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âȘ According to Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden will âeventuallyâ win the 2020 election â or at least she believes so. In order for that to happen, however, Joe Biden must not accept the election results if things âdrag out.â Specifically, Clinton thinks Biden âshould not concede under any circumstances.â
âIf itâs a close election â like say Biden âwinsâ â what do you think Trump will do?â Jennifer Palmieri asked the former secretary of state and failed 2016 presidential candidate on an episode of Showtimeâs âThe Circus.â
Clinton suggested Republicans will try different strategies, such as âmessing up absentee ballotingâ like she said they have done in Wisconsin (as if Hillary knows what happens in Wisconsin). âThe only way they can win is by either suppressing or stopping voting or outright intimidating people into feeling that they have to go with the strong guy,â Clinton said.
âThis is a big organizational challenge, but at least we know more about what theyâre going to do,â Clinton said of Republicans. She suggested Democrats, specifically the Biden campaign, must amass a huge legal operation, an increased poll worker presence, and groups of people to counteract what Clinton alleged would be a âforce of intimidation that the Republicans and Trump are going to put outside polling places.â
âJoe Biden should not concede under any circumstances,â she concluded, âbecause I believe this is going to drag out, and eventually I do believe he will win if we donât give an inch, and if we are as focused and relentless as the other side is.â
This is an interesting conclusion from Clinton, who in 2016, when she faced off against then-candidate Donald Trump for the presidency, said that disrespecting election results is an existential threat.
âDonald Trump refused to say that heâd respect the results of this election,â Clinton tweeted in the lead up to the 2016 election. âBy doing that, heâs threatening our democracy.â Democratsâ histrionic speculations about what would happen if Trump refused to concede the election permeated the 2016 cycle.
Some Democrats in recent years have demonstrated their unwillingness or reluctance to accept the results of elections, with Clinton still tirelessly reminding Americans that she won the popular vote and would be in the White House if it werenât for that pesky Electoral College, and other prominent figures such as failed gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams insisting she âwonâ the 2018 Georgia governorâs race.
A new report from the bipartisan but anti-Trump organization Transition Integrity Project â created âout of concern that the Trump administration may seek to manipulate, ignore, undermine or disrupt the 2020 presidential election and transition processâ â found that if anyone refuses to accept the results of the upcoming election, it will be Democrats.
Among four game-playing election outcome scenarios the group worked through, only one resulted in a clear-cut victory for one candidate wherein the opponent refused to concede, and it was Biden, not Trump, who refused to swallow the result. As Byron York noted at the Washington Examiner, âThat is precisely the opposite of the Trump-wonât-accept-results speculation that has dominated the media in recent weeks.â
âWhen one side believes the stakes are so high as to be existential â a last chance to stop authoritarianism and unbridled nativism â then virtually any means are justified to prevent the other side from winning,â York said. âOne lesson of the Transition Integrity Project game-playing is that today, less than 100 days from the election, some of the presidentâs most passionate opponents believe Democrats might willingly throw the Constitution aside in their desire to put an end to the Trump presidency.â
Thatâs exactly what Clinton is encouraging Biden to do. âȘ
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