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> Already in 2016, there were Democrats who claimed that the election wasn't fair (and therefore wasn't valid). Those Dems were very few and far between. Hilla

> Already in 2016, there were Democrats who claimed that the election wasn't fair (and therefore wasn't valid). Those Dems were very few and far between. Hillary Clinton conceded the morning after the polls closed, and pretty much all Dems at least paid lip service to wishing Trump well in his new office.

skissane 3y ago
> Those Dems were very few and far between. Hillary Clinton conceded the morning after the polls closed, and pretty much all Dems at least paid lip service to wishing Trump well in his new office. According to [0]: > Trump’s mendacity is arguably the Second Big Lie. Four years earlier, the Hillary Clinton campaign and leading Democrats refused to acknowledge the outcome of the 2016 election, by claiming Donald Trump was not a legitimate president. These actions, while certainly not as dramatic or as immediately damaging as the events leading to Jan. 6 (and today), helped bring us to our current situation. > “He lost the election and he was put into office because the Russians interfered on his behalf,” ex-President Jimmy Carter said in 2019, continuing to deny Trump’s victory three years after the election. > “He knows he’s an illegitimate president,” said Clinton, also three years later. She repeated this sentiment in 2020, telling The Atlantic the election “was not on the level,” and again when she called Trump’s win illegitimate. She piled on to this by saying, “You can run the best campaign, you can even become the nominee, and you can have the election stolen from you,” clearly referring to how she saw her 2016 campaign. That's an opinion piece, but it isn't making up these quotes from Carter and Clinton (and it goes on to reference remarks in similar spirit by Jerry Lewis, Nancy Pelosi, Adam Schiff, Dianne Feinstein, Bernie Sanders, Chuck Schumer, among others.) [0] https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/trumps-denial-second-big-lie-ask-hillary-clinton-rcna55764 https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/trumps-denial-second-b...
- dctoedt 3y ago
  That was years later, after more details of Russian interference had become public. The salient point is that Hillary conceded the election within hours after the polls closed — and Obama (the then-incumbent) didn't try to sabotage the Electoral College's vote to keep Trump from taking office.
  - skissane 3y ago
    Yes, everyone acknowledges there is a huge difference in how Clinton reacted in the immediate aftermath of her election loss, compared to how Trump behaved in the same situation. The opinion piece I linked argues that Democrats pushing the "2016 election was stolen" narrative provided normalization and encouragement for Republicans to push a similar narrative in 2020 - even though the actions taken in response to that narrative were very different. In turn, I think the 2020 Republican claims have been encouraging pre-emptive 2024 Democratic claims - see below examples - and if Democrats lose in 2024, they've already got these pre-planned narratives at hand to invoke https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-push-steal-2024-election-takeaways-1234921974/ https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-pu... https://edition.cnn.com/2022/04/27/opinions/gop-blueprint-to-steal-the-2024-election-luttig/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2022/04/27/opinions/gop-blueprint-to... https://progressive.org/op-eds/gop-plan-steal-2024-election-benbow-220210/ https://progressive.org/op-eds/gop-plan-steal-2024-election-... https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/07/democracy-could-die-2024/619390/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/07/democracy-...
  - rayiner 3y ago
    I don't think that’s the only salient point. The point being made above is about escalation. If we are talking about eroding our norms, the whole course of conduct matters. Clinton conceded, but spent years calling Trump illegitimate and spreading falsehoods about Russian interference. At one point, half of democrats believed Russia manipulated vote tallies: https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/trumps-denial-second-big-lie-ask-hillary-clinton-rcna55764 https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/trumps-denial-second-b... (“a 2016 Economist/YouGov poll found that half of Clinton voters thought a foreign power tampered with voting results”). So what’s the next step in the escalation after that? The stuff about “sabotaging the electoral college’s vote” is an escalation of what Gore did in 2000–pushing the law to its limit to win the case. What’s the next step after that? If it’s okay to request partial hand recounts only in counties you won (to unfairly get more votes), because it’s technically legal, why is it impermissible to lobby the state legislator to select alternate electors? (Which is technically constitutional.) Why shouldn’t we do it first, before you do?

