title:  Democracy Expert Tells Us EXACTLY How Republicans Screwed America By Accepting Trump
text: We ve heard all kinds of reasons why people shouldn t vote for Trump, and why they shouldn t even have accepted Trump to begin with. Trump really should never have gotten this far in the election process, but his lack of sound policy, his racist, xenophobic hyper-nationalism and his misogyny are actually only part of the reason. The rest of the reason lies squarely on the skin that s as thick as a single layer of gauze.Voters  confidence in the democratic system is always shaken when their candidate loses, according to democracy expert Shaun Bowler. This is true even when the elections are known to be fair. Bowler says: Collectively, the responses show that when voters see their candidate lose, their regard for the system of government as a whole takes a hit. Even within an established democracy and after an election that was not especially controversial, we see weakening legitimacy of the system in the eyes of losers. Trump has made his thinking very clear: If he wins, the election was fair. If he loses, it was rigged from the start. He will undoubtedly shout that repeatedly at the end of Election Night instead of give a measured concession speech designed to reassure his supporters that democracy still works, and they ll still be in good hands. He ll do it every day afterwards until people stop listening, too.Trump is a very sore loser. He was a sore loser in the primaries, and now, with his entire campaign falling apart, he s spinning wild conspiracies about how everything happening is specifically designed to take him down.The problem lies in the unrest that could easily follow such a declaration after the votes are counted. His supporters are all in solid agreement with him that the polls are rigged, the press is bought and paid for, and the entire planet (except Russia, of course) has been set up to put the woman they call  Crooked Hillary  into office. We ve already seen people, like this sheriff, call for armed revolt if Trump loses, because of that paranoia.We ve seen other Trump supporters say that as well. In fact, Mike Pence (who would understand this much better than Trump or his average supporter, despite being evil in his own right) had to shut down a Trumpkin in L.A. who was calling for armed revolution: Our lives depend on this election. Our kids  futures depend on this election and I will tell you just for me, and I don t want this to happen but I will tell you for me personally if Hillary Clinton gets in, I myself, I m ready for a revolution because we can t have her in. Pence s reply was a quick,  Don t say that.  However, he still encouraged people to volunteer as poll watchers to be sure that no fraud happens.Three white men, who turned out to be Trump supporters, were arrested for planning to blow up a mosque and an apartment complex full of Somali refugees the day after Election Day.Other supporters are saying they re going to menace anyone who doesn t appear to be American at the polls: I ll look for . . . well, it s called racial profiling. Mexicans. Syrians. People who can t speak American. I m going to go right up behind them. I ll do everything legally. I want to see if they are accountable. I m not going to do anything illegal. I m going to make them a little bit nervous. There s no reason to believe that this stuff won t happen, because Trump is fueling it, rather than trying to quell it. In his story, Bowler points out what actually has happened in other countries where the people believed their elections were rigged: Remember, the lowered levels of regard for the system [in 2012] occurred in an election in which no candidate was crying foul. Crying foul widens the gap in opinions, undermining the support for and legitimacy of the system as a whole.We have seen this in recent elections in Mexico, Ukraine, and Georgia. The consequence has been popular unrest and disturbances. One could argue that several of those elections were, in fact,  dirty,  and so people were right to protest at an election being stolen. (Genuine corruption is another demonstrable way to undermine faith in democracy.) But problems come when the election was clean and yet the losing politician refuses to accept the result was arrived at fairly.  [emphasis mine]There s virtually no evidence that any of our elections have ever been rigged, with the possible exception of a few local elections through history. It s easier for these paranoid lunatics to believe in a vast conspiracy, though, than it is for them to face the truth that their candidate could easily lose in a fair election. The unrest that would follow, due to Trump s fueling such conspiracy nonsense, could be devastating for us. They will not accept evidence that doesn t support their point   it ll be part of  the conspiracy. Even the GOP is afraid of what Trump s  it s rigged! Rigged, I tell you!  rhetoric can do. Lindsey Graham said: I don t think leading candidates for the presidency should undercut the process unless you have a really good reason. Former Senator Kit Bondi, of Missouri, said something similar: Someone claiming in the election,  I was defrauded,  isn t going to cut it  They re going to have to say how, where, why, when. Trump won t, though. He ll just say he knows, because Hillary s crimes and Democratic enabling and corruption are well documented, and will expect that to be sufficient.Now Republicans are crying about mounting evidence that their candidate isn t just rude, crude, vile, and impossibly thick, but is also a sexual predator. They made their bed. If we end up with Trump in the White House, what he unleashes on the world will be on their heads. If we end up with civil unrest because of Trump s sour grapes after losing, it s likewise squarely on their heads.It ll be interesting to see how they try and wriggle out of responsibility for this.Featured image by Sarah Rice via Getty Images