Let's begin with two highly relevant flashbacks to late 2016, when then-candidate Donald Trump (indefensibly) declined to firmly commit to conceding defeat in the event that he lost the presidential election -- which, of course, he did not. In the third and final general election debate, Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton expressed her horror at Trump's "really troubling" evasions on this point, earning plaudits for her supposedly principled high dudgeon:
"Let me respond to that because that's horrifying."
Many Democrats and media figures echoed Clinton's condemnation -- which I agreed with on the merits --including a certain state legislator from Georgia:
Trump's refusal to concede the election if he loses proves he is a petty man uninterested in our national stability https://t.co/V1alhxLKmn
— Stacey Abrams (@staceyabrams) October 20, 2016
Fast forward to the present day, and Hillary Clinton is still spreading conspiracy theories about a "stolen" election:
In response to a question about 2020 from @TedDanson, @HillaryClinton just said that “you can run the best campaign,” and “still have the election stolen from you.” #BillandHill pic.twitter.com/T5Unen8Kx6
— Michael Soneff (@Soneff) May 5, 2019
The 2016 election wasn't taken away from her by cheating, James Comey, the Russians, or anyone else. She was a lousy, dishonest, disliked candidate who took a win for granted -- choosing not to seriously campaign (or campaign at all) in some crucial states. Mrs. Clinton had previously blamed insidious voter suppression for her loss in Wisconsin, earning herself a bruising round of fact checks, even from left-leaning Politifact:
In a March 3, 2019 speech shown by national news outlets, including C-Span, Clinton claimed tens of thousands of people in Wisconsin were "turned away" from the polls because of their skin color or other factors...Clinton said because a key provision of the Voting Rights Act was not in effect, "somewhere between 40,000 and 80,000 people were turned away from the polls (in Wisconsin) because of the color of their skin" and other factors. She is wrong about the impact of the Voting Rights Act not being in effect. The provision in question never applied to Wisconsin. She also has problems with the numbers on both ends of her range. What’s more, the claim -- and others like it -- put all of the blame for people not voting on the state’s photo ID law. That ignores other factors, such as a lack of enthusiasm from voters, or the belief -- one apparently shared by candidate Clinton -- that the state was a safe one for her in 2016. We rate the claim Pants on Fire.
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Meanwhile, Stacey Abrams, who lost her 2018 gubernatorial election, is still shamefully refusing to concede the race:
.@staceyabrams giving defiant speech to @AnniesListTX, saying she won't be a "good sport" & go away quietly after election in which she was wronged. "We don't have to concede elections anymore, b/c when we concede, we are condoning systems that are used to oppress us," she says.
— Patrick Svitek (@PatrickSvitek) May 3, 2019
This is tinfoil-hat, norms-eroding sore-loserism. And this is the same race-obsessed crank Democrats rewarded with the party's State of the Union response a few months ago. She continues to embarrass herself, claiming to have been wronged by a system of 'oppression,' or whatever. This is a myth. The truth is that she lost, fair and square, under the rules. And it wasn't even that close. Also, she's contradicted her own baseless grievances by simultaneously boasting of her record support and turnout among key demographic groups and grousing about "suppression." One might say that her fact-free and incoherent fear-mongering only proves that she's a petty woman uninterested in our national stability. Perhaps Nancy should have a little chat with Stacey and Hillary about hypocrisy?
In recent weeks Pelosi has told associates she doesn’t automatically trust POTUS to respect results of any election short of overwhelming defeat. That view is one of the reasons she says it’s imperative not to play into his hands, especially on impeachment https://t.co/z1bv9Z9J9w
— Yashar Ali ?? (@yashar) May 4, 2019
I'll leave you with a portion of this excellent Wall Street Journal editorial entitled, "The Voter Suppression Myth:"
Democrats accuse Republicans of suppressing the minority vote with laws to ensure ballot integrity. But then how do they explain record minority turnout last November? If Republicans were trying to stop minorities from voting, their schemes were inept. The number of Latino voters nearly doubled in last year’s midterms compared to 2014 and came close to presidential year levels, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of new Census Bureau data. The share of blacks who voted climbed 10.8 percentage points to 51.4%, which was similar to the increase in white turnout (11.7 points)...About 1.4 million voters were removed [as required by law] from Georgia’s rolls after 2012. Yet black voter registration increased to 68.4% last year from 62.3% in 2014. White voter registration increased by a mere 0.7 percentage points to 66.8%. Pruning the rolls also didn’t reduce black turnout. Nearly 60% of blacks voted last fall—up from 43% in 2014—compared to 56% of whites...There’s also no evidence that voter ID requirements suppressed minority turnout. After the 2016 election, Missouri and Iowa adopted such laws to prevent voter fraud. Black turnout increased in both including by a stunning 21 percentage points in Iowa. Democrats howl about voter suppression to portray Republicans as racist to stoke minority turnout for Democrats. It’s a divisive form of politics.
Bookmark these statistics to retrieve when this narrative is inevitably resurrected by the Left. On the other hand, Republicans should be careful not to feed into it by erecting legally-dubious regimes that are arguably tantamount to targeted poll taxes.
UPDATE - Kamala Harris got in on the act, too:
.@KamalaHarris in her keynote speech at the NAACP convention: "Let's say this loud and clear: without voter suppression, Stacey Abrams would be the governor of Georgia, Andrew Gillum is the governor of Florida."
— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) May 6, 2019
Turnout was up, not down, in both states in 2018.
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