Voters have seen past presidents as illegitimate. This time is different.

[DonViejo]

Philip Bump 34 mins ago

Twenty-plus years later, it’s hard to appreciate just how close the 2000 presidential election was. The Democratic candidate, Al Gore, beat Republican George W. Bush nationally by about a half-million votes of 105 million cast. But the results came down to the electoral college and, specifically, to what was eventually determined to be a 537-vote margin in Florida. Gore conceded after the Supreme Court curtailed his legal efforts to count more ballots in Florida, but many Democrats continued to view Bush as an accidental, if not illegitimate, president.

Sixteen years later, that sentiment returned. Donald Trump lost the popular vote by nearly 3 million votes, earning the White House by virtue of eking out narrow victories in three Rust Belt states. In part thanks to the experience in 2000, people seemed more willing to accept that Trump had lucked into the presidency, but reports about Russian efforts to influence the election (the effects of which were felt only in the abstract) prompted more skepticism about Trump’s legitimacy.

Then 2020 happened. Trump lost easily, by a margin of 7 million votes nationally and by the same electoral-vote margin by which he’d won four years prior. And yet new polling from CBS News, mirroring polling from CNN conducted last month, shows that as many Republicans view President Biden as illegitimate as Democrats did Bush at the same point in 2001.

It’s not a secret why this is happening. Two-thirds of Republicans told CBS News that it was somewhat or very important that Republican elected officials “support claims of election fraud in 2020” — an unsubstantiated assertion that has been hyperactively promoted by Trump himself. In that CNN poll, conducted by SSRS, half of Republicans said there was “solid evidence” that Biden didn’t legitimately win enough votes to be president.

more/NO PAYWALL
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/voters-have-seen-past-presidents-as-illegitimate-this-time-is-different/ar-BB1gPGM9

[ShazamIam]

1. Funny how big news providers don't like to mention the actual election thefts.

1968, election when Nixon's team stopped the Vietnam Peace talks and hired his own special riot squad for campaign appearances.

1980, election when Reagan's team arranged for Iran to continue to hold U.S. Hostages until after the election.


2000, When stripping the Florida voter registration lists, and all manner of voter suppression was put in plan, in person intimidation, closed polling places, disqualified ballots, (Greg Palast wrote a book about it, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy.)

2012, (A failure for them) they were certain they had succeeded, Murdoch's tweet, gave it away, they just couldn't suppress Obama's popularity with voters.

We are suppose to believe Trump who's approval was never higher than 47%, won. His only path to a win was lying and cheating by every means possible and we all watched it fail. The pandemic, the P.O., the constant screaming, voter fraud, the failed court challenges, and all the U.S. media giving the Republicans and Trump screen time, microphone time to promote these lies.

[Dawson Leery]

2. We had every reason to suspect the legitimacy of Dubya.

His brother ran the elections in Florida where he and the Katherine Harris (the witch of the south) caged minority voters to purge them from the rolls. The ballots were unclear on who to vote for, hanging chads...I could go on and on.

We saw Shrub as the bastard President he was, chosen by the USSC who stopped the count. We moved on peacefully to loose to two more elections due to 9/11 (which occurred in part due to Bush the lesser's incompetence, i.e. the August 6 PDB).

I have ZERO sympathy for these right wing terrorists. The world is a better place with the Ashli Babbitts.