Top Republicans are putting conditions on accepting the outcome of the election in November.
Republicans apparently haven’t cast aside the possibility of overturning another election.
At least two top GOP lawmakers have felt the need to add caveats to statements affirming that they’ll embrace the outcome come November, including the former chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senator Lindsey Graham.
“Will you accept the results of the 2024 election no matter who wins?” prompted MSNBC’s Meet the Press host Kristen Welker on Sunday.
“Yeah, I’ll accept them if there’s no massive cheating,” Graham said. In the same breath, Graham specified that he “accepted 2020” as a measure of his commitment to accepting election outcomes, even though he clearly hasn’t let go of the outcome enough not to buy in a little to his party’s election interference scandal.
“If there’s no massive cheating” is such a meaningless phrase that they could use it to mean anything afterward. “Oh no, I heard someone say that their cousin was a cashier at a store where their coworker overheard a customer talking on the phone about a letter that their post office received from Russia on election day, so obviously there’s massive cheating and Trump should just be in office.”
That said, I don’t know that this rises to the level of “outrageous” in modern political discourse, sadly. A “foolish” position, definitely. “Corrupt,” perhaps. “Morally bankrupt.” “Anti-democratic.” But the position is much more reasonable than most Republicans are willing to grant these days, and that’s what’s truly outrageous.