Just weeks before the 2016 election, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and many of her corporate news media allies were attacking Donald Trump for his refusal to say whether he would accept the results of the 2016 presidential election.
Now Clinton has come out this week with an article in The Atlantic and tweets questioning the legitimacy of the 2016 election, questioning that she previously said was “threatening our democracy.”
In her article in The Atlantic published this past Sunday claiming “American democracy is in crisis,” her claim is that there are questions about the legitimacy of our elections:
Second, the legitimacy of our elections is in doubt.
There’s Russia’s ongoing interference and Trump’s complete unwillingness to stop it or protect us. There’s voter suppression, as Republicans put onerous—and I believe illegal—requirements in place to stop people from voting. There’s gerrymandering, with partisans—these days, principally Republicans—drawing the lines for voting districts to ensure that their party nearly always wins. All of this carries us further away from the sacred principle of “one person, one vote.”
Leave aside that voting requirements have been repeatedly examined by federal courts in many states, and that gerrymandering is hardly exclusive to Republicans, the fact is that Clinton slammed Trump in October 2016 for throwing doubt upon our elections.
Just yesterday she raised the issue of the legitimacy of our elections on Twitter:
Donald Trump refuses to be subject to the law. The legitimacy of our elections is in doubt. The president is waging war on the truth. The administration is undermining the national unity that makes democracy possible. And then there's the breathtaking corruption.
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) September 18, 2018
This is in stark contrast to her pre-election statements two years ago:
Donald Trump refused to say that he’d respect the results of this election. By doing that, he’s threatening our democracy.
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) October 21, 2016
She even invoked President Obama on the matter:
"When you try to sow the seeds of doubt in people's minds about the legitimacy of our elections—then that undermines our democracy." —@POTUS
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) October 20, 2016
As I noted last year here at PJ Media, Hillary Clinton has been a shameless hypocrite when it comes to questioning the legitimacy of our elections.
So what changed? Well, for one, she lost against all media and polling expectations — the “sore loser” effect.
Then she seized upon a media-driven narrative that she had lost because of election interference by the Russians in support of Trump.
She was pushing that narrative just last night during her appearance of MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show:
JUST IN: Hillary Clinton to @maddow: "I think I was an obstacle to [Russia's] plans to undermine and disrupt our democracy. I think I was an obstacle to impose greater authoritarian control in Russia … I think they wanted to get me out of the way." pic.twitter.com/pkPQfnoQ7V
— MSNBC (@MSNBC) September 19, 2018
The reality, however, is that the claimed Russian influence on the 2016 election was minuscule at best.
Among the items cited by those clinging to this conspiracy theory is that Russian fronts ran Facebook ads during the election.
The Russian troll farm that bought $100,000 worth of Facebook ads could have reached millions of American voters https://t.co/djBN7Iftr1 pic.twitter.com/vm8mKNnC4k
— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) September 8, 2017
But the $100,000 spent on approximately 3,000 Russian Facebook ads isn’t even a rounding error compared to the $2.7 billion spent on the 2016 election, and there’s no evidence that these ads had any effect influencing voters in swing states.
A review of the ads also found that at times they were at cross-purposes with each other, and appeared to be intended to sow division and not favor any one candidate.
Last September, Facebook published a statement on the ads, stating:
- The vast majority of ads run by these accounts didn’t specifically reference the US presidential election, voting or a particular candidate.
- Rather, the ads and accounts appeared to focus on amplifying divisive social and political messages across the ideological spectrum — touching on topics from LGBT matters to race issues to immigration to gun rights.
In fact, as the Washington Post reported, some of those Russian Facebook ads aimed to bolster support for Hillary Clinton with Muslim women, along with other “liberal” causes and groups, including Black Lives Matter.
Other ads promoted a pro-Beyonce rally.
Also, at the time of the 2016 elections, the president was none other than Barack Obama, whose administration she had served in.
If anyone was responsible for combating Russian interference in that election, it was the Obama administration.
But it appears no one really cared until Hillary Clinton lost the election.
Obama White House Knew of Russian Election Hacking, but Delayed Telling https://t.co/qDMNMGNEta
— Adam Goldman (@adamgoldmanNYT) June 22, 2017
In fact, the Obama administration took no action against the Putin regime until the last days of his presidency.
Obama’s Secretary of State John Kerry later defended their administration’s inaction and admitted that sanctions were only put in place after the election.
The Trump administration sanctioned 16 Russian entities and individuals in March 2018 for their interference in the 2016 election and has touted their efforts to secure future elections, including $380 million in grants to secure state electoral systems.
Hillary Clinton gave a speech in October 2016 at St. Anselm College, where she said that Trump’s refusal to say he would respect the results of the election were “truly horrifying” and “a direct threat to our democracy.”
Now Hillary Clinton has repeatedly shown that she has become the very threat to democracy she previously warned us all about.
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