By refusing to pledge that he will accept the outcome of the election should he lose, Donald Trump gave the political world yet another reason to hate him, but Trump should refuse to grant legitimacy to the process – if it is illegitimate. The Democrat Party has a long and sordid history of stealing elections, and then demanding the “loser” certify the outcome. It is a lie; just one of many that Trump has thrown back into the face of our corrupt political class, that above all else desires our recognition of their right to rule.

Donald Trump didn’t mention electoral fraud as a reason why he might not recognize a Hillary victory, but he should have. One of Trump’s flaws as a debater is his assumption of too much knowledge in his audience, and thus he fails to spell out his arguments in basic terms.

James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas released a video of several men working on behalf of the Left, outlining their voter fraud and bragging that they’d been “doing this for fifty years.” The Left has dozens of quasi-independent holding companies or organizations whose only real job is to execute dirty tricks in the lead-up to Election Day. They wash the money from the Hillary campaign to the DNC to “consulting” groups like Democracy Partners and finally to subcontractors who do the dirty work of voter fraud and organizing violence.

In 1998, the mayoral race results in Miami were thrown out by a Florida judge after finding widespread fraud in absentee ballots. In 2002, Tim Johnson “defeated” John Thune in South Dakota by manufacturing ballots on a Native American reservation hours after every other ballot had been counted. In 2004, Christine Gregoire allegedly defeated Republican Dino Rossi in the Washington State Governor’s race by 129 votes with 1,400 felons voting illegally. In 2006, a handful of low-level employees of the Democrat-affiliate group ACORN were indicted in Missouri for 1500 fraudulent voter registrations; and in 2008, ACORN handed in 5000 registration forms in Indiana with the same handwriting on them. That same year, Norm Coleman “lost” to Democrat Al Franken in Minnesota by 312 votes despite leading by 725 votes on election night; 1100 felons illegally voted in the election that gave Democrats the 60th vote needed to ram through Obamacare.

It is a historical fact – albeit disputed by Camelot hagiographers – that John Kennedy stole the 1960 presidential election in Illinois and Texas. Running mate Lyndon Johnson had already stolen a Texas senate race in 1948. Less understood were the efforts of the Gore campaign to steal the 2000 election in Florida. The recount fight was portrayed as a noble effort to keep Bush from stealing the election, but Bush was leading with 100% of precincts reporting by some four thousand votes, which then magically became 1700 votes the next morning after Broward County officials mysteriously “discovered” 2000 missing Gore votes. In Palm Beach County, 19,000 Bush votes were invalidated for double voting as their ballots were “punched” through for Buchanan as well – an error rate ten times greater than any other precinct in the country. But everyone knows that Bush was “selected, not elected,” and only Trump could be so awful as to say anything similar about Hillary.

Democrats support same-day registration, early voting, and no restrictions on absentee voting not out of civic responsibility, but because those rules make it easier to commit fraud. They despise photo ID requirements, because they make it harder. Accusations of racism and voter suppression are just scare tactics to prevent scrutiny of their criminal behavior. The Hillary campaign has been caught systematically overcharging their small donors up to the $100 limit that requires banks to report fraud. If they’re willing to steal from their own donors, what in the world would make them reluctant to steal from everyone else?

Trump was right to cite overwhelming media bias as a reason for the system being rigged. Past examples of media partisanship fill libraries, but the present election is of an order of magnitude worse. The press has jettisoned all pretenses of objectivity in a frenzied effort to defeat Trump, as though his election would mark an American apocalypse. The WikiLeaks documents reveal an environment where supposedly respectable journalists line up to put their names on Clinton press releases and parrot approved narratives, while burying anything negative about their candidate.

More generally, our governing class lacks legitimacy. Only one in five people believe the government has the ‘consent of the governed.’ With numbers that low, it’s no wonder our ruling elites are nervous. Hillary’s serial lies and FBI E-ZPass are only the most recent example of their sick corruption. As exposed by Wikileaks, the Left threatened a full-blown vilification campaign on Chief Justice John Roberts if he ruled against ObamaCare, which itself was sold on a lie against the clear wishes of the people. It should be obvious to anyone paying attention with an open mind that the Left defines itself by lying, cheating and stealing.

If Trump is defeated, the Left needs him to fully surrender by acknowledging that he lost in a fair process. If he doesn’t, he brings their right to govern into further disrepute, damaging a Hillary presidency at the outset and adding fuel to the rage so many Americans feel towards Washington. There may come a day, perhaps sooner than many expect, where the “just powers” of government are brought into serious question because they lack consent. Why else does the Left want so desperately to take away people’s firearms? Ballots are a civilized and sensible substitute for bullets, but if the former are rendered meaningless, the latter will fly. The Left has made their bed, let them lie in it – with both eyes open.

The author has worked on numerous statewide political campaigns in Virginia, South Dakota and Washington, D.C. His work has appeared in The Federalist, the Daily Caller and other sites. He currently resides in the Washington, D.C. area. Follow him on Twitter @PHGuthrie