The moment he said it, Trump’s camp knew he was in trouble. When directly asked if he would accept the conclusion of the election were he to lose, he refused to simply say yes. Instead, he said, “I will tell you at the time. I’ll keep you in suspense.”
And the country lost its mind. The lead on our local paper the next day wasn’t about the hundreds of other things said by the two candidates…it was simply noting Trump threatened to not accept the conclusion. He might—gasp—contest the election. The spin was even more hilarious…the media’s take was as if they had never seen any other person contest the outcome of something.
In my mind, this moment was yet again another example as to why these two candidates are, sadly, reflective of our culture. Whether it’s Clinton’s open lying or obfuscation on fairly simple questions or Trump’s crude callous behavior towards other people, the ugliness of this election is a huge mirror for the nation. I immediately started thinking of recent events in Winter Park simply to make this point.
In March of this year, the city voted about whether to build a new library in a new section of town. The vote was close, but clear with 51% of the residents voting in the positive. Within days, the losing side had filed a lawsuit to contest the election. These people, upper-middle class people mostly (and probably at least 50% Democrats) were mad that they had lost. The city spent two years with a citizen-led task force holding several open meetings…but upon losing, those unhappy contested. So, like Americans for the past 30 years, rather than accepting the outcome, they sued.
Where I work at Valencia, we make college-wide decisions all year long. Many are at our deepest level of governance in our policy manual. For three years, I was in the top level of faculty leadership, and I can remember several moments were the moment a conclusion was made, those on the losing side began plotting how to contest the decision. In one memorable event, we spent over three years working on a policy regarding textbooks. After finally getting a decision finalized, that included a vote by the faculty, those unhappy contested things. As the President of the Association a year after the decision, I still had to have meetings with unhappy faculty determined to either skirt the rules or overturn the decision.
I can already hear some saying that those examples aren’t nearly as important as a Presidential election. I concede that the US President is bigger issue that where our city Library goes, but the principle is the same. In the past thirty years or so, we’ve become a people who reject authority, who always assume there must have been cheating or some other untoward shenanigans, and who choose to hire a lawyer rather than just moving on. It is the litigiousness of the country that is really the main problem. Trump has been in over 3500 lawsuits over his working life, while the Clintons (both lawyers, at least at one time in their lives) have equally sued or been sued.
I won’t even bring up Al Gore and the 2000 election. Nor will I point out that both Republicans and Democrats, over the past 20 years, have used their positions in Congress when they were not in the majority to hold up and stop action from going forward. The Republicans have become famous in this regard in their attempts to overturn the health care laws.
Look…I understand that it is in our nature to fight to the bitter end. And yes, its allowed, maybe even encouraged, in our country. If you don’t like something, you fight against it. This includes laws that are passed. And, as Gore showed, it includes elections. So…if Trump loses and then sues (or worse) to contest the election…don’t act shocked or dismayed. Just chalk it up to yet another example of how much the moral nature of our country has changed….and I would argue NOT for the better.