In Wednesday's debate, Donald J. Trump refused to answer a loaded question from moderator Chris Wallace demanding to know if he will accept (roll over on) an unfavorable election result.  Trump, who understands that an all-out effort is being made to steal this election, wisely stated he would have to review the matter after the fact.  The media, suffering one of their frequent memory lapses, conveniently forgot Al Gore in 2000 and the many Democrats who claimed that Bush stole the election of 2004 and had what can only be described as a conniption, claiming that never in history has a candidate for president refused to accept the result of a vote.  (Perhaps they should review Tilden v. Hayes as well.)  They demand that Trump accept his fate, as did Richard Nixon in 1960, who spared the country the agony of a contested election (although Nixon's former boss, Dwight Eisenhower, urged him to contest the voting in Illinois and other states where the Democratic machine appeared to have little irregularities.)

Trump has every reason to fear – hacked emails show that the Clinton machine is working diligently to rig the election.  She and the Democratic Party colluded to cheat Bernie Sanders out of the nomination, and a Project Veritas sting showed how plans are progressing to steal votes in the general election.  Hillary, by the way, likely received the questions to be asked in the second presidential debate, according to WikiLeaks.

Hillary has a history of lying and not playing fair.  She was fired from the Watergate Committee for it.

This brought to mind another example of how the sacred election process has be despoiled, and how accepting the will of the people is not always the high priority the media is making us think it is.

My brother Brian Birdnow is a professor of American history and author of the book Gerald R. Ford, The All-American President.  He reminds us of this little pastiche in American history:

Democrats like Bella Abzug argued to not confirm Gerald Ford as Vice President, and Tom Eagleton voted against Ford in the December, 1973 vote so that Carl Albert, House Speaker from Oklahoma, would take the Presidency when they threw Nixon out.

And while Ford was confirmed with only three nay votes, it was not as close as the ultimate tally would have us believe.  There was a faction of leftist Democrats who wanted a bloodless coup against Nixon, and they put quite a bit of pressure on Albert to prevent his confirmation.  In the New York Times, Abzug argued that "[w]e already have a designated official to replace the President in the absence of a Vice President[.]"

That official was a Democrat.

(Thomas Eagleton had been George McGovern’s running mate until he was forced to resign for psychological reasons in the previous election of 1972.)

The New York Times did not condemn this move by some Democrats to overturn the results of an election.  They are strangely disturbed about Mr. Trump's refusal to agree to have his election stolen.

Yesterday I had the pleasure of going to the DMV.  A few doors down was an early voting polling place, and it was jammed full of people.  Most were younger.  I was disturbed because it was clear to me these people had no reason for voting early; they plan to vote again at their own polling places in November.  We may witness an unprecedented level of vote fraud this year, and Donald Trump would do America a terrible disservice if he simply rolled "for the good of the country."  Stealing an election is not good for the country in any way, and acquiescing to that simply means more of it.  If no good comes of this but a contested election, Mr. Trump will have done our country a great service.