took the bus to a mall 15 miles away. Which bus? The one that had a bus stop 1/2 block from the DMV that was 10 miles from the man’s house.
All of the people brought in to illustrate possible disenfranchisement, were shown by the judge, to be trivially able to obtain the necessary ID.
On the other hand, some have claimed that fake ID’s are so common among illegal aliens that a photo ID would not have much effect on vote fraud.
I’m much more interested in voter disengagement. Or apathy, if you will. During the last Most Important Presidential Election Until The Next One we’re told that over 100,000,000 voters didn’t vote. The number of people who voted through fraud, or who didn’t vote because of voter suppression is insignificant compared to the number of Americans who just did not vote.
JFM, if 100 million voters didn’t vote then I guess they’re not voters, are they? But aside from my admittedly unwarranted snark, and never-minding that 100 million is 28% of all Americans… I don’t want them to vote. If they care so little, or are so confused by it all, then the likelihood that they’d vote responsibly is slight. Those, like me, who do take elections seriously will make the decisions for them.
JFM, you might want to take that up with the people of New Hampshire…..
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/sep/7/voter-fraud-alert-over-5000-new-hampshire-presiden/
“Well, they’ve been right so far. What will it take?” MJR
They’ve been right so far because we’ve been trying to preserve liberty by playing within the rules that make liberty possible.
What it will take will be a chain of actions by the Left so egregious that denial of the existential reality that the Left has imposed is no longer sustainable. Along with the collapse of the belief that playing within the rules can stop that tyrannical reality from being imposed.
Those actions by the Left will occur because power and control lie at the heart of political correctness. As they do in every inherently totalitarian ideology.
Apathy is a huge problem, and part of the plan – making people so distrust the system they don’t participate at all. Thus making sure people disengage from the vested interest they have in maintaining continuity, so that the society is weakened.
http://redpilljew.blogspot.com/2018/04/socialisms-gateway-drug.html
As for the (Democrat) claim that electoral fraud is exceedingly rare,
Every January, employees receive W-2s from their employers, and contractors receive 1099s. Copies of these are sent to the IRS to be crossed-checked against your tax return, to make sure you’re not “accidentally” under-reporting your income. Imagine how rampant tax fraud would become if the IRS had to rely entirely on your self-reporting, with no real means of detecting fraud. Of course, there would be little or no evidence of fraud — because no one can tell! — and interested parties could cite that as evidence that there’s no problem.
In my state (California) there is no ID shown at voting time. You just tell them your name and address, and sign next to them in the log book. The rolls are kept loaded with people who are deceased or have relocated out of the state. (And there’s howling if anyone suggests purging those names.) There’s no way of knowing if you walk into several other precincts in your town and vote in the names of individuals who have become “disenfranchised” by death, as long as no other fraudster tries to vote on the same names. So you have to stick to your agreed target list. That there is no evidence anyone actually does this, is guaranteed by the design. To insist that it never happens is silliness.
“…silliness.”
Hmm. Others might call it something else.
Though some might find it encouraging when an race-hardened candidate chimes in on something she knows a thing or two about (AKA “losing”): https://www.foxnews.com/politics/hillary-clinton-abrams-would-have-already-won-georgia-race-if-she-had-a-fair-election )
But, yeah, generally I guess it would be fair to say that “from time to time” “mistakes” are made….
https://twitter.com/TheTrumpLady/status/1064377218149711872
The argument now seems to hinge on this idea that every effort Republicans make to reduce or prevent voter fraud is a case of suppression of the liberal vote.
Well, to be honest that’s true. Since so much of the liberal vote is made up of necro-americans, discovered ballots, “assisted” votes from dementia-laden nursing home residents, etc., preventing voter fraud in any manner will suppress the leftist vote.
I wonder if any traction would be achieved by a bottom-up movement by conservatives who, on their own initiative, present their IDs when they sign in at polling places.
With Democrats taking control over the House, some really crazy Democrats will move into Committee chairmanships.
Prime examples, mister Russian conspiracy himself, bug-eyed Adam Schiff to chair the House Intelligence Committee, and Auntie Maxine Waters to likely chair the Financial Services Committee–Lord help us.
Speaking of Schiff, Saul Alinsky noted that mockery is one of the most effective means you can use to to attack your opponents.
Thus, we have President Trump recently tweeting about Representative “Schitt,” a moniker that Schiff will likely never live down, and the source of endless jokes at his expense.
See, for example https://twitchy.com/samj-3930/2018/11/20/schitt-no-adam-schiff-uses-trumps-profane-insult-to-beg-for-money-and-the-responses-are-comedy-gold/?utm_campaign=twitchywidget
You can be sure democrats will be whining for the next 6 years