And environmental protection would be much more positively prominent in many more American minds. If Gore had been awarded the election he actually won.
Opinion Let us praise Al Gore for saving the country ... Al Gore gave the world much about much.
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We don’t talk enough about Al Gore and his greatest moment: The night of Dec. 12, 2000, when he saved the country by accepting the bitter results of a partisan Supreme Court ruling on a tied election.
The 5-4 decision in Bush v. Gore gave George W. Bush 271 electoral college votes — one more than required for victory. After the excruciating spectacle of the Florida recount, there was more reason to challenge the legitimacy of the presidential election than any time since 1860.
If Donald Trump .. https://www.washingtonpost.com/donald-trump/?itid=lk_inline_manual_6 .. loses next year, as I believe he will, it is a foregone conclusion that he won’t accept the results. Most of the Republican Party will either support his fraudulent claims or remain silent, just as they did in 2020. This is the great shame that will forever taint my former party.
By continuing to follow Trump, the Republican Party is transforming from a traditional American political party into an autocratic movement. Gore was in the American mainstream, with the shared belief that democracy is a sacred trust that must be protected. Trump rejects that basic value. The House speaker, Mike Johnson (R-La.), announced he has been anointed by God. This is not a party prepared to accept the verdict of mere citizens over God’s will.
Gore could have shattered our electoral system’s stability by raising legitimate questions about a deeply flawed process. There was clear reason to feel he had been cheated in a state governed by his opponent’s brother and by a Supreme Court influenced by his opponent’s father. It was the first time in more than a century that the winner of the popular vote was not elected president.
I moved to Austin to work for the Bush campaign in the spring of 1999. We were more relieved than jubilant when the election was finally called. Looking back, what Gore did was the action of a quiet hero, like so many others in our history. He passed the character test that the GOP fails every day that they support Trump. Gore showed what patriots do: Put the country first.
“Almost a century and a half ago,” Gore said that December night, “Senator Stephen Douglas told Abraham Lincoln, who had just defeated him for the presidency, ‘Partisan feeling must yield to patriotism. I’m with you, Mr. President, and God bless you.’” Gore urged the country to come together and was later praised for his graciousness. “Let there be no doubt, while I strongly disagree with the court’s decision, I accept it. … And tonight, for the sake of our unity as a people and the strength of our democracy, I offer my concession.”
After the 2000 election, Gore withdrew from elected politics and focused on sounding the alarm about climate change. His legacy will be most remembered for his time in elected office — as a member of Congress, a U.S. senator and vice president — and for his prescient environmental warnings. He’ll join the list of other Democrats and Republicans who lost a presidential race, the stuff of historical footnotes remembered for what they failed to accomplish, not what they achieved.
But as we increasingly realize the inherent fragility of our democracy with its dependency on good will, Gore’s greatest moment may well be when he accepted defeat. This year, let us pause to honor the actions of a quiet American hero who simply did the right thing. As the Republican Party has forgotten, there can be no democracy unless someone is willing to lose.
That night in December 2000, Gore told his staff not to trash the Supreme Court because he believed there was something more important at stake than the results of one election. He was right. We owe Gore the respect of a grateful nation.
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