A month ago, Donald Trump openly declared that he believed the election would be rigged against him. But now Mr. Trump and his followers aren’t the only ones worrying about the integrity of the election. The Russian hacking of the Democratic National Committee raises serious questions about just how far Moscow would go to help Trump and defeat Hillary Clinton because of Mr. Trump’s open advocacy of appeasement of the Vladimir Putin regime. Add to that other legitimate concerns that have been discussed in the media about the security of electronic voting and reporting systems and you’ve got the makings of a terrible controversy if, as today’s national polls indicate, the presidential election turns out to be close.
Mr. Trump’s talk of a rigged election fit in neatly with his dark vision of America as a corrupt nation in decline. For those who truly believe the country is on the verge of collapse, it doesn’t take much of a leap of imagination to think the system’s malignant puppeteers will stop at nothing to prevent the Trump revolution. For months, Mr. Trump’s alt-right cheering section at Breitbart and elsewhere on the internet have been stoking his followers’ fears that their hero would be cheated of the presidency. That’s why some tortured souls imagine President Obama will either suspend elections or somehow thwart the will of “we the people” this fall.
That’s crazy stuff, but given that American popular culture has been endlessly feeding audiences such paranoid scenarios in films and TV shows since the 1960s, why should we be surprised if some people — on both the left and the right — are ready to buy into the notion that life will somehow imitate art in 2016?
But while, as our Max Boot correctly stated yesterday, the Obama administration must send a strong message to Russia to make them understand we won’t tolerate any interference, we must at the same time recognize that there’s nothing new about fears of cheating in American politics.
Desperate Dem Claim?
One of the most disingenuous arguments that Democrats have used against voter ID laws is that there is no such thing as voter fraud. In order to accept this claim, you’d have to forget much of American political history as well as everything we know about human nature. Attempts to rig elections are as old as the republic itself. Most pundits rightly disparaged Mr. Trump’s comments about rigged elections. But the fact that they were uttered in Pennsylvania stems from by no means from unreasonable Republican allegations that Democrats have been using their minority voter stronghold in Philadelphia to pad their totals.
Let’s also remember that the left has its own myths about cheating. Many Democrats remain convinced the 2000 election was stolen in Florida even if the evidence showed that Mr. Bush actually won the state, albeit because of a confusing ballot in one county that Republicans had no hand in creating. Liberals also made misleading claims about electronic voting machines being rigged to help Mr. Bush in 2004 and about his win in Ohio being the result of illegal manipulation.
These disputes are only remembered if the outcome of an election is close. Every time a presidential election is won by a narrow margin, claims of fraud arise. More to the point, those charges have special resonance when the two parties view each other’s candidates as illegitimate. The internet and social media have made this worse.
If worries about fraud are louder than ever this year it is because we have the two most unpopular presidential candidates in our modern history. Many Americans think Mr. Trump to be not merely wrong but unfit for the presidency. As the most recent polls demonstrate, just as many feel the same way about Hillary Clinton. No matter who prevails, the winner is going to be considered illegitimate by much of the country. Republicans may have thought John Kennedy’s camp stole the 1960 election. Some Democrats may have thought the same thing about Mr. Bush in 2000 and 2004. Those arguments will be nothing when compared to what will greet the election of either Mr. Trump or Mrs. Clinton this year if the result is close.
Whether or not the Russians do their worst or any other bad actor tries to cook the results, those who care about democracy must hope for a decisive win by either side. Anything else will only feed the perfect storm of paranoia and cynicism that has migrated from the fever swamps of American politics to the mainstream in recent years.
Mr. Tobin’s essay originated at www.commentarymagazine.com
