The United States is now headed by someone pathologically incapable of admitting defeat. This doesn’t bode well for the 2020 presidential election.
Among the most chilling words uttered this week by Michael Cohen, Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer and fixer, were “given my experience working for Mr Trump I fear that if he loses the election in 2020 that there will never be a peaceful transition of power, and this is why I agreed to appear before you today”.
Cohen should know better than anyone, but we already had reason to worry. In 2016, when polls showed Hillary Clinton with a wide lead, Trump claimed the election was rigged against him.
He refused to commit to honoring the election results if he lost, warning that he’d “reserve my right to contest or file a legal challenge in the case of a questionable result.” He added that he’d accept the results of the election “if I win”.
Throughout the summer of 2016, Trump’s claim of election rigging was echoed on Fox News. Newt Gingrich spoke of “a long tradition on the part of Democratic machines of trying to steal elections”. Rudolph Giuliani declared “Hillary and [Tim] Kaine are right in the middle of the Washington insider rigged system”.
Trump’s campaign manager at the time, Paul Manafort, said federal officials couldn’t be trusted to prevent voter fraud, warning that “if you’re relying on the justice department to ensure the security of the elections, we have to be worried”.
By early August 2016, according to a Bloomberg poll, 56% of Trump supporters believed the election would be rigged. (Among all voters, only 34% predicted a rigged election; 60% rejected the idea.)
Even after the election, Trump…
