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Comment by givemeethekeys | Hacker News Reader

For what it's worth, the election-stealing accusations started at least as early as 2000 when Gore lost to GWB.

The current state of affairs is just a escalation beyond the status quo. Who knows, the next election might be another step above what has already happened.

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Nah, I don't think that is fair. Gore conceded the election promptly once all his legal options were exhausted. He said in his speech that although he may not agree with the decision by the courts, he respects the constitutional process and accepts their decision. (even though quite a bit of research has indicated that Gore likely did win Florida)

Hillary conceded late that very night of her election. (Even though there was Russian interference in the election and a Republican head of the FBI spoke out against policy that they were reopening the emails investigation.)

Trump never conceded and continues to openly state that the election was totally rigged and stolen and illegitimate.

There is no comparison. Everyone has the right to claim it wasn't fair or that the other side cheated. But when the courts have decided, you accept the decision and you concede and you say you support the candidate that beat you and you wish for their success.

I agree, that Gore did the right thing. But talking about how Bush stole the election didn't go out of style until Bush left the White House.

Then came Obama vs Romney. Obama won by a landslide, so people who opposed him said, "not my president".

When Trump won, his opposers did the same. People acted like foreign interference in elections was something new.

I'm not comparing as mucha as pointing out the logical escalation in rhetoric. How people communicate and act sets a precedent for future communications and action.

It would be good if the next election was as clean as Bush vs Clinton.

Clinton's outgoing staff removed all the W keys from White House keyboards. Bush gave his staff strict orders against any kind of pranks or trouble for incoming Obama.

The new thing was Trump pretty successfully fighting off efforts to examine his finances for his entire term.

Ya, that was one of the many broken norms. Now that we have more information we find he has undeclared foreign bank accounts (china) where he was receiving millions from a Chinese bank for rent in a building they never actually moved into. And coincidentally, they didn't renew their lease after he lost the election.

You could call it an escalation, but it wasn't a linear escalation. It took an exponential jump with Trump and I suspect it would not continue that trajectory if Biden had lost. There will always be a crowd of people saying something was stolen, but we have never had the losing candidate just make up complete and total lies about how the election was stolen and continue to spout those lies for years after his failed insurrection. Hopefully the legal system can withstand the pressure and put that criminal threat to democracy in prison where he belongs.

For what it's worth, Trump's political opponents still deny that the election of 2016 was legitimate.

It's not worth much. Because they don't actually claim that. They may claim interference or cheating, but they don't claim it was totally rigged. And they don't refuse to concede the election. Sorry, it's just not even close to the same thing and people should stop even making the comparison. It's like bringing up how some Irish people were treated badly everytime the enslavement of Black people is brought up.

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