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Home Hillary Clinton US Election Will Hillary Accept Defeat?

Will Hillary Accept Defeat?

The headlines are in. Trump is the “anti-Democratic” candidate because he refuses to rule out challenging the results of an election that has yet to take place. Such a course of action is “beyond the pale”. It’s a threat to democracy. And it is utterly and thoroughly unacceptable.

Except when Democrats do it.

It was the day after the election. While the Democratic Party faithful waited in the rain in Nashville, William Daley strode out and announced, “Our campaign continues”. Al Gore had called George W. Bush to withdraw his concession. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?" a baffled Bush asked. “You don’t have to be snippy about it," Gore retorted snippily.

Gore did eventually concede. Though years later he would attempt to retract his concession a second time. But his political movement never did concede. It remained a widespread belief in left-wing circles that President Bush was illegitimately elected and that President Gore was the real winner.

How mainstream is that belief?

When Hillary dragged Gore away from playing with his Earth globe to campaign for her, the crowd booed at his mention of the election and then chanted, “You won, you won”.

Hillary grinned and nodded.

Hillary Clinton has always believed that President Bush illegitimately took office. She has told Democrats that Bush was “selected” rather than “elected”. In Nigeria, of all places, she implied that Jeb Bush had rigged the election for his brother.

But it’s not unprecedented, beyond the pale or utterly unacceptable when Democrats do it.

It’s just business as usual.

The media’s focus has been on whether Trump would accept the results if he loses. Yet a better question might be whether Hillary Clinton would accept her defeat.

Even when it came to the battle for the Democratic nomination, Hillary Clinton refused to concede defeat until the bitter end and then past it. Not only did Hillary refuse to drop out even when Obama was the clear winner, while her people threatened a convention floor fight, but she insisted on staying on in the race for increasingly bizarre and even downright disturbing reasons.

In South Dakota, Hillary explained that there was no reason for her to drop out because somebody might shoot Barack Obama, "We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California."

There’s something disturbing in the revelation that Hillary was basing her decision to stay in the race in the hope that her rival would be assassinated.

Obama’s spokesman said that her remark “has no place in this campaign”. But it had a place inside Hillary Clinton’s very warped brain which preferred to see Obama die than concede the election to him.

If that’s how Hillary felt about a fellow Democrat, imagine how she feels about Trump.

Even after Obama had clinched the delegate votes, Hillary’s speech brought back the Gore argument insisting that, “Nearly 18 million of you cast your votes for our campaign, carrying the popular vote with more votes than any primary candidate in history. Even when the pundits and the naysayers proclaimed week after week that this race was over, you kept on voting.”

Then the fabulously wealthy Hillary asked those 18 million people to go to her website and give her money while refusing to make any decision on ending her campaign. It took her another day to do that.

It’s not as if the Obama side was any better. It was arguably worse. Governor Wilder, an Obama ally, threatened a return of the 1968 Chicago Democratic convention riots if Hillary won. "If you think 1968 was bad, you watch; in 2008, it will be worse,” Wilder warned.

Unprecedented. Outrageous. Beyond the pale. Except this is how Democrats act even to each other.

Now how would they respond to a Trump victory? Would they urge Hillary to concede or to fight on? Would they stage more riots while claiming voter disenfranchisement had stolen the election?

Hillary Clinton has made it clear that she views Trump’s candidacy as illegitimate. She has called him “unfit” and described his supporters as “deplorables”. Democrats, all the way up to the White House, are constantly accusing Republicans of scheming to disenfranchise voters. These “schemes” involve asking undocumented Democrats to show some ID instead of relying on an honor system and removing illegitimate voters from the rolls. But beyond enabling voter fraud, such arguments can easily be employed to attack the legitimacy of a Republican winner. They provide the fodder for another Florida.

Does anyone really believe that Hillary Clinton, who couldn’t even graciously concede to Obama will graciously concede to Trump?

And, given the fact that Hillary won the nomination by using the DNC to rig the process, leading to the resignation of Debbie Wasserman Schultz, are Trump’s concerns of a rigged election illegitimate?

Donald Trump has clarified that he would accept “a clear election result” but that he was “being asked to waive centuries of legal precedent designed to protect the voters.”

And he’s right. No one preemptively cedes elections. And Hillary Clinton has faced accusations of abusive and fraudulent tactics from Democratic rivals in two different presidential elections.

Why should Republicans assume that she’ll treat them better than she treated Barack Obama and Bernie Sanders?

Not all that long ago, the left wanted Gore to fight to the bitter end. A Gore adviser recalled, "People were calling us from everywhere, telling us, 'Don't concede.'" Left-wing voices urged Bernie Sanders to stay in the race long after it became obvious that the left-winger had no realistic path to victory left.

