During a brief Q&A with reporters on Tuesday afternoon, Donald Trump was asked whether he’ll “respect the results” of the midterm elections, “whatever happens.”Before we get to the president’s answer, it’s worth taking a moment to dwell on the question.

Not to put too fine a point on this, but we used to be a country in which questions like these weren’t even asked. It was a foregone conclusion for generations: The United States was a stable democracy and the world’s pre-eminent superpower. There was no real need to wonder: American candidates for powerful offices agreed to honor election results. The entire line of inquiry was unnecessary since the answers were assumed.

But as the radicalization of Republican politics intensifies, and GOP rejection of election results becomes more common it’s no longer considered outlandish to ask Republican leaders whether they’ll accept voters’ judgment — just as it’s no longer surprising when they fail to say “Of course I’ll honor the will of the electorate.”All of which brings us to Trump’s response on Tuesday afternoon.

“I will,”the president replied indicating that he’d accept the election results, before quickly adding, “if they’re honest elections.”And who gets to decide whether the elections are “honest”? According to Trump, he does.

To be sure, this isn’t altogether new. As The Washington Post reported“In 2016, Trump said he would accept the election results ‘if I win.’ In 2020, he repeatedly declined to commit to accept the results, saying ‘We’re going to have to see what happens.’ In 2024, Trump said he would accept the results if the election was ‘fair and legal and good.’”In other words, when it comes to conditional respect for democracy — the results are only legitimate if he likes and agrees with them — the Republican is at least consistent.

But this isn’t just a matter of Trump giving a Trumpian answer during a brief exchange with a reporter. On the contrary, there’s a more systematic effort underway, which appears designed to deliberately undermine confidence in the elections themselves.

The Post separately reported President Donald Trump and his allies have spent the final weeks before the midterms showering his supporters with a relentless stream of doubt about the legitimacy of the election, priming them to question results if Republicans lose.

In court, the administration is telegraphing its readiness to challenge results based on alleged fraud. In podcasts and social media posts that are delivered nonstop to Trump’s core backers, right-wing influencers are telling supporters to expect cheating.

The newspaper’s analysis also found that the misinformation campaign is twice as intense as it was ahead of the 2024 elections.

It might be tempting to shrug this off, since Trump lies to so many people about so many things, and the president’s deceptions tend to have limited practical effects. But let’s not forget that the last time he tried to lay the groundwork for rejecting election results he didn’t like, and Republican candidates fared poorly, thousands of the president’s followers launched an insurrectionist attack on the U.S. Capitol.

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