All I know is that after the 2000 election, the papers got together and chased down every possible scenario, trying to figure out some way that a Florida recount might have gone the other way. To their credit, they eventually said "no, under any considered scenario, Bush the younger would've won Florida". Where was this level of scrutiny in PA in 2020?
To all appearances, more votes were counted than there were voters who voted. It's a serious issue that should've been figured out and more safeguards put in place, but it hasn't, and the national media is seemingly fine with it. Was the election legit? We don't know, and that's a problem.
Trump dropped the ball with the stolen election narrative and the January 6th debacle. Generally the media treats Republicans who lost an election and bow out gracefully with some degree of respect. Trump could have shown everyone how wrong they were about him and how he was treated unfairly by losing with dignity. He could have gained support and would be in much better position to beat Biden in a rematch.
Instead he gave his opposition the ability to all say they were right about him all along and that he was truly dangerous. His supporters had always been peaceful and even polite during the Trump rallies, to the chagrin of the media. Along comes January 6th and, again, the media can say they were right and his supporters were all dangerous crazies.
I dont really agree that legitimate means what you say it means, at least to the voters questioned. I think they use it in the sense that they claim Biden is not a legitimate president. The Democrats did the same thing of course with Bush and then with Trump. Gore may have conceded after his court challenge failed but Democrats were only stopped in their campaign to declare Bush illegiti.ate by 9/11. They never really stopped with Trump claiming his loss of the popular vote made him illegitimate. So I think most Americans on all dides
sides have in a sense come to equate "illegitimate" with stolen. I think if the question were "Do you think there were irregularities in the election including fraud, voters suppression etc." Most Americans would say yes.
By your standard every single election between 1868 and at least 1968 was entirely illegitimate since southern blacks were entirely denied the right to vote. Unless the irregularities changed the result I wouldn't use the term illegitimate and I don't think it's a reasonable position to take.
Thanks for the comment, Doug. I have two responses.
First, we can speculate all we want about how the voters interrogated by the pollsters would have answered the question "was the election stolen?" But neither of us knows because that's not what they were asked. For that reason, Dan Balz shouldn't have said that two-thirds of the voters sided with Trump's claim that the election was stolen. This was the point of my post.
Second, it's not true that, by my standard, every election between 1868 and at least 1968 was "entirely illegitimate" -- or even that it's reasonable to characterize every such election as illegitimate (and by the way, southern blacks were not "entirely denied the right to vote" throughout this period, although my response to you does not depend on this fact).
The southern vote was irrelevant to the outcome of some presidential elections either because the GOP candidate won without southern electoral votes or because the Democratic candidate didn't need southern electoral votes to win.
However, it is reasonable to deny the legitimacy of the outcome in any particular state where blacks were largely disenfranchised. What would be unreasonable about this denial?
As a test case, and for fun, let's consider the highly disputed election of 1876. Had the Democrat, Samuel Tilden, been declared the winner (as he nearly was) based on capturing any of the southern states in dispute that year -- South Carolina, Florida, and Louisiana -- it would have been reasonable, at a minimum, to question the legitimacy of Tilden's victory. The evidence of fraud and intimidation of blacks who wanted to vote was overwhelming in these states, and the margin of Tilden's "victories" was small. In South Carolina, as I understand it, 101 percent of all eligible voters had their alleged votes counted and 150 black Republicans were said to have been murdered during the campaign.
I would say, flat out, that the result reported from South Carolina in Tilden's favor was illegitimate. And if it had held up, Tilden's election would have been illegitimate because winning South Carolina would have put him over the top.
But many presidential elections between 1868 and 1968 are not susceptible to this kind of critique.
Your critique is fair. Let me modify to say that any election in which the Democratic victory came down to the votes of southern states where blacks were almost entirely disenfranchised would be illegitimate. I'm not sure which would apply but a guess would be Cleveland and Wilson. Truman likely would have received Southern black votes in 48.
Good distinction. I think the election was illegitimate but not fraudulent. In many cases the courts or election officials played fast and loose with election statutes, which makes for illegitimate votes under both state and federal law, for the Constitution requires state and local officials to follow state election statutes. And then there was the hide the ball on the Hunter laptop. Joe Biden lied through his teeth on that, the FBI stayed silent even though it had determined the laptop was legitimate, social media hid the New York Post article on the laptop, and 51 intelligence and security experts, prompted by the Biden campaign, gave their opinions the laptop was Russian interference. Post-election polls showed Trump would have won if the public had had the straight skinny on the laptop. Jim Dueholm
All I know is that after the 2000 election, the papers got together and chased down every possible scenario, trying to figure out some way that a Florida recount might have gone the other way. To their credit, they eventually said "no, under any considered scenario, Bush the younger would've won Florida". Where was this level of scrutiny in PA in 2020?
