Now contrast that with the behavior of Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R), who if history is any guide is almost certain to win his Senate race against incumbent Bill Nelson, and of President Trump. I say that Scott is almost certain to win because recounts like the one currently underway in Florida seldom change the results. (Scott led Nelson by 12,562 votes before the recount began.) Yet Scott has been doing everything he can to discredit the electoral process, seemingly trying to convince his supporters that the entire system is corrupt and therefore the only legitimate result is if he is declared the victor even before all the votes are counted. Here’s what’s going on:

Republicans are sowing skepticism about the electoral process in states with votes that are too close to call, echoing President Trump’s unsubstantiated allegations of voter fraud and suggesting that election officials should jettison the common practice of completing vote counts after Election Day. Nowhere is the effort more aggressive than in Florida, where Gov. Rick Scott is tapping the powers of his administration to defend his slender lead in the U.S. Senate race and accusing Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson of “trying to steal an election.” Without evidence, Trump on Twitter claimed ballots were “massively infected” in Florida and said the recount should halt — though it is mandated by state law and overseas military ballots aren’t due until Friday. … Scott has called on state law enforcement to investigate heavily Democratic Broward and Palm Beach counties, citing potential vote-counting confusion but providing no evidence of outright fraud. Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, a fellow Republican, echoed the governor’s request and argued that state law enforcement has a “duty” to investigate. Scott also has ordered sheriffs around the state to police the recounts and has filed lawsuits to try to force Broward and Palm Beach counties to essentially treat their elections offices as crime scenes.

Anyone infected with the virus of bothsides-ism will immediately respond, “Hey, isn’t Stacey Abrams refusing to concede in Georgia?” Indeed she is, and has filed a lawsuit over the vote counting. Her position is simply that every vote should be counted, while her opponent Brian Kemp not only wants to be declared the winner before the counting is finished, but has spent the time since the election lobbing insults at Abrams. Kemp, who just so happened to oversee the election as secretary of state, instituted a long series of vote suppression efforts seemingly targeted at minority voters (purging the voter rolls, putting tens of thousands of registrations “on hold” for minor discrepancies in forms) culminating in an outrageous and baseless accusation two days before the election that Democrats were attempting to hack the state’s computer systems.

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Baseless accusations seem to be the order of the day from the Republicans, which is all the more striking because they’re probably going to win these races. They’re ahead in the results being recounted in Florida, and it looks unlikely (if still possible) that Abrams will garner enough votes to force a runoff with Kemp.

So why can’t they just let the process play itself out? Why do they insist on throwing around unfounded charges and sowing chaos even in races they’re likely to win? Here’s a clue from the New York Times:

The Republicans’ strategy in Florida reflects their experience in the 2000 presidential recount in the state. Party strategists and lawyers say they prevailed largely because they approached it as they did the race itself, with legal, political and public relations components that allowed them to outmaneuver the Democrats, who were less strategic and consistent with their lawsuit targets and public remarks about the recount.

That’s a polite way to put it. A better way to put it is that when the 2000 election was thrown into chaos in Florida, Democrats operated under the mistaken belief that there was an orderly process to be undertaken and eventually it would all get sorted out fairly. Meanwhile, Republicans were all but crawling through the Okefenokee with knives in their teeth. Republicans knew that there were no rules that needed to be obeyed and no niceties that needed to be considered. All that mattered was winning, and the winner would be the one who was more ruthless and determined.

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That was how they won in 2000, and that’s what they’ve been doing ever since. To be sure, there are certainly some Republicans who care about things like the integrity of American institutions. But if you were to warn the most important members of their party, like Trump and Scott, that they’re damaging the legitimacy of the system with their reckless words and actions, they would laugh in your face. Worrying about that stuff is for losers. If there’s even a one percent chance that a recount (or just a count) could work out in the other side’s favor, then no tactic is too unethical, no accusation too slanderous, no approach too cynical to prevent it from happening. If they have to burn it all down in order to win, that’s what they’ll do.

All these impulses were present in the GOP before, but Trump has only made them worse. And as Rick Hasen warns, if the presidential election is close in 2020 and the Democrat comes out on top, there’s no telling what means Trump will employ to convince his supporters that the process was illegitimate, or how they’ll respond in their disappointment and rage. All the bile and hatred that have poured out of the White House for the past two years, and the effect that this has had, could turn out to be just a preview of what’s to come.