Sen. Ron Johnson Won’t Promise That He Will Accept Election Results

During debates, one sees a perfunctory question to a Democratic candidate as to whether she or he will support the results of the election, but generally, we only see the question posed to one side, Republicans, because Republicans aren’t sure what they think about elections determining who is in power these days. We know they have secretaries of state candidates that promise Republican victories, always saying they’ll be “clean” (It sounds more persuasive in Russian). The wrong people keep winning, as demonstrated by all those Democrats in power because they had all those votes. Today, Sen. Ron Johnson, running in a 2 pt race with Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, bemoaned that he wished he could say he’d accept the outcome, but he just can’t because you really can’t predict what Democrats might do. The Democrats’ GOTV effort may be fantastic, and what then? From The Hill:

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) on Thursday failed to confirm that he will accept the 2022 midterm election results, alleging that Democrats might attempt to cheat in this year’s contest.

During interactions with the press on Thursday, a reporter asked the incumbent if he would concede if the vote count showed that he lost. Johnson responded: “I sure hope I can, but I can’t predict what the Democrats might have planned.”

That is odd. I can predict and guarantee what the Democrats have planned. They have planned on ride shares, knocking on doors, and early voting, all to get as many Democrats to vote for Barnes as possible, hoping that after an accurate count, they have one more vote than you. That is the plan.

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Ironically, that’s also the problem.

The two-term senator said that he and other Republicans are not trying to “gain partisan advantage” by contesting election results, but rather trying to “restore confidence” in the electoral process.

And that is 100% backward. They are doing all they can to drain all confidence in any vote that they don’t win. They know that Democrats don’t invade Capitols over losses. They know that Democrats have to be the adults, and thus the Republicans are freed to be their inner autocratic selves. As Roger Stone was recorded saying on video the day before the 2020 election, “Forget the voting, let’s get to the violence!”

Ultimately, “democracy” is only on the Republican platform to the extent that they’re in power, and if elections start getting in the way, then Republicans will start getting in the way of elections. Modern MAGA Republicans don’t even care that much about the actual election results. They care about winning the fights they start afterward.

No Democrat will be allowed to win a close election and not have it handed off to certain conservative judges and then fought over.

That is why Ron Johnson won’t “accept” the results. If he loses by 20,000 votes, then he’ll just have to fight to win. Ironically, similar to Johnson not being able to predict what Democrats would do, he also cannot predict how that “fight” might look.

Jason Miciak

@JasonMiciak believes a day without learning is a day not lived. He is a political writer, features writer, author, and attorney. He is a Canadian-born dual citizen who spent his teen and college years in the Pacific Northwest and has since lived in seven states. He now enjoys life as a single dad of a young girl, writing from the beaches of the Gulf Coast. He loves crafting his flower pots, cooking, and currently studies philosophy of science, religion, and non-math principles behind quantum mechanics and cosmology. Please feel free to contact with any concerns.