Election evening is magic for me. The TV advertisements and marketing campaign hoopla have vanished. One aspect has received; the different hasn’t. The reality alone abides.
However solely the loser can affirm it. It takes the concession speech, delivered on reside tv, to make it actual for the aspect that fell quick.
I’ll always remember sitting with my dad on my first election evening. I felt his sympathy for New York Governor Averell Harriman as he conceded defeat to Nelson Rockefeller in 1958. All these years later, I recall his sympathy for that old-money (in comparison with Rockefeller) gentleman.
That’s the reason Donald Trump stands earlier than us as a thief. It’s not all these outdated carny tips—the Trump sneakers, the Trump College tuition, the failed Atlantic Metropolis casinos, or the payments by no means paid—it’s his denial to the American voter of an sincere accounting of his 2020 presidential loss and the Capitol riot he torched on January 6, 2021.
Immediately, my newest e book, Classes from Bobby: Ten Causes Robert F. Kennedy Nonetheless Issues, is being printed. Amongst its chapters is No. 9, Know When to Concede.
One in every of Bobby Kennedy’s presents was the ethical skill to just accept defeat, which he did within the 1968 Oregon Presidential major, every week earlier than his assassination.
Right here is that chapter and with it Bobby’s lesson:
Donald Trump refused to concede the 2020 presidential election. He refused to halt the January 6 “Cease the Steal” assault on the US Capitol. He refused to attend the inauguration of Joe Biden on January 20, 2021.
This may increasingly have been Trump’s worst crime in opposition to the American constitutional system. It positively will get to the center of it. The sincere switch of presidential authority is one in every of this nation’s highest traditions. Americans are proud to have elections which can be carried out truthfully, and proud to have this switch of energy seen by the world. I consider all of the concession speeches in my life: Jimmy Carter, Walter Mondale, George H. W. Bush, Bob Dole, Al Gore (after the lengthy recount), John Kerry, John McCain, Mitt Romney, Hillary Clinton, and Kamala Harris. In his egocentric curiosity, Donald Trump selected to undercut that custom.
Right here’s a rule. Don’t run for workplace if you’re incapable of telling the reality concerning the outcomes. Once more, Bobby Kennedy provides the right mannequin.
Weeks earlier than his dying, Robert Kennedy might already see himself dropping the Oregon presidential major. The strongest cause had been his personal delay in getting into the race. Eugene McCarthy provided his anti–Vietnam Struggle problem in November 1967. Bobby Kennedy had waited till March. He might see himself about to be punished by Oregon’s antiwar Democrats.
I recall watching Roger Mudd of CBS Information interview Kennedy in an airport. When the newsman requested him if it bothered him that so many faculty college students had caught with McCarthy, the look on his face instructed us the reply. Boston Globe reporter Robert Healy mentioned that actually “gnawed” at Bobby.
One other drawback, near house, was his lack of a gifted marketing campaign supervisor, somebody whose work would match what he himself had completed for his brother Jack in 1960. It meant that his marketing campaign was unable to alter course rapidly because it wanted to in Oregon.
However on some points, Bobby didn’t need to change course. “This simply will not be my time,” he admitted. He was doing what he wished to be doing. He was speaking concerning the folks within the cities and about their issues. A few of his advisors instructed him that the issues of the cities had been distant to the voters of Oregon and may cost him votes within the major if he didn’t change.
Only a week earlier than his dying, he misplaced the Oregon presidential major. It was the primary time Bobby had misplaced an election, both as Jack Kennedy’s marketing campaign supervisor or as a candidate himself.
Columnist Jules Witcover described him “in his shirtsleeves, tie off however nonetheless carrying the PT-109 tie clasp that had been the image of Kennedy political invincibility. He had a closely watered-down drink in his hand, and he was in a quiet, reflective temper—not bitter, not shocked, not even transparently dissatisfied, simply resigned.”
Bobby mentioned that he might sense days earlier than the Oregon major that he was in hassle when he did not get a responsive response from Portland manufacturing unit employees. He might inform, he mentioned, that they weren’t tuned in, that he wasn’t speaking with them. He requested aides the place he had run properly and the place poorly, and he took the knowledge very similar to the marketing campaign supervisor he as soon as was. One reporter requested him if he thought Oregon had damage him, and it made him snort. “It definitely wasn’t one of many extra useful developments of the day,” he mentioned.
