Four years ago Donald Trump He lost a presidential election by millions of votes, yet declared himself the winner and eventually told a crowd of his supporters to leave and “stop theftHe watched hours of television as he ransacked the U.S. Capitol in search of traitorous lawmakers and his own disloyal lieutenant. Mike Pence.

in it January 6 statements Trump had encouraged thousands of his followers on the Ellipse to “show strength” and demanded that Congress deny his rival’s landslide victory and instead hand power to the loser of the 2020 election: himself. After all, the former president became the president-elect, assuring his supporters that the other side would do the same, if not worse.

“If this happened to the Democrats, there would be hell breaking out all over the country,” Trump assured his supporters in Washington, D.C., that day.

In 2024, this claim was tested and the results have now emerged. in it own words Vice President in the nation’s capital yesterday Kamala Harris He did something his Republican opponent clearly couldn’t do: capitulate.

“A fundamental tenet of American democracy is that when we lose an election, we accept the results,” Harris told the crowd at her alma mater, Howard University. “This principle is as important as the other principles that distinguish democracy from monarchy or tyranny, and all who wish to gain the confidence of the people must respect this principle.”

After Tuesday’s election, Trump remains on track to win the presidency by nearly the same margin as President Joe Biden in the Electoral College. And while he is also on track to win the popular vote, he will likely do so with millions fewer votes. But in blue states and cities across the country, there is no uprising or talk of an uprising; There is depression and resignation as an undeniable majority of voters elect a candidate they consider morally unfit for office.

A few individual liberals may be in denial, but there is no industry denying the election, at least not for Democrats. There is no talk of forensic audits or voting machines being hacked by foreign adversaries (Russia was apparently content to suppress votes with its battleground state). bomb threats) and there are no experts speaking overnight about ballot papers imported by China and obviously printed on bamboo (Cyber ​​Ninjas, a right-wing “cybersecurity” firm, paid 9 million dollars to investigate this claim by Arizona taxpayers. to approve Trump’s 2020 loss).

Respecting democracy even if its results disappoint – even if, in this case, many people fear the consequences for the freedom and fairness of future elections – is a distinguishing feature between two parties: one side does it, the other does not.

Even on his way to victory, Trump played this game: antidemocratic attacks.

“There’s a lot of talk about mass CHEATING in Philadelphia,” the president-elect posted on his website Truth Social on Tuesday afternoon, hours before he was declared the winner of Pennsylvania. “Law Enforcement is Coming!!!”

Law enforcement never showed up because the entire post was a lie, either to suppress votes or to lay the groundwork for a post-election challenge that was no longer necessary. It will now be forgotten, no longer serving the messaging needs of Republicans.

“Once it started to look like Trump was going to win, election denialism went very, very quiet,” said Welton Chang, president of social media monitoring firm Pyrra Technologies. report With the New York Times.

People who gathered their whole personality around this denial celebrated the victory instead of denying the election results. In X, where the billionaire owner is located Elon Musk held the leadership until November 5 strengthening conspiracy theoriesHis and other rank-and-file deniers’ talk about “election integrity” evaporated as the results came in. A few people, like right-wing activist Naomi Wolf, requested creditHe argues that election rejection and the army of citizen soldiers made Democrats more afraid of fraud than fraud: “They took photos of the ballots and videos of the events. They researched election laws. Elon Musk allowed them to share all of this.” But many on the right gave up on this, happily accepted the results and continued to mock the fair-minded losers.

In the hours after the election, several liberals indulged in conspiratorial explanations for why Harris underperformed compared to Biden’s 2020 victory, but none of them held any credibility and certainly none of them held higher elected offices. “This is happening,” says Kate Starbird, a disinformation researcher at the University of Washington. commented to the Washington Post. “This is happening at a really low level.”

In an age where millions of people get their news and views from questionable apps on their phones, few people are completely immune to the effects and viral spread of emotionally satisfying conspiracy theories. But one party is committed to democracy and democratic norms and this trickles down. On the left, there is talk of rebounding from a devastating loss, not denying it, and demanding that the vice president have the courage to disenfranchise the opposition.

What can we make of a country where a majority of voters support a man who ran the ugliest campaign in modern American history? Even if it’s a lot, it’s sunk misinformation and bad vibes said their votes were mostly about Doordash prices, Trump voters clearly did not view his ugly racism, unfiltered misogyny, and coup attempt as disqualifying or see any problem with returning him to power without checks and balances.

Those who know him best tell American voters that Donald Trump is “Definition of ‘fascist’.” The majority already voted for him. This is the reality that those committed to democracy are grappling with today.