Chris Wallace was on TV promoting his new book about the 1960 election and they featured this quote from Nixon after he presided over the counting of the electoral votes as VP after his razor thin loss to Kennedy:
“I don’t think we can have a more striking and eloquent example of the stability of our Constitutional system and of the proud tradition of the American people of developing and respecting and honoring institutions of self-government”
I hadn’t heard that before. Nixon was famously bitter about that loss and there were plenty of reasons to be suspicious about it. But he didn’t whine like a little baby and throw a tantrum. Even he had more dignity than that.
Here’s Al Gore, in the same position, presiding over the same process in 2000, when he and the Democrats had a much better case for objecting to the results than Nixon in 1960 or Trump did in 2020. (He won the popular vote and the election was decided in a 5-4 partisan decision of the Supreme Court …)
That’s how it used to be done. Even if the candidate felt the result of a close election was unfair (which Trump’s was not) they’d take the L and move on for the good of the country. Not anymore.