The Democratic Party’s unofficial campaign to cast Republican-won elections as illegitimate is in full swing.
Two-time failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, for example, suggested this weekend that she would be in the White House now were it not for the “fact” that the 2016 election was stolen from her.
“You can run the best campaign, you can even become the nominee, and you can have the election stolen from you,” she said Saturday evening.
What she’s been telling candidates who went to her: “You can run the best campaign, you can even become the nominee, and you can have the election stolen from you.” #BillAndHill pic.twitter.com/gx5az4z0uf
— Teleute (@bigfootmeds) May 5, 2019
A brief aside: Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign most decidedly was not “the best.” She ignored entire voting blocs, including white and working-class voters, in favor of “the model” touted by her 36-year-old campaign manager. Such was the Clinton campaign’s faith in “the model” that she did not bother to court the Rust Belt. She never once set foot in Wisconsin during the general election.
Clinton had no discernible campaign message aside from “I am not Trump.” She did not even have a decent campaign slogan. The one she started with (“I’m with her”) was commandeered and given an exceptional makeover by Trump, forcing her team to think of a newer, even weaker and less memorable rallying cry (“Stronger together”). The suggestion that Clinton ran some sort of clean, competent, and professional campaign is laughable on its face.
But back to the Democratic campaign to undermine duly elected Republican officials by casting their electoral victories as illegitimate. As far as this strategy, which is an obvious, party-wide effort, is concerned, Clinton is hardly alone. Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., also claimed this weekend that Republicans stole gubernatorial elections last year in Florida and Georgia.
“Let’s say this loud and clear: Without voter suppression, [failed Democratic gubernatorial candidate] Stacey Abrams would the governor of Georgia. [Failed Democratic gubernatorial] Andrew Gillum is the governor of Florida,” the senator and 2020 presidential candidate said at the NAACP’s 64th annual Fight for Freedom Fund Dinner in Detroit. “So, the truth is we need a new voting rights act.”
“We need to fight back against Republicans who suppress our constitutional right to vote,” Harris added.
These remarks closely mirror public statements from both Gillum and Abrams, who maintain, without evidence, that they would be governors right now were it not for the Republican Party’s election-stealing shenanigans. Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp defeated Abrams by nearly 54,723 votes, while Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis defeated Gillum by 32,463.
There is also Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., who claimed in April, without any good evidence, that “massive voter suppression prevented Stacey Abrams from becoming the rightful governor of Georgia.”
Warren, who is also running for president, added of the Republican Party that they “know that a durable majority of Americans believe in the promise of America, and they know that if all the votes are counted, we’ll win every time.”
There is more than enough data to draw a trend line. Democrats are trying to mainstream the notion that GOP victories are by default illegitimate, the goal being to weaken and undermine elected Republican officials. I understand the drive to kneecap one’s political opponent, but this is weakening voters’ trust in free and fair elections. It is an extremely dangerous game, and Democrats at least pretended to understand that in 2016 when then-GOP nominee Donald Trump flirted with the idea of not honoring the election results. Now, the shoe is on the other foot.
[Also read: Pelosi worries Trump might try to hold on to power if he loses by a close margin in 2020]
