Commonplaces of American Democracy and their Inconsistency with Political Speech

(Source: MIC.COM)

During the third and final presidential debate, Chris Wallace, the moderator, asked Donald Trump if he would accept the results of the election, meaning would he accept the results if he did not win? Trump has asserted on numerous occasions that the election and campaigning process has been rigged. He has been especially critical of the primary process, and the Wasserman-Schultz affair at the DNC as it relates to Bernie Sanders appeared to many Trump supporters to lend some credibility to Trump’s suppositions.

(Source: Washington Post)

Trump answered Wallace that he would wait for the results to come in and would rather leave everyone “in suspense.” Of course, Trump’s remarks about the debates are ultimately grounded in his assertions that the election and campaign processes have been rigged as evidenced by the revelations of the email hack of that organization’s servers.

 

(Source: Breibart)

Well, the media jumped on Trump’s questioning of election results as though he called for the dissolution of the Republic itself, asserting falsely that Trump said would not accept the election results, but, most interestingly, Clinton called his remarks “horrifying.” She went on to suggest that anyone who would call into question an American election was demeaning our political system and slighting our democratic traditions, almost suggesting that questioning the integrity of the electoral process is somehow un-American and contrary to core American values. But, the American tradition of questioning or challenging elections, or anything the people see fit, is long and storied.

(Source: Pinterest)

In other words, questioning elections strengthens not weakens American democracy and illustrates the power of the voice of the American people to effect change.

(Source: Pinterest)

Elections have been contested in this country many times throughout its history, by both Republicans and Democrats. And some of those contestations were based on reasons considered quite valid by those making the claims, such as questions raised by the Gore campaign in 2000. And one of the most famously contested elections in this country’s history occurred in 1876 during the campaign between Governor Rutherford B. Hayes and Samuel Tilden, in which polarization around Reconstruction implementation and racial integration resulted in voter intimidation and highly contested in ballots in Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina .

(Source: Finding Dulcinea)

There are many other contested elections in American history that were defining moments for America and its people, and these questions affirmed the process each time and made the country and its system stronger not weaker. In other words, raising questions on any issue whatsoever in the United States is a precious right guaranteed in our governing documents.  This is especially true of having the right to contest elections, a right that affirms the democratic process and does not deny it as pundits, elites, and partisans opportunistically assert.