But the same behavior that is virtuous when Democrats do it becomes an unpardonable sin when Republicans take it up.

That’s a pernicious double standard that cannot and should not be allowed to stand.

When Democrats warn of voter disenfranchisement, the media backs them up. When Republicans complain about voter fraud, they are accused of voter suppression. When Democrats fight elections past the point that they’re lost, then they are courageous. But when Republicans do it, they are a threat to democracy.

But democracy does not mean Democratic Party rule. That’s just the mistake that the media makes.

Whatever rules we have, run both ways. Any practices, new or old, also apply to both sides. If challenging election results is legitimate, then it is so for both sides. Whatever options were available to Gore and Hillary cannot help but be available to Trump.

That is how democracy, rather than Democratic Party rule, works.

Comments

  1. It is astounding that liberals every where are contending that conservatives are brain-dead. It is obvious, liberals are deranged and brain-dead. That makes them zombies!

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  2. Hillary could lose in a clear landslide and still not concede. This is her last hurrah and she knows it. Slide would be an ignominious failure she is not psychologically capable of excepting. I think she would rather melt down into a puddle of toxic waste so corrosive it would consume Bill and Chelsea and all around her. Cackling to the very end about how the entire world cheated her out of his Devine right to coronation.

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  3. Infidel24/10/16

    Good point. MSM is obsessing over the case where H wins and T challenges. But none of them are discussing the possibility that T wins and H challenges.

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  4. Anonymous24/10/16

    Even more to the point is Gore's revolutionary appeal to the General Will - that mere arithmetical tabulation of votes does not suffice to establish a legitimate result, what matters is what Demos WOULD have done, if the ballots were not confusing, or if Demos was not suffering from false consciousness.

    This radical argument was pursued to its conclusion when Thomas Frank re-issued Lenin's "What Is To Be Done" under the title "What's the Matter With Kansas" in 2004, pointing out that since the working class, besotted by false consciousness, does not know its own best interest, that wiser heads have the right to form a revolutionary vanguard and to seize power by whatever means necessary and to rule in their stead.

    Hillary is using propaganda, intimidation, and slander to achieve power, but building on the Gore-Thomas Frank argument as a foundation, who can doubt that she would go all the way if necessary?

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  5. Anonymous24/10/16

    Excellent article. Thank you for summarising the dubious actions of the Democratic Party and Hillary Clinton in particular. They truly are the deplorables.

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  6. Anonymous24/10/16

    Today, Obama ridicules Trump for saying the same thing he has said; but when Obama said it, everyone nods their heads approvingly and the media laps it up like the dogs that they are. Here is Obama in 2008 saying basically the exact same thing that Trump now says.


    http://www.mrctv.org/blog/obama-speaks-rigged-elections-2008

    And now Obama wants to "curate" your news:

    http://www.fitsnews.com/2016/10/14/barack-obama-wants-to-curate-your-news-feed/

    “Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? - Who will watch the watchers?” Juvenal, The Sixteen Satire

    We currently have government officials taking the 5th Amendment; the corruption of the media, which is owned and operated by large multinational corporations and foreign investors; the gutting of the military; the instigation of mobs (by elected officials and clerks working for the government)--and all this is a product of corruption from the White House down. I have never seen such scoundrels running our highest levels of government like we have today. We find ourselves in this dilemma because a fish rots from the head down. When you have a rotten leadership, they hire and surround themselves with the most corrupt crooks who fiddle while Rome burns. Our government no longer cares about its citizenry; rather, they are selling us out for the one thing they cherish most--namely, power and the retention of power.

    "Freedom is the right to tell people what they don't want to hear." George Orwell

    "In a time of deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act." George Orwell

    King Western Man

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  7. Anonymous24/10/16

    Democrats know that winning justifies all means. With media cover, many voters don't even see a problem. Sadly, the sportsmanlike Republicans and principle paralysed Libertarians are left wondering where the last sucker punch came from.

    Since Reagan, so many disgraceful fiats have been foisted on loyal Americans by leftists and rinos with glib media cachet. Even if these Loyals aren't heard over the din of the elite, Donald J. Trump presents them a clear vision of the America to regain.

    May they vote in overwhelming numbers; a mandate for the Renaissance of our Founder inspired and beloved Republic.

    ABSJ1136

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  8. She will lose by a landslide. Her crooked ways won't work this time. Clintons need to be in jail. End of story.

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  9. Anonymous24/10/16

    Steven DenBeste died recently. He was a lighthouse. You are the new DenBeste.

