“I’m going to win the election, and I will accept that result.”
Arizona’s Republican candidate for Governor, Kari Lake, on whether she will accept the results of the election. (NYT: 10-17-2022)
Once-respected and veteran GOP pollster Frank Luntz is now warning the nation, not his clients, about a period of post-election chaos when Republicans (And Democrats in Luntz mind) across the country refuse to acknowledge a loss in their election. Luntz is “spooked” by the fact that voters are disenfranchised by the fact that politicians haven’t followed through on the promises they’ve made.
Here, he must be speaking almost exclusively of his voters on the Right because it doesn’t intuit our experience from the Left. As he told Morning Joe:
Well, the problem is that they seem to be one thing as to running for office, then they get elected, and they become part of the system. That’s when the frustration that the public has — get things done. They are angry, the partisanship, the rancor, and anger at the conditions. They don’t think the elected officials — Israel is going through the same thing. We’ve seen the same thing in Germany and France. Frankly, it’s a challenge to democracies everywhere, thanks to social media, thanks to the pressures of day-to-day service.”
From this vantage point, Democrats seem largely content with the Biden administration’s focus and legislative agenda. Yes, we’d like to throw Manchin and Simena overboard, but we knew who they were, and without them, we’d be under leader McConnell and likely not have SCOTUS Justice Jackson. We got a massive fraction of build back better, a focus on green energy, and every single one of our candidates accepts the results of democratic elections. That would appear to be a winning formula going forward. Perhaps Luntz is speaking to his employers on the Right?
“Governments are not performing in the way that public wants, and I’m genuinely afraid in this country that we’re about 2 1/2 weeks away from a group of candidates simply not accepting the results and this is my warning to you all and to the viewers watching at home. We could have a situation of 2020 all over again and all over the country if governors, senators, secretaries of state choose not to accept their loss and continue to fight back. It’s not the just Republicans, we’re in trouble here. The previous segment [on Abraham Lincoln] shows we’ve been through this before. I don’t want to get to a civil war, I want a democracy that survived and thrives.”
When it comes to accepting elections, when it comes to wanting elections, this is not a both-sides thing. It is exclusively a Republican thing. So long as GOP Sec. of State stick up for the rule of law and counts every vote, we’ll be satisfied. We may not like the outcome, but we won’t be going around losses. If these Republican Secretary of State candidates that have promised to deliver Trump in 2024 win, we’ll deal with that down the road.
At that point, Joe Scarborough jumped in to… well, call bs on Luntz’s both sidesism:
“Frank, we just played a clip from one of the focus group. Every Trump voter she talked to believes that [Joe] Biden is not the rightful president, believes the lies that they’ve been told repeatedly, [who] think Jan. 6 is much to do about nothing. You have candidates that are running for governor, they are election deniers, they are going to be leaders in the House. They say they won’t accept the results.”
“I mean, yes, I understand there have been Democrats here and there, a small handful, that have challenged election results. But here in 2022, this is coming from the Republican Party, and it seems to be a clear and present danger to American democracy.”
Luntz lost a lot of his credibility during the segment, as would anyone who is trying to “both sides” rejecting elections.
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@JasonMiciak believes a day without learning is a day not lived. He is a political writer, features writer, author, and attorney. He is a Canadian-born dual citizen who spent his teen and college years in the Pacific Northwest and has since lived in seven states. He now enjoys life as a single dad of a young girl, writing from the beaches of the Gulf Coast. He loves crafting his flower pots, cooking, and currently studies philosophy of science, religion, and non-math principles behind quantum mechanics and cosmology. Please feel free to contact for speaking engagements or any concerns.