It appears that Donald Trump may have lost this election outright. Certainly, he appears, once again, to have lost the popular vote by a significant margin. Since this is still a democracy, that should clearly imply that Trump’s days in the White House are numbered, should the current projections hold. After all, if he lost the election, then he has not earned the right to serve another term in office.
Yet, he and his supporters are actively trying to actively stop the democratic process. Trump called for a halt to the counting of votes. Has there ever been an American president who has tried to stop the votes from being counted before? That is the most blatantly anti-democratic action yet from Donald Trump, and that is saying something. Nor are his supporters sitting idly by. They effectively attacked the Biden campaign bus over the weekend, and now, they are protesting just outside of the building where the votes are being counted in Maricopa county, trying to get the counting of votes to stop. You know, just let Trump be president forever and ever, because democracy does not matter.
This is why it would be so much better if Trump finally goes. This would be perfect symbolism for all of those Trump fans who thought their tin god was untouchable. I am not sure, as many of his detractors are, that he will spend a single day in jail, even though he deserves nothing less than behind bars. But how fitting would it be if, after all of the nonsense that he and his supporters managed to get away with, they finally lost power because of the democratic process that they fought so hard to undermine from the first? Of course, not all of the votes have been counted yet. But I will tell you this much: Trump supporters and fans are clearly not as confident and happy as they seemed to be on Tuesday evening. When I came into work on Tuesday night, those pro-Trump coworkers who were there were in a celebratory mood. They were positively giddy, like fans of a sports team might be on the night when their team wins a hard-fought championship title. Trump seemed to have won, was ahead in almost all of the battleground states, including Michigan and Wisconsin. But that changed as the votes continued to be counted. When I came in last night (Wednesday evening), they were a lot less energetic. In fact, they now looked gloomy. I would imagine that many Trump supporters are feeling and looking the same way.
Not all of them, however. Do not believe that for a second. Some of them are damn angry, and will refuse to accept that their beloved savior could go down in defeat, sent packing from the White House that they thought they owned, simply because a significant and undeniable majority of voters across the country, and a slimmer majority of voters in the battleground states, decided that they did not like Trump’s style so much, and opted for someone else.
In the wee hours on Wednesday morning (a few hours after the end of Election Day), Trump delivered a speech declaring victory. It was what everyone expected, and predictably, he not only declared himself the victor, but suggested that there was a major fraud going on, and demanded a stop to the counting of votes.
For once, his fellow Republicans did not fall in line. One after the other, Republicans seemed to condemn Trump’s allegations of voter fraud and calls to stop the vote count. Even prominent Republicans, such as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, urged patience, reminding everyone that it will take time to count all of the votes. And when Trump demanded a recount of the Wisconsin vote, since he had fallen behind and appeared to have lost that state, Governor Scott Walker said that while it was within the rights of the Trump campaign to do so, it was an “uphill battle,” as the margin was likely too large for a recount to make much of a different. The margin was not a few hundred, like it was in Florida in 2000. It was in the thousands, even the tens of thousands.
Other Republicans also criticized Trump’s declaration of victory and demand to stop the vote, as well, including some of his traditional allies:
"There's just no basis to make that argument tonight," former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said on ABC News. "There just isn't. All these votes have to be counted that are in now."
"You have to let the process play itself out before you judge it to be flawed. And by prematurely doing this, if there is a flaw later, he has undercut his own credibility," Christie continued. "So I think it's a bad strategic decision, it's a bad political decision, and it's not the kind of decision you would expect someone to make tonight who holds the position he holds."
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine said on Fox News Wednesday evening that while "I am for Trump...if it ends up being Biden, all of us will accept that." "We believe in the rule of law," De Wine said. "Every vote has to be counted. We as a country accept election results. We believe in counting all the votes."
Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, who spoke at a recent Trump campaign rally, said in a tweet that "taking days to count legally cast votes is NOT fraud." Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, a moderate Republican, called Trump's declaration "outrageous and uncalled for and a terrible mistake." "Regardless of where you stand on this race and what party you are and who you voted for, most Americans really want a free and fair election process, and they want us to count the votes,” Hogan said at a Washington Post event.
In a statement, Republican Sen. Mike Lee, who represents Utah — a staunchly conservative state that automatically sends every registered voter a mail-ballot — urged calm. "It's best for everyone to step back from the spin and allow the vote counters to do their job," Lee said.
"Losing an election is not a coup," conservative commentator Erick Erickson said on Twitter, responding to a Trump tweet falsely claiming victory by saying, "That's not how this is done."
"No, Trump has not already won the election, and it is deeply irresponsible for him to say he has," popular online personality Ben Shapiro tweeted.
And former GOP Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania said he was "very distressed by what I just heard the president say."
