...except that if Bush had clearly won the popular vote yet lost the election by mere thousands, he would have definitely called for a recount as well, and would have been right to do so. That election wasn't tainted by having no confidence in the electoral process, but by having two milquetoast candidates that nobody could choose between so the result was an almost completely even split.

On the other hand, Trump is saying he might not accept the will of the voters before a single vote has been tallied, which is the same as saying that he might have gone third party and eviscerated the Republican party's base if he hadn't gotten the Republican nomination (a tactic that worked very well to bully anti-Trump conservatives into supporting him, if you'll remember).

It does nothing to bolster confidence in the American electoral process and in fact lays seeds of doubt that may end up creating more factions of homegrown American dissidents and anarchists who now have a major public figure saying "don't trust your leaders, they've stolen your country. Take your public elected officials out of office by any means necessary, since the only legal means is now illegitimate." #draintheswamp might as well mean #guillotinethearistocracy with the amount of class conflict, nationalistic fervor, and disaffection with official government transferral of power that Trump is trumpeting. When the legal routes to get corrupt officials out of power are considered untenable, what is left? The illegal means.