During a Meet the Press interview on Sunday, host Kristen Welker asked South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham if he will accept the 2024 election results—regardless of who wins.
“Yeah, I’ll accept them,” Graham said, before MAGA-qualifying his answer, “if there’s no massive cheating.”
Graham is the latest GOP official to cowardly hedge his acceptance of our democracy based on whether or not Donald Trump wins, joining the likes of South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, and New York Rep. Elise Stefanik, all of whom have implied that they will be deferring to Trump as to the legitimacy of the 2024 results.
“Democracy” for the Republican Party these days consists of figuring out ways to invert it to maintain a minority rule. That means gerrymandering their way into overrepresentation when they can and denying election results when they cannot.
Trump and his MAGA operatives have successfully made election denialism a part of the litmus test for positions of power within the GOP. It is also why election deniers are running for seats on county boards of supervisors in swing states like Arizona.
This is all combined with an across-the-board attack on our democratic institutions, intent on undermining Americans’ confidence in them. It is a terrifying prospect that makes prosecuting election interference even more essential to the health of our democracy.
