“Tricky Dick” is looking pretty good these days. Richard M. Nixon’s public stance after he lost to John F. Kennedy in the 1960 presidential squeaker makes him look like a real American patriot compared to what we are hearing during this presidential election.

Nixon knew what we all still know. America is not a monarchy with inherited power. America is not the domain of a tyrant who seizes and holds power. America is not a place where the hard-earned freedoms of its people will give way to the personal interests of anyone.

The Kennedy-Nixon election was really close. As President Kennedy told a crowd in Chicago in 1961, “If all of you had voted the other way — there’s about 5,500 of you here tonight — I would not be president of the United States.”

Nixon’s early morning concession speech after the election was vaguely conditional, acknowledging continuing trends that would result in a likely Kennedy victory. But even as his stalwarts were looking for cheating because there was something hinky about the Chicago returns, he remained steady.

Possible court challenges were considered but never filed after President Eisenhower pulled the plug. And there were some inconvenient discoveries of pro-Nixon tampering elsewhere in Illinois. But by December, America had another peaceful transition of power.

When Nixon presided over the joint session of Congress for the Electoral College count, he said, “In our campaigns, no matter how hard they may be, no matter how close the election may turn out to be, those who lose accept the verdict and support those who win.”

As if 2020 is not crazy enough, it looks like that American tradition is under threat. Asked about a peaceful transition if he loses, Donald Trump usually says, “We’re going to have to see what happens.” Just last week, he told NBC’s Savannah Guthrie, “Peaceful transfer … I absolutely want that, but ideally, I don’t want a transfer because I want to win.”

He claims that mail-in voting is corrupt, offering no evidence when pressed. He calls for the swift confirmation of his Supreme Court nominee, because he thinks “this will end up in the Supreme Court.” And he calls on “my supporters to go into the polls and watch very carefully,” threatening to disrupt the role of official poll watchers.

Sometimes he says things just to rankle his detractors, but that does not make some of the things that he says less dangerous. Election officials who should be concentrating on the mundane but essential counting of votes are now spending time preparing for firearm-toting disrupters and groundless mass ballot challenges.

Four years ago, the greatest threat to our elections was disruption by foreign actors using social media and computer hacking, and they are still out there. This year, we have to worry about homegrown disruption, too. Chaos and delay seem to be the goals.

But no one should underestimate our commitment to the American tradition of the peaceful transition of power. When this election is over, there will be one winner and one loser. And America will move on regardless of any attempt to kneecap our democracy.

Richard Nixon knew that. And we know that.

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