skissane 3y ago

> Those Dems were very few and far between. Hillary Clinton conceded the morning after the polls closed, and pretty much all Dems at least paid lip service to wishing Trump well in his new office. According to [0]: > Trump’s mendacity is arguably the Second Big Lie. Four years earlier, the Hillary Clinton campaign and leading Democrats refused to acknowledge the outcome of the 2016 election, by claiming Donald Trump was not a legitimate president. These actions, while certainly not as dramatic or as immediately damaging as the events leading to Jan. 6 (and today), helped bring us to our current situation. > “He lost the election and he was put into office because the Russians interfered on his behalf,” ex-President Jimmy Carter said in 2019, continuing to deny Trump’s victory three years after the election. > “He knows he’s an illegitimate president,” said Clinton, also three years later. She repeated this sentiment in 2020, telling The Atlantic the election “was not on the level,” and again when she called Trump’s win illegitimate. She piled on to this by saying, “You can run the best campaign, you can even become the nominee, and you can have the election stolen from you,” clearly referring to how she saw her 2016 campaign. That's an opinion piece, but it isn't making up these quotes from Carter and Clinton (and it goes on to reference remarks in similar spirit by Jerry Lewis, Nancy Pelosi, Adam Schiff, Dianne Feinstein, Bernie Sanders, Chuck Schumer, among others.) [0] https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/trumps-denial-second-big-lie-ask-hillary-clinton-rcna55764 https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/trumps-denial-second-b...

dctoedt 3y ago
That was years later, after more details of Russian interference had become public. The salient point is that Hillary conceded the election within hours after the polls closed — and Obama (the then-incumbent) didn't try to sabotage the Electoral College's vote to keep Trump from taking office.
- skissane 3y ago
  Yes, everyone acknowledges there is a huge difference in how Clinton reacted in the immediate aftermath of her election loss, compared to how Trump behaved in the same situation. The opinion piece I linked argues that Democrats pushing the "2016 election was stolen" narrative provided normalization and encouragement for Republicans to push a similar narrative in 2020 - even though the actions taken in response to that narrative were very different. In turn, I think the 2020 Republican claims have been encouraging pre-emptive 2024 Democratic claims - see below examples - and if Democrats lose in 2024, they've already got these pre-planned narratives at hand to invoke https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-push-steal-2024-election-takeaways-1234921974/ https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-pu... https://edition.cnn.com/2022/04/27/opinions/gop-blueprint-to-steal-the-2024-election-luttig/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2022/04/27/opinions/gop-blueprint-to... https://progressive.org/op-eds/gop-plan-steal-2024-election-benbow-220210/ https://progressive.org/op-eds/gop-plan-steal-2024-election-... https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/07/democracy-could-die-2024/619390/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/07/democracy-...
- rayiner 3y ago
  I don't think that’s the only salient point. The point being made above is about escalation. If we are talking about eroding our norms, the whole course of conduct matters. Clinton conceded, but spent years calling Trump illegitimate and spreading falsehoods about Russian interference. At one point, half of democrats believed Russia manipulated vote tallies: https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/trumps-denial-second-big-lie-ask-hillary-clinton-rcna55764 https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/trumps-denial-second-b... (“a 2016 Economist/YouGov poll found that half of Clinton voters thought a foreign power tampered with voting results”). So what’s the next step in the escalation after that? The stuff about “sabotaging the electoral college’s vote” is an escalation of what Gore did in 2000–pushing the law to its limit to win the case. What’s the next step after that? If it’s okay to request partial hand recounts only in counties you won (to unfairly get more votes), because it’s technically legal, why is it impermissible to lobby the state legislator to select alternate electors? (Which is technically constitutional.) Why shouldn’t we do it first, before you do?