Every few days Democrats will trot out the tiresome charge that Donald Trump won’t leave office no matter what the result of the election.
Trump fans the flames of this charge by refusing to rule out a challenge if it’s close. What kind of an idiot would promise to leave office under circumstances that America is facing in 2020?
Joe Biden hasn’t promised to leave either. He was even encouraged by 2016 Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton to “never concede” the election.
Hillary Clinton has some advice for Joe Biden: If it is a close race on election night, do “not concede under any circumstances.”
In a clip from an interview with her former campaign staffer Jennifer Palmieri on Showtime’s docu-series “The Circus,” the failed 2016 presidential candidate was asked what she thought President Trump and the Republican Party would do if Biden triumphed in November.
Clinton outlined exactly the strategy that Republicans will use in a close election. It sounds a helluva lot like the Democrats’ strategy.
Clinton speculated the GOP would try “messing up absentee balloting” and would launch lengthy legal battles with an army of lawyers to contest the result. The Trump campaign has already begun suing states like New Jersey over their mail-in ballot plans.
“We’ve got to have a massive legal operation, and I know the Biden campaign is working on that,” Clinton says — predicting a bitter and messy election and urging fellow Democrats to not give “an inch.”
When Republicans do it — bad. When Democrats do it — good.
It sounds like Hillary is urging Biden not to give up. This is what Bernie Sanders is predicting Trump will do — except when Trump does it, it’s dirty politics.
“This is not just idle speculation,” said Sanders, pointing to comments the president made at the GOP convention. “Trump was saying that the only way he could lose the election is if there was — let me get the exact quote — ‘the only way they can take this election away from us is if this is a rigged election.’ Now he is making that statement at a time when virtually every national poll has him behind.”
The Vermont senator said Trump also signaled the possibility of refusing to concede after defeat in a July interview with FOX News’ Chris Wallace, in which he was asked whether he would accept the election results. Trump said, “I have to see. Look, you — I have to see. No, I’m not going to just say yes. I’m not going to say no, and I didn’t last time, either.
Has anyone asked Joe Biden if he will “accept” the election results? Of course not. Biden will not concede anything until every mail-in ballot is counted — at least once. If past is prologue, they will keep “finding” ballots that had been “mislaid” by some unfortunate registrar. They will “find” these ballots until Biden is declared the winner.
Why should Trump concede under those circumstances, when Biden won’t either?
What Democrats are doing is sowing the seeds of doubt if the election result shows Trump winning. Trump is doing the same thing. It’s how the game is played and Democrats better stop playing “holier than thou” or we’re going to have a crisis the likes of which the U.S. has rarely seen.
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