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  10. Anonymous24/10/16

    Will whatever the outcome of the election happens to be, be used as an excuse to declare martial law?

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  11. Anonymous25/10/16

    As soon as Mr. Trump takes office ISIS fighters will take a cheap flight back to the kebab business somewhere in Europe, the Iranian Ayatollahs will feel more inclined to allow nuclear inspectors and at home apart from the freakiest leftists the rest won’t risk tenure for ‘the cause’… even Soros will shift his investments from BLM to NASDAQ, a much better future is coming to the land of the free.

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  12. Anonymous26/10/16

    Shillariah C-l-i-n-t-0-0-n and the Democracktic party's response to a Trump win:
    It's impossible. We made sure there more voters for Hilarious Rotten Crotch before the election even started. Every cat, dog and graveyard in America voted for Hilarious.

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  13. I wouldn't be so sure that an organization that had broken and bought the FBI and the DoJ, has threatened or cajoled the media or bought it off, has hired thugs to attack people in public...and proudly admits it, that gets caught lying about lying about lying about everything......

    Is going to leave the actual outcome of this 20 year project up to 'voters', or 'people', or the democratic process, however flawed, at all. It's not by accident her media crows she's winning by 7, 8, 12, 20, 25 pts ever higher day by day. It's not to drive people away from voting, it's the lie they will tell ON election day. What they're doing is simply looking for the outer limits of what they think sounds plausible. All dictatorships do this. Saddam Hussein routinely 'won' elections with 99% of the vote. Ditto Enver Hoxha, and Ceaucescu. The votes on election probably won't count very much at all. And if we still have even a small functioning media that points out the lie, the Big Media will give it 10 or 15 seconds of airtime, laugh and move on calling it sour grapes. Reality is the perception of reality. If facebook, google and twitter twist your information to whatever they like, that's your reality. If CNN announces that Hillary 'won' with 70% of the popular vote and the next day the NY Times reports that its eagle eyed reporters confirm it, who's going to argue?

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  14. If Trump had "accepted the outcome" of the election in advance, it would have initiated the largest, most blatant campaign of voter fraud in history. There would be no reason for the Democrats to hold back, since Trump conceded by giving his word.

    We are going to have a number of contested elections in the next 20 years. There are two main reasons for this, related to institutional power:

    (1) The Federal government is enormous, and consumes ever-greater quantities of the nation's resources, well beyond its tax receipts. This funds dependence and graft on a large scale, and strongly favors the candidate who won't shut off the spigot.

    (2) The Supreme Court is now a fully political, weaponized, co-equal branch of government that operates as a (supposedly) learned oligarchy to make sure the federal, state, county and municipal governments do what they -- the 9 unelected, lifetime-tenured robed oligarchs -- say. It is an institution with enormous unchecked power, save the near-impossible Amendment process. The court's current application of judicial review is unrestrained, completely beyond the bounds of the Founding Fathers' vision. It is so far outside the scope of Article III that it is unrecognizable when compared to the text... which is what lawyers and judges are supposed to be expert at. The Justices hold themselves as oracles, telling us what we should, ought, must believe instead of ruling on matters of law. The president nominates replacement justices, which is an awesome degree of power. The Senate has taken a stronger stance on approval, which is the only check in place. When you really think about it, the Supreme Court can do whatever it wants. And it does... totally out of scope, unaccountable and without boundaries.

    The tenor, collegiality and collaborative nature of American politics collapsed with the Robert Bork nomination. The Supreme Court is everything to Democrats, because it is the most reliable means to further their agenda, and the single most powerful institution they can control. It is un-democratic and un-republican.

    This is why there is so much money, power and vitriol. There's too much at stake. Hillary doesn't think of the good of the nation. Hillary acts on what's best for Hillary. Think about what a constitutionally-limited federal republic (which is what the USA is) with a federal government limited to clear, enumerated powers means for the Democrat Party: oblivion.

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  15. What is actually frightening to consider is what happens if the election is contested and goes to the Supreme Court again and the vote is 4-4?

    What then?

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  16. The legitimacy of the Feds including the Supreme Council of Elders could be thrown into turmoil by the first governor who emphatically says no. Open defiance on the state level is desperately needed.

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  17. Anonymous27/10/16

    "...what happens if the election is contested and goes to the Supreme Court again and the vote is 4-4? "

    Then, the decision of the lower court stands. What lower court that is depends on where the challenge is made.

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  18. DD Mao27/10/16

    Trump promised to put blue states New York and California in to play during the election. What we got was him putting RED STATES Texas, Utah and ARIZONA in to play for the Democrats.



    Vote Constitution party 2016

    ReplyDelete

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