Donald Trump ally J.D. Vance (R-OH) compared the former president’s election denial claims to a violent, racially-tinged disputed vote in 1876 during a New York Times interview this week — and on Saturday he got a harsh history lesson from the same newspaper.
The right-wing Republican, rumored to be on Trump’s vice presidential shortlist, whined that dismissing “Stop the Steal” grievances was taking “this very legitimate grievance over our most fundamental democratic act as a people, and completely suppress[ing] concerns about it.”
Then he compared it to the 1876 election
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“Here’s what this would’ve looked like if you really wanted to do this,” he said. “You would’ve actually tried to go to the states that had problems. You would try to marshal alternative slates of electors, like they did in the election of 1876. And then you have to actually prosecute that case, you have to make an argument to the American people.”
His comparison infuriated Times columnist Jamelle Bouie.
“Let’s look at what happened in 1876,” he said.
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“In that race, the Democrat, Gov. Samuel Tilden of New York, won a majority of the national popular vote but fell one vote short of a majority in the Electoral College. The Republican, Rutherford Hayes, was well behind in both. The trouble was 20 electoral votes in four states: Florida, Louisiana, Oregon and South Carolina.
“In the three Southern states, where the elections were marred by fraud, violence and anti-Black intimidation, officials from both parties certified rival slates of electors.
"Hayes believed, probably correctly, that had there been “a fair election in the South, our electoral vote would reach two hundred and that we should have a large popular majority.”
Had Blacks been allowed to vote, the election result would likely have been overturned, he wrote.
The dispute resulted in months of legal battles and a threat by Democrats to seize a statehouse by force.
“It is strange for Senator Vance to cite it as an example of what should have been done in 2020,” Bouie wrote.
“The big and most important reason is that there was actual fraud and violence and intimidation in the 1876 presidential election cycle. In one incident in Hamburg, S.C., a paramilitary death squad of white Democrats — called Red Shirts for their attire — stormed a local armory and kidnapped more than two dozen Black citizens, executing several men on the spot.”
He added, “If Trump voters had been attacked, intimidated and defrauded, then there might be reason to make the comparison with 1876 and demand serious investigation into the integrity of the vote.
“But as we know from actual litigation carried out over two months, there was no fraud to speak of. The 2020 presidential election was arguably the most secure — and among the most scrutinized — in American history.
"What Vance calls the “legitimate grievances” of the Jan. 6 rioters were actually sour grapes. They lost, they did not like it, and they were determined to change the outcome by any means necessary. There’s no reason any of us should respect their tantrum."
