Posted on 10/19/2016 6:32:48 AM PDT by KeyLargo
Trump's 'Rigging' Allegations: Why Democracy Depends on Graceful Losers
Democracy Depends on the Consent of the Losers
What happens if Donald Trump is defeated?
Donald Trump likes to sort the world into winners and losers, which isnt a bad way of thinking about democracy. Winners and losers of elections have essential responsibilities in functioning democracies. Winners do not exact revenge on their opponent by, say, abusing the powers of their office and jailing that opponent, as the Republican candidate threatened to do at the second presidential debate. Losers do not refuse to accept the results of a vote judged free and fair by a countrys governing institutions.
Yet the Republican candidate has spent the past weekreally, much of the general electionstrongly suggesting that he will not accept a loss to Hillary Clinton. He has repeatedly claimed that Crooked Hillary is rigging the election with help from the media and a global network of power brokers. The rigging, he says with certainty but no compelling evidence, consists of the coordinated assassination of Trumps character, as well as looming voter fraud. And the rigging will, in Trumps telling, produce nothing less than the dissolution of the republic; the United States will be overrun by immigrants and ISIS. Trumps message is that the election will be stolen from his supporters, as will the country. Many Trump supporters expect this outcome; roughly half arent confident that ballots will be accurately counted on Election Day.
(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...
Well Jack, then there’s that Commie stalwart, Robert Creamer and his shit wife “congresswoman” Jan Shakowsky. How about Saul Alinsky? Then there’s always Hollywood “moguls” and the bunch down here in Silicon Valley. Zuckerberg, Mayer, et al. There isn’t a conservative in the lot of them!
IOW, when Trump wins, Obama will be on record (not that that is anything you could take to the bank) as saying that losers shouldnt whine.Trump is putting people on notice that they are being watched - and us on notice that we need to watch. This is not a bad thing.
To me the biggest one is that they just got caught rigging their own primary election and are incredulous at the suggestion that elections are rigged.
And why should they not throw a fit! Lincoln was not even on the ballot in the Southern states. It is as if you voted for TRUMP or Hillary, who ARE on the ballot, and woke up the next morning to find a President elect who was not even on the ballot!
If we have a hitlery dictatorship there are 3 choices for patriots:
1. Secession. Primarily a regional state issue. State leaders would need local support (or foreign aid?).
2. Military coup- the military would need to see public support.
3. If #1, #2 not successful, emigrate.
We probably only have a few years to accomplish one of above. Riding out the tyranny won’t be an option unless you want to spend your remaining life in a FEMA camp or a CMU.
Checking your bio page, I see you’re a long-time Californian, so I can understand you know a lot more than I do about the situation out there.
Half the names you mention, I’ve never heard of, and those I have heard of, I don’t know their politics. I’m from the East Coast, so you’ll have to forgive my lack of knowledge of Hollywood figures.
As a student in gradeschool (yes, I know this will reveal my era) I learned that we are a Republic, with democratically elected representatives and protected by the Bill of Rights, the Rights of Man and the Constitution which limits the power of government.
So, either this author is absolutely clueless or he is ,as I mentioned, a propagandist. I suspect the latter.
He does refer to a 'republic' as mentioned by Trump, who seems to be the only one who understands the words true meaning, probably from his oversight in his editing attempt. He only uses this word once in the entire article.
Using the word 'democracy' to describe our form of government always irks me. Not just a pet peeve but an attack on our country's very founding and future.
The following information is from Wikipedia under 'History of Democracy'...
The United States of America was and is, a republic, not a direct democracy. A direct democracy can be defined as a form of government in which the people decide matters directly, with prime example the Athenian democracy. A democratic republic, is a form of government in which supreme power resides in a body of citizens entitled to vote and is exercised by elected officers and representatives responsible to them and governing according to law. The delegates who wrote the Constitution were fearful of direct democracy; in the words of James Madison: "Democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention: have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property: and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths." Nevertheless, the framers recognized that the public is required to impose a check to the government, in Madison words: "dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government". By popular usage, however, the word "democracy" came to mean a form of government in which the government derives its power from the people and is accountable to them for the use of that power. In this sense the United States can be called a democratic republic. Many states allow for policy questions to be decided directly by the people by voting on ballot initiatives or referendums. (Initiatives originate with, or are initiated by, the people while referendums originate with, or are referred to the people by a state's legislative body.)
Sure.
Just ask Al Gore (gracious loser).
Wrong. It depends on confidence in the honesty of the results. If the vote is fair and accurate, then people who agree in self-rule can accept the result. If they don’t, if one side uses illegals, votes for those who don’t show up and creates phony ballots, and does it so much that it makes the difference in important states, then the result is not worthy of being respected by the losing side, and that leads to people wanting to get their views heard in other ways. Voter fraud is the biggest attack on our form of government there can be, and should be treated accordingly—with lengthy prison terms for even one fraudulent ballot. Unfortunately, it is a crime that is never prosecuted, unless you are Dinesh D’Souza.
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