Implicit in all the panicked media coverage over scenarios in which we don’t know who won the presidency on election night is that President Trump is set to make a bunch of wild claims disputing the results unless he wins.
Thomas Edsall of the New York Times is not the first, but the latest to fantasize about these hypotheticals, listing several different possible situations wherein Trump would dispute the results, “provoking anger and frustration.”
Edsall apparently saw no outcome wherein Democrats reject the election outcome, even though many of them have suggested they’re ready to do just that, but that’s okay.
The whole exercise is pretty stupid when you consider that plenty of past elections have been disputed and resolved, even when Democrats such as Stacey Abrams refuse to concede. (Even when Democrats like Hillary Clinton maintain that the election wasn’t fair.)
True, we haven’t had a modern sitting president contest a losing bid for reelection, but there’s a first time for everything. However, we have ways of addressing those legal claims. It’s called the judicial system.
And we have a fairly recent example of that being the appropriate avenue of choice for contesting an election.
It was Democrat Al Gore who, in 2000, asked that the courts get involved in resolving a dispute over votes counted in Florida. He ended up losing, but hey, you can’t win ’em all.
There’s no reason why this election, should there be any dispute, wouldn’t go the same route. There could be recounts. There could be legal battles. There could even be a controversial Supreme Court decision. It happens. We move on.
Democrats have contested elections before, and it was fine. If Trump does it, we’ll be fine.
