Was the 2016 election legitimate?

[lpetrich]

Was the 2016 election legitimate? It's now definitely worth asking the question

We need to talk about a forbidden subject: the legitimacy of the current president.

...
A nation devoted to majority rule has a minority president. Who squeaked into office on an electoral college technicality. Against most data projections. Using dark money. Using voter suppression. Using Russian disinformation. And, most chilling of all, with a massive assist from the Russian military, which not only hacked the Democrats, but also hacked voting software and a voting-system manufacturer.

...
Others, many who planned to vote against Trump, were kept from the ballot entirely. In Wisconsin, as Mother Jones has reported, discriminatory ID laws prevented 45,000 eligible voters from participating in the election, including 23,000 in two heavily Democratic counties. Trump won Wisconsin by 22,000 votes.

The attorney general of Wisconsin, Brad Schimel, even boasted recently that Trump won Wisconsin chiefly because tens of thousands of eligible voters were turned away.

...
There are other good reasons to ask questions about the election. In Florida, exit polls on election day had Clinton winning by 1.3 % of the vote. When the votes were tallied, Trump beat her by 1.2%.

None of this data is conclusive. But it absolutely does not suggest that American citizens should shut up, forget it, and will away all the evidence that something’s rotten in our electoral system. If it didn’t hurt your candidate this time, next time it might.

The author continued with Gerald Ford's 1974 pardoning of Richard Nixon because he had supposedly suffered enough and because a trial would only continue the national trauma.

Also with Antonin Scalia, one of the Supreme Court Justices who made George W. Bush president. He was irritated when anyone asked him questions about that, and he demanded that opponents of the decision "get over it". Likewise, some people on his side called the Gore-Lieberman ticket the "Sore Loserman" one.

 

[Underseer]

Does anyone seriously believe that this Supreme Court would find the 2016 anything other than completely legitimate?

I think it's pretty obvious that the election was illegitimate, but it honestly doesn't matter. We're in a post-fact society fueled entirely by alternative facts. Anyone who works against the interests of Russia is the "real traitor here."

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

More info on Florida?

 

[phands]

To answer the simple OP question, no it was not legitimate.

But now what? So far, there have been few consequences of that for the "winners". The consequences for the country and the world might be terminal.

 

[untermensche]

I don't think any president can legitimately say they can implement their policies unless they get more than 50% of ALL eligible voters.

Minus that they have no mandate.

Minus that the president would have to build a mandate on some matter before acting.

As far as becoming president?

That is a process so corrupted by money and stinking with lies and empty promises it is a joke to call it legitimate.

It is what is.

And the real power that exists in the government keeps it going against the desires of most people.

 

[Elixir]

Not only was that election outcome not legitimate, it forms a precedent that forgives illegitimate office holders for whatever illegitimate means they used to acquire that office.

"After all he won. Whether the ballot box was stuffed, whether he conspired with sworn enemies of the US, whether laws were broken during his acquisition of office - doesn't matter. He won."

The ends shall evermore hereafter justify the means.

 

[ZiprHead]

Republicans can only win if they cheat.

 

[Elixir]

Republicans can only win if they cheat.

It's one thing to use the existing government structure to gerrymander etc., but quite another to allow a no holds barred approach where whatever treasonous act is okay if it wins an election.
IMHO of course. YMMV (if you're an alt-white fascist neolibercon).

 

[Underseer]

I don't think any president can legitimately say they can implement their policies unless they get more than 50% of ALL eligible voters.

Minus that they have no mandate.

Minus that the president would have to build a mandate on some matter before acting.

As far as becoming president?

That is a process so corrupted by money and stinking with lies and empty promises it is a joke to call it legitimate.

It is what is.

And the real power that exists in the government keeps it going against the desires of most people.

Don't be absurd. All they need is 50%+ of donors. Voters haven't mattered for some time.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Bickering over +-1.5% on an exit poll is folly, that is within the margin of error. Now, if Clinton had won several states by 1.5% in the exit polls, but lost each of them, that would mean a problem. As things stand, I think Clinton could have won Florida and still lost.