However he refused guilty his campaigners. “If I’d received it, it might have been my victory, and I’ve misplaced it and it’s my defeat. I typically surprise if I’ve appropriately sensed the temper of America. I feel I have. However perhaps I’m all improper. Perhaps the folks don’t need issues modified. I do higher with individuals who have issues.”
Pat Buchanan, then a marketing campaign researcher for Richard Nixon, was impressed by the best way Kennedy absorbed the shock of dropping. “His graciousness in conceding defeat and congratulating Gene McCarthy was spectacular. That is the primary time I’d seen Bobby in particular person. He couldn’t have proven himself higher in victory than he did in defeat that evening.”
Bobby instructed Jack Newfield. “If that occurs, I’ll simply return to the Senate, and say what I imagine, and never attempt once more in ’72. Any person has to communicate up for the Negroes, and Indians, and Mexicans, and poor whites. Perhaps that’s what I do greatest. Perhaps my character simply isn’t constructed for this. . . . The problems are extra essential than me now.”
Wanting ahead to the California major, Bobby raised the stakes.
First, he agreed to satisfy Gene McCarthy in a nationally televised debate. “I’m not in a lot of a place now to say he’s not a critical candidate. Hell, if he’s not a critical candidate after tonight, then I’m not a candidate in any respect.”
Second, he promised to finish his marketing campaign if he misplaced in California.
The sincere acceptance of his loss in Oregon confirmed that Kennedy wasn’t the “ruthless” determine he’d been referred to as.
Bobby Kennedy issues as a result of he acknowledged defeat. That’s the enduring actuality right here. If the loser in an election refuses to supply a public, televised concession speech, he’s sharing his denial together with his followers. That’s what Donald Trump, the loser of the 2020 presidential election, instructed his MAGA crowd as they headed to the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.
I’ve lengthy taken satisfaction that we as Individuals take part in a vibrant democracy—dwelling in a rustic the place those that lose elections give a public accounting of their loss. They don’t blame the rely; they don’t blame the democratic system itself
I recall sitting in our basement rec room with Dad watching the 1958 midterm election outcomes. New York Governor Averell Harriman got here on to supply his concession speech. He’d simply misplaced the race to Nelson Rockefeller. My father felt a direct emotional reference to the governor’s loss. As a middle-class man, he might nonetheless establish personally with the second the fabulously rich Harriman was dealing with.
That was my introduction to watching nationwide election outcomes and to actually understanding our democracy. For years, via election after election, I’ve appeared ahead to the concession speech. It’s a bittersweet time for individuals who fought onerous in a marketing campaign, particularly for the candidate who simply discovered she or he had misplaced.
However it’s a clear signal that the marketing campaign is over. All of the TV advertisements and bumper stickers have completed their enterprise. Now we noticed that the folks have had their say. The winner has been determined. The loser has simply instructed us so. It brings a crackling actuality to the entire train. Our nice democracy has received once more.
I particularly took satisfaction in our free and open democratic system after I served within the Peace Corps. As I hitchhiked my means up via East Africa, I noticed younger democracies the place the losers would predictably declare that the election had been stolen. I’ve additionally personally witnessed a very good quantity of elections in my profession. I misplaced a major myself working for Congress in 1974. I noticed my first boss, Senator Frank Moss, lose his reelection bid in Utah two years later, and in 1980, I watched my boss, Jimmy Carter, go down. In each these instances, the dropping candidates, my candidates, gave public concession speeches.
But on January 6, we noticed the identical low cost prices—“Cease the Steal”—being thrown right here in the US.
President Trump, defeated within the November 2020 election by seven million votes within the in style rely, instructed a crowd of unruly supporters to go to the Capitol. As soon as there, they tore via the doorways and left a path of mayhem. It took the mixed U.S. Capitol and Metropolitan Police to cease them earlier than they may deliver actual hurt or worse to members of Congress and to Trump’s personal vp.
This piece is tailored from Classes from Bobby: Ten Causes Robert F. Kennedy Nonetheless Issues by Chris Matthews. Copyright © 2025 by Christopher J. Matthews. Reprinted with permission of Simon & Schuster, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
