A crucial value in a democratic system of government is the acceptance of defeat under the rules of the system. Elections are held, and the winners are legitimately entitled to exercise the powers of their offices. Losers need not lose with grace or even dignity; they certainly need not treat a single defeat as final when there is always another election to come. But it threatens the survival of the system when people in positions of authority tell the voters that elections are rigged and their outcomes are illegitimate. These are extraordinary charges that demand extraordinary evidence, which is typically not provided. That way lies political violence and the rule of rioters, mobs, and coups.
Prominent Democrats have been campaigning against the legitimacy of our elections since the aftermath of the 2000 election. In the 2016 campaign, Donald Trump attacked the legitimacy of the Republican contests after losing Iowa and Colorado to Ted Cruz, and signaled that he would attack the legitimacy of the general election if he lost it to Hillary Clinton. But only when Trump denied the validity of his 2020 loss, and it led to a riot at the Capitol, did our media and public discourse acknowledge how damaging this sort of thing can be.
Comments