A Few History Lessons For The Media  by Tom Reynolds

The media’s hysterical reaction to Donald Trump challenging the election highlights their lack of knowledge – or willful ignorance – of law and history.  A few “blasts from the past”, some of which you may remember.

Al Gore took more than five weeks to acknowledge defeat in the 2000 election to George W. Bush.  Gore called for selective recounts in heavily Democratic Florida counties while attempting to block the inclusion of military absentee ballots. It took more than a month of legal battles, recounts, and a Supreme Court decision to bring Gore to a concession.

The Gore v Bush election was decided by just 537 votes in Florida.  Democrats still say, to this day, that it was stolen.  But - after the dust settled – a group of newspapers (including the reliably Democratic NY Times) did their own count and…Bush won, again.

Some in the current media have praised Gore’s concession speech as a model for what Trump should immediately do, ignoring that it took 5 weeks for Gore to concede.

The 1960 race between John Kennedy and Richard Nixon was filled with accusations that Democratic political machines—in Chicago, in particular—manufactured votes for Kennedy.  (Chicago…corrupt…say it aint so.)  Nixon considered challenging the election results in Illinois and a number of other states, but ultimately decided to concede for the sake of the country and his political career.

The 1876 election between Democrat Samuel Tilden and Republican Rutherford B. Hayes had a turnout of 82% of eligible voters.  Ballot stuffing may have had something to do with the high turnout.  (That couldn’t happen today…could it?) 

Tilden won the popular vote but neither candidate won enough electoral votes; 20 disputed electoral votes from four states would decide the majority. Each party reported its candidate had won the four states and one elector was replaced after being declared illegal for being an "elected or appointed official".  An informal deal was struck to resolve the dispute.  The Compromise of 1877 awarded all 20 electoral votes to the Republican, Hayes, and he became President by 1 vote.  Since political deals required a quid-pro-quo for the Democrats, the Republicans agreed to withdraw federal troops from the South, ending Reconstruction. The effect of the Compromise was to cede power in the Southern states to the Democrats, who proceeded to disenfranchise black voters.

In the four way race in 1824 between Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay and William Crawford, no candidate won a majority of the electoral vote.  Andrew Jackson won the most popular and electoral votes but not a majority, so the election went to the House of Representatives.  On February 9, 1825, two months after the election, the House elected John Quincy Adams as President. 

The Constitution eliminated House Speaker Henry Clay from being considered, after he finished fourth in the voting, and he threw his support to Adams.  After Adams won, Clay was nominated to be the Secretary of State.  At that time, the Secretary of State was considered the stepping stone to the Presidency.  Jackson and his supporters called “foul” on this but were unable to do anything.

And talk about not conceding the election…

Democrats, including Hillary Clinton, insisted that Trump colluded with Russians to steal the 2016 election, a story that most major media outlets ran with for years without providing any hard evidence.  When the Mueller report blew holes in that effort, they then impeached the President over a phone call.

Before the recent election, Hillary Clinton’s advice to Joe Biden was to not concede the election.

Georgia state Representative, Democrat Stacey Abrams, lost the 2018 Georgia gubernatorial election to Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican, by almost 55,000 votes.  Abrams has never conceded defeat. She is often asked by left wing media to give her opinion on the current election controversy.

Both Nixon and Jackson did not – or were not able to – contest the election and both were eventually elected President.  Clay was never able to convert the Secretary of State position into the Presidency.  Gore, Tilden and Clinton disappeared from presidential politics.  Abrams is still hanging around as a TV commentator, pretending to be a force in Democrat politics.  Gore and Clinton were able to become multi-millionaires.

The USA has been here before and probably will be again.  Fraud has happened before and probably will happen again, since at least one party benefits from fraud and has no reason to stop it.  A few weeks delay in deciding the presidency has happened before and will probably happen again.  Isn’t it worth the delay to ensure our voting system is secure?