Are there any grown-ups left in the Democratic Party?
As they did in 2000, when George W. Bush narrowly defeated Al Gore, Democrats are contesting 2016’s presidential election results — this time only one month after fretting that, following his widely-anticipated humiliating loss, Donald Trump would dispute the outcome and undermine confidence in America’s election system. Ironic, huh?
Having raised about $6 million to pay for them, Democrats funding a cynical effort fronted by Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein, who received a scant 1 percent of the popular vote, are seeking recounts in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. In a desperate, delusional last gasp, Hillary Clinton who, only theoretically, stands to gain, said she would participate in the recount appeals. Hillary is foolishly risking a renewal of Trump’s interest in her scandals and Clinton Foundation influence peddling. The presidential election wasn’t very close: Trump won the electoral vote count by 74 votes, 306-232. But, if Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin were reversed, Clinton would edge out Trump, 278 to 260.
Clearly, that’s why those states were targeted. However, there is little chance that recounts will change the result in any, much less all three of them. (The recount in Wisconsin actually gave Trump more votes than originally reported. And a federal judge put an end to Stein’s efforts for a recount in Pennsylvania.) Trump’s Pennsylvania margin was originally reported as 70,000 votes (although the certified vote now has Trump’s margin of victory at 42,000), and Pennsylvania’s appeals deadline has passed. He won Wisconsin, which has rejected a hand recount, by more than 22,000 votes, and Trump won Michigan, a paper ballot and optical-scan state, by nearly 11,000. No statewide recount has ever swung that many votes. In 2000, Al Gore couldn’t manufacture Florida’s last 538 votes.
“Dilbert” creator Scott Adams predicted:
“Imagine you are one of the anti-Trump folks who believe we just elected a racist, sexist, homophobic, anti-semitic, science-denying dictator. […] That’s some scary stuff. Now imagine watching the news as Trump reveals in slow-motion that he’s flexible and pragmatic on just about everything…
“As Trump continues to demonstrate that he was never the incompetent monster his crit- ics believed him to be, [they] will face an identity crisis. They either have to accept that they understand almost nothing about how the world works — because they got everything wrong about Trump — or…double-down on their current hallucination. Most…critics will double-down.”
Even if Trump governs pragmatically, rather than admit their errors, the left’s conspiracy theories will ripen. Pragmatic or dogmatic Trump, either way, Democrats’ recount pander-fest to liberal hysteria over Hillary’s flameout are merely early episodes in four or more years of non-stop, anti-Trump-freak-out political porn.
The New York Post’s David Kaufman wrote, accurately: “Fueled by a mix of intolerance and entitlement, the left has cultivated a culture of closed-mindedness that’s left little room for individual thinking and intelligent discourse. Shaming skeptics and silencing critics, they … demanded safe spaces. But … the social justice crowd forgot one key thing — no space is ever safer than the American ballot box.”
Hillary Clinton lost. Footstomping, breath-holding, blameshifting liberal bubble-dwellers won’t accept their failure, so, in self-entitled defiance of simple arithmetic and the American public’s will, they are childishly — futilely — attempting to overturn an American election’s Electoral College results.
One wonders, are there are any grown-ups left in the Democratic Party?
Jerry Shenk is a Lebanon County-based columnist whose work is featured at www. patownhall.com. You can email him at jshenk2010@gmail.com