BY JOHN SHAFFER A long, long time ago, during the third Presidential Debate last year, Donald Trump was asked if he would accept the results of the election. He responded by saying things such as “I’ll keep you in suspense,” or “I’ll accept it if I win.” His remarks were met with almost universal disapproval across the political spectrum. Of course, we never will know if he would have accepted the results if he had lost, because – he won. Hillary Clinton most emphatic critics of Mr. Trump’s comment, saying it was “horrifying.” Well, here we are, about ten months later, and Mrs. Clinton her self has told an interviewer that she might challenge the election, even though there is no Constitutional means to do so. And, although Mrs. Clinton did concede, she has hardly let a day go by without finding some platform for denouncing the President, calling the legitimacy of his win into question, or supporting “the resistance” to President Trump in some form. The people who screamed the loudest over Mr. Trump’s remarks have been silent over Mrs. Clinton’s. Heck, none of them have even given her a gentle tut-tut or a wrist slap. Mr. Trump justified his concerns by speculating that the system could be “rigged” or that there were millions of illegal votes cast for Mrs. Clinton; Mrs. Clinton justifies her concerns by claiming the the President conspired or colluded with Russia to thwart her candidacy. Information that has come to light since election day provides far more support for Mr. Trump’s justification than for Mrs. Clinton’s. Is this another case that proves there is a different standard of acceptable behavior for Republicans than for Democrats? We don’t know if we would go that far, but in light of the recent riots in St. Louis, where most of the major elected officials came out in support of the folks who rioted over the judge’s verdict in a police brutality case, presidential candidates aren’t the only people who publicly refuse to accept legal decisions; and neither Mrs. Clinton’s supporters nor Mr. Trump’s rioted over the election. The people in St. Louis (and far too many other cities) have rioted, and caused millions of dollars worth of damage. How many of the people who were “horrified” at Mr. Trump’s comments have expressed “horror” over rioting in the name of rejecting a judge’s decision? We will probably wait a long time before the level of outrage matches what happened over Mr. Trump’s remarks.
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