By Troy Pope
@troycpope
In 2000, I was not old enough to vote, and I didn’t grasp the larger issues in that failed election process. I couldn’t comprehend why Vice President Al Gore didn’t challenge the election decision that favored George W. Bush.
Gore had won.
A total of 50,999,897 Americans cast their vote for the Democrat, and 50,456,002 voted for Bush.
A breakdown of the election process in Florida led to a U.S. Supreme Court decision that awarded the 25 electoral votes to Bush — which clinched his win.
As a 16-year-old who was breaking out of his parents’ conservative shadow, I was too young to understand why Gore peacefully accepted the result instead of being childish and crying about his loss to anyone who would listen.
Thus, I had to endure eight years of President Bush.
George W. Bush is the fourth president in our nation’s history to take the presidency without the popular vote of the people.
In 1824, John Quincy Adams was elected president despite losing the popular and electoral votes to Andrew Jackson. Adams got only 84 electoral votes to Jackson’s 99. But in the four-way race, no one won a majority. The matter was kicked over to the House of Representatives where a so-called “corrupt bargain” was made. The speaker of the House pushed for Adams to be chosen, and when he was, Adams named the speaker as his secretary of state.
In 1876, Rutherford B. Hayes won the election by one electoral vote but lost the popular vote by more than 250,000 to Samuel J. Tilden. In 1888, Benjamin Harrison defeated Grover Cleveland 233 to 168 electoral votes, but Harrison lost the popular vote by more than 90,000 votes.
The Bush presidency started a war in the Middle East that destabilized the region and led to the creation of ISIS. And I, like many other Clovis kids, lost a close friend who fought in one of those wars.
Despite that, I still hold immense respect for the decision Gore made to concede the election. It was the patriotic thing to do.
Since John Adams, our second president, lost his re-election to his friend and archrival Thomas Jefferson, the loser steps aside to provide for a more peaceful, more perfect union.
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump sees the end is near. He knows he will not be president. If the election happened today, polls say he’d lose in a landslide.
Nonetheless, he’s banging the war drums saying the election is rigged against him, when it’s actually his own words, actions and political views that are working against him.
Trump’s rabble-rousing stirs unwarranted dissent and lessens our position on the world stage.
Whatever the world thinks of the United States on a day-to-day basis, it admires us when it comes to our ability to put aside our struggles and do what’s best for the country by stepping aside graciously.
We are better than this.
Just this past weekend, Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton posted a picture of the letter former President George H. W. Bush left for her husband Bill as he assumed office after a contentious election.
The letter talked of the magnitude of the office and was the voice of a man who wanted the best for the country.
“There will be very tough times, made even more difficult by criticism you may not think is fair. I’m not a very good one to give advice, but just don’t let the critics discourage you or push you off course,” Bush wrote to Clinton. “Your success now is our country’s success. I am rooting hard for you.”
The words of wisdom came from a man whose dreams of four more years in the White House were torn down by a controversial man from Arkansas.
At a time when the nation is more polarized than at any time since the Civil War, Trump stirring this sentiment with his lies is dangerous. But he doesn’t care.
Also, there is no evidence whatsoever that it’s rigged, and calling it so undermines our governmental democracy.
He knows he’s lost the election. He’s just blowing the horn to drum up support so that after the election he can launch his Trump News Network — or whatever it will be called.
Rumored to be more right-wing than Fox News, he wants to parlay his support into the only thing in the world he truly cares about — money.
MP3BASE • Mar 2, 2017 at 12:03 am
Why Rigging Election
Person223 • Oct 24, 2016 at 6:09 pm
Saying Gore had won, but then saying that Bush won the electoral college vote is contradictory. It’s the electoral college that counts. This is in our Constitution. In a sense, we have 50 different state presidential elections rather than one national presidential elections. This is normally covered in high school government class.
Person223 • Oct 24, 2016 at 6:06 pm
ISIS actually existed prior to Bush. What really allowed ISIS to rise was Barack Obama pulling the troops out in 2011. Leaving those few thousand troops there was preventing exactly what we’ve seen happen since. Please do your homework on this before writing these things.
Did you know that there were many things that President Clinton could have done to stem this that he didn’t? He just kicked the can down the road, and we had 9/11.
There was a bombing of the trade center in 1993. The guy who did it was tried in court, and part of the evidence that convicted this guy was a document captured from the Muslim Brotherhood. There is, in this Muslim Brotherhood document, a list of organizations which they deem useful to help topple American from within. One of the organizations on this list is the Islamic Society of North America. This ISNA is Barack Obama’s prime adviser on middle east policy. They knew withdrawing the troops would allow ISIS to rise as they have. The ISNA welcomes this. It’s why they advised Obama the way they did, ISNA sympathizes (at least) with ISIS.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFxNPvns7nU
Mark Michaels • Oct 24, 2016 at 7:42 am
It’s doesn’t get stupider than this. Almost every Democrat including Al Gore undermined the legitimacy of the the 2000 election, you’re doing it in this column.
The Democracy is just fine.
Good for Trump for staying vigilant, which is the most important thing we must do to protect the Democracy.
Person223 • Oct 24, 2016 at 5:56 pm
What gets me is how they shoot the messenger. With millions on the voter rolls who don’t belong, with known cases of non-citizens voting (for instance, that Turkish national who shot up the mall in Washington state who has voted in the USA more than once), with the reluctance of the federal courts to allow the simple precaution of requiring a valid ID to ensure that people should be voting, not voting more than once, that they are actually who they say they are. When Project Veritas recorded Creamer and others say they do this, it isn’t a wild eyed conspiracy theory to say that voter fraud occurs.