To all appearances, more votes were counted than there were voters who voted. It's a serious issue that should've been figured out and more safeguards put in place, but it hasn't, and the national media is seemingly fine with it. Was the election legit? We don't know, and that's a problem.
Have you watched “2000 Mules” ?
“There is nothing to fear except the persistent refusal to find out the truth.”
Dorothy Thompson
Trump dropped the ball with the stolen election narrative and the January 6th debacle. Generally the media treats Republicans who lost an election and bow out gracefully with some degree of respect. Trump could have shown everyone how wrong they were about him and how he was treated unfairly by losing with dignity. He could have gained support and would be in much better position to beat Biden in a rematch.
Instead he gave his opposition the ability to all say they were right about him all along and that he was truly dangerous. His supporters had always been peaceful and even polite during the Trump rallies, to the chagrin of the media. Along comes January 6th and, again, the media can say they were right and his supporters were all dangerous crazies.
I dont really agree that legitimate means what you say it means, at least to the voters questioned. I think they use it in the sense that they claim Biden is not a legitimate president. The Democrats did the same thing of course with Bush and then with Trump. Gore may have conceded after his court challenge failed but Democrats were only stopped in their campaign to declare Bush illegiti.ate by 9/11. They never really stopped with Trump claiming his loss of the popular vote made him illegitimate. So I think most Americans on all dides
sides have in a sense come to equate "illegitimate" with stolen. I think if the question were "Do you think there were irregularities in the election including fraud, voters suppression etc." Most Americans would say yes.
By your standard every single election between 1868 and at least 1968 was entirely illegitimate since southern blacks were entirely denied the right to vote. Unless the irregularities changed the result I wouldn't use the term illegitimate and I don't think it's a reasonable position to take.
Thanks for the comment, Doug. I have two responses.
First, we can speculate all we want about how the voters interrogated by the pollsters would have answered the question "was the election stolen?" But neither of us knows because that's not what they were asked. For that reason, Dan Balz shouldn't have said that two-thirds of the voters sided with Trump's claim that the election was stolen. This was the point of my post.
Second, it's not true that, by my standard, every election between 1868 and at least 1968 was "entirely illegitimate" -- or even that it's reasonable to characterize every such election as illegitimate (and by the way, southern blacks were not "entirely denied the right to vote" throughout this period, although my response to you does not depend on this fact).
The southern vote was irrelevant to the outcome of some presidential elections either because the GOP candidate won without southern electoral votes or because the Democratic candidate didn't need southern electoral votes to win.
However, it is reasonable to deny the legitimacy of the outcome in any particular state where blacks were largely disenfranchised. What would be unreasonable about this denial?
As a test case, and for fun, let's consider the highly disputed election of 1876. Had the Democrat, Samuel Tilden, been declared the winner (as he nearly was) based on capturing any of the southern states in dispute that year -- South Carolina, Florida, and Louisiana -- it would have been reasonable, at a minimum, to question the legitimacy of Tilden's victory. The evidence of fraud and intimidation of blacks who wanted to vote was overwhelming in these states, and the margin of Tilden's "victories" was small. In South Carolina, as I understand it, 101 percent of all eligible voters had their alleged votes counted and 150 black Republicans were said to have been murdered during the campaign.
I would say, flat out, that the result reported from South Carolina in Tilden's favor was illegitimate. And if it had held up, Tilden's election would have been illegitimate because winning South Carolina would have put him over the top.
But many presidential elections between 1868 and 1968 are not susceptible to this kind of critique.
Your critique is fair. Let me modify to say that any election in which the Democratic victory came down to the votes of southern states where blacks were almost entirely disenfranchised would be illegitimate. I'm not sure which would apply but a guess would be Cleveland and Wilson. Truman likely would have received Southern black votes in 48.
Good distinction. I think the election was illegitimate but not fraudulent. In many cases the courts or election officials played fast and loose with election statutes, which makes for illegitimate votes under both state and federal law, for the Constitution requires state and local officials to follow state election statutes. And then there was the hide the ball on the Hunter laptop. Joe Biden lied through his teeth on that, the FBI stayed silent even though it had determined the laptop was legitimate, social media hid the New York Post article on the laptop, and 51 intelligence and security experts, prompted by the Biden campaign, gave their opinions the laptop was Russian interference. Post-election polls showed Trump would have won if the public had had the straight skinny on the laptop. Jim Dueholm