Democrats have spent the last four years demonizing "election deniers" on the right, but the possibility of Donald Trump's comeback has some Democrats changing their tune about accepting election outcomes.
One of the leading Democrats on the January 6th committee, Jamie Raskin (Md.), suggested his party may not automatically accept the results of Tuesday's presidential election - undermining Raskin's own narrative that Trump is a threat to democracy.
Democrats frequently criticize Trump for placing conditions on accepting the results in 2024, but Raskin did just that during an interview with Bill Maher.
Using rhetoric that many Democrats have called extreme when used by Trump, Raskin said Democrats would only accept the results if they are "free and fair."
“No, we’re not going to allow them to steal it in the states, or steal it in the Department of Justice, or steal it with any other election official in the country,” he said. “If it’s a free and fair election, we will do what we have always done — we will honor it," Raskin said.
Raskin told Axios in October that he would "obviously accept" the outcome if Trump "won a free, fair and honest election."
This is not the first time Raskin has hedged on committing to a peaceful transfer of power. The Democrat drew attention earlier this year for inflammatory talk about "civil war" breaking out over the presidential election.
Raskin appeared to suggest at the time that Democrats would be justified in blocking Trump's legitimate victory because of the Supreme Court's failure to exclude him from the ballot.
"So it’s going to be up to us on January 6, 2025, to tell the rampaging Trump mobs that he’s disqualified. And then we need bodyguards for everybody, and civil war conditions, all because the nine justices... simply do not want to do their job," he said at the time.
After Trump's 2016 victory, Raskin was one of the Democrats who objected to certifying Trump's victory against Hillary Clinton.
Despite Raskin's wavering commitment to democracy, he - like many Democrats - has regularly painted Trump as a dangerous dictator who led an "insurrection" at the Capitol.
If Trump wins the presidency, will Democrats forget all about their "principles" to try to stop a peaceful transfer of power? It's hard to see how Democrats could pull back after comparing Trump to Hitler endlessly.
