Letter in Cape Cod Times

Columnist Larry Brown is quite right that “If we lose our confidence that elections are fair, democracy falls apart” (“2020 will be the year of tipping point choices,” Ideas & Opinion, Jan. 3) He is also certainly correct that Donald Trump in 2016 said that an election loss by him would mean the election was “rigged.” From that, he posits that Trump might refuse to accept an unfavorable result in the upcoming election.

Of course, Trump won the last election. While considering the threat to democracy posed by a hypothetical attack on an election’s legitimacy, Brown ignores the one that actually occurred. Democrats and their allies in the media have persistently undermined confidence in the results of the election they lost in 2016.

It is the Democrats who are already laying the groundwork for continued resistance to the election results in the event Trump is re-elected. Even after voting an impeachment, House Democrats are already investigating possible grounds for additional impeachments. Should the Democrats retain control of the House of Representatives, a permanent impeachment inquiry seems a more likely scenario than a refusal by Trump to accept adverse election results.

Fiona Hill, an academic who has served under several presidents and is no Trump apologist, testified at Adam Schiff’s impeachment hearing that the goal of the Russians in 2016 was not to elect Trump but, at a time when Hillary Clinton’s election was considered a certainty, to discredit the presidency, whoever was elected. In that, they succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. The Democrats have been the Russians willing dupes.

Brian R. Merrick, West Barnstable