Once upon a time, Hillary Clinton thought the prospect of a presidential candidate declining to pledge to absolutely accept the sanctity of certified election results was "horrifying." She said so in a general election debate in order to attack Donald Trump -- who, at the time, was (recklessly) leaving the door open to challenge the outcome of an election most people expected him to lose. Chief among these people was Hillary Clinton. That's why she excoriated his dodging and noncommittal answers on the question as dangerous to American democracy. Watch:
[Clinton] said she found “horrifying” the intimation he would not accept the will of the people on Nov. 8...In a striking breach of the country’s long-standing tradition, he twice declined when pressed to say whether he would accept the outcome of the election. "I will look at it at the time," Trump said. "I’ll keep you in suspense.” There was a gasp from the audience inside the debate hall. "That is not the way our democracy works," Clinton said. "He is denigrating, he is talking down our democracy. And I for one am appalled that somebody who is the nominee of one of our two major parties would take that kind of a position.”
Times have changed. In a new interview with left-wing magazine Mother Jones, Clinton refuses to concede that the election she lost had been legitimate. Horrifying?
Exclusive: @hillaryclinton tells me “there are lots of questions” about legitimacy of Trump's election because of Russian interference & GOP voter suppression https://t.co/lRxBuNgMNg
— Ari Berman (@AriBerman) November 17, 2017
"Do you think it was a LEGITIMATE election?" Clinton: "I think there are lots of questions about its legitimacy, and we don't have a method for contesting that in our system. That's why I've long advocated for an independent commission to get to the bottom of what happened." https://t.co/XAEsK2V2wc
— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) November 17, 2017
By "voter suppression," Clinton is referring in large measure to constitutional and widely popular voter ID laws. This is a ridiculous reason to question the legitimacy of an election. In fact, verifying that more voters are who they said they are actually augments the legitimacy of an election. But her primary argument here is "Russia!" -- whose attempted interference in the election is being investigated from all angles, as it should be. But there is not a shred of evidence that a single vote tally was changed by the Russians, despite debunked conspiracy theories believed by most Democrats. This is a succinct and comprehensive smack-down of Mrs. Clinton's "appalling" efforts at "talking down our democracy" by a fellow at the left-leaning Brookings Institute:
There is zero evidence, anywhere, that Trump was elected president for any reason other than the sufficient number of Americans in the right localities actually voted for him. That's a legitimate election. Period. https://t.co/fe9r5ZE5Ki
— Susan Hennessey (@Susan_Hennessey) November 17, 2017
She delivered additional reality checks for liberals who were "upset" by her statement of fact:
Part of the reason we were so susceptible to unchallenged interference in 2016 was one candidate repeatedly called elections "rigged" and threatened to not concede. Don't play that game now.
— Susan Hennessey (@Susan_Hennessey) November 17, 2017
I'll leave you with this:
Donald Trump refused to say that he’d respect the results of this election.
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) October 24, 2016
That’s a direct threat to our democracy.