"The idea of using the word 'fraud' being committed by people counting votes is wrong," Santorum said on CNN. "They're counting the absentee and mail-in ballots right now. And some counties have stopped counting. Why have they stopped counting? Because it's 2:48 in the morning!"
Even if everything goes smoothly between now and January 20th, and we wake up on the morning of the 21st of January in a few months, and find ourselves, finally, having put Donald Trump’s pathetic excuse for a presidency in the past, we are not fully done with it. What happened with his rise, and the unconditional acceptance, even reverence, of Donald Trump did indeed resemble a cult. That is why it was compared to that, as well as to fascist dictatorships. Never before has the United States flirted so closely with such an authoritarian figure as Trump, whether it was in the form of a pseudo-dictatorship (as close as he could manage, given the laws and a system that thankfully limited him) and a cult.
It is a cult. And it is still dangerous.
They rely on disinformation, on propaganda, and on violence. They believe their leader when he tells them that he is telling the truth, and it is everyone else who is lying. They believe that he is being victimized, being treated as unfairly as he claims, even though, in fact, Trump has been the luckiest son of a bitch possibly in the history of the world. I mean, seriously, this is a man who was born healthy into a very wealthy family with all sorts of business connections, and who had the distinct advantage of a last name of Trump, which seems almost tailor-made for success. The money and power his family had certainly must have helped him get out of fighting in the Vietnam War. He got away with screwing people over left and right in building a financial empire, kept declaring bankruptcy and getting away with it, time and time again. He became a television personality, even while lacking any actual personality. Then, he relied on xenophobia and sexism to get frustrated white males strongly behind his presidential campaign for the White House. He got away with bad behavior time and time again, and then, despite losing the popular vote by 2.7 million, he officially won the White House. Then, he got to push forward three Supreme Court nominations, all of whom were confirmed, not to mention other prominent court appointments, as he had the advantage of very powerful allies who were loyal to a fault in Congress throughout his years in the Oval Office.
Trump got away with outright crimes once in office, and his administration was the most corrupt and chaotic administration in all of history. By rights, he should have been impeached several times over, for crimes across the board, from collusion with Russia to conflict of interest with his business dealings to his lying and deliberate disinformation campaign, to his incompetent handling of the coronavirus (he disbanded the White House Pandemic team and then lied about it, withheld information about the urgency of the virus, then kept flipflopping on whether it was all that serious or not) and finally, yes, to the Ukraine. Plus, his relentless attacks on the democratic process, attacking a free press (remember, he used the words “enemy of the people” just like some of the most brutal and repressive dictators in history have done) have been frankly horrific, and nothing short of an attack on traditional institutions of American democracy.
Through all of this, his supporters grew more loyal. With every crime, they applauded, delighting in the anger and alarm from informed people concerned about this erosion of liberty and democracy. They applauded Trump, empowered him. They swallowed everything that he offered them accepting and eventually actively encouraging the myth that he was some kind of self-made man who turned a “modest” loan of a million dollars from his father (as if one million dollars were not a huge amount even today, let alone at the time that he received it), and then selflessly stepped down from his successful business ventures to save the country. To hear him say it, you would think that the White House was a horrible and trashy place, and that Trump was slumming it, so to speak.
They grew ever more emboldened. We saw some seriously ugly incidents, many of which betrayed outright racism. Some were even violent, or close to violent, from the Proud Boys to the band of idiots who tried to kidnap the sitting Michigan governor (they meant to try and then execute her) to the Trump flag-waving imbeciles who tried to run the Biden campaign bus off the road over the weekend. They need to be stopped, and losing this election could do that. Or, it could trigger more violence, possibly escalating to a civil war. I only wish I were kidding or exaggerating, although it does not necessarily have to be that way.
Also, they are not just going to disappear, even if Trump is finally relegated to history. They will still be here in this country, and probably still will be a loud and very visible presence. And it would not surprise me, personally, if they get another candidate somewhere along the line who threatens to become a cult of personality like Trump, and who will threaten our democracy, once again. Maybe another Trump, perhaps Donald Trump, Jr., or even Ivanka. Or perhaps someone else who is not yet very visible, possibly one of the leaders of those militant pro-Trump groups. One way or the other, we will have to deal with them again somewhere along the line.
But let us get past Donald Trump, to begin with. One battle at a time. Trump is in the White House right now, undeservedly, and he has already done considerable damage. I heard one guy at my job suggest that the damage is already done.
Maybe. But there is still enough of our democracy left to try and salvage it, and rebuild what was lost or compromised. And that work will not be easy, but it can begin only once Trump is finally gone.
We can deal with his cult later, but through democratic means. If they break the law, then let them deal with law enforcement. If they try and attempt a coup themselves, then let them deal with the military. They are not all-powerful, and not above the laws of this land. Trump has had his moment in the White House. But if the election results hold, and if he does indeed wind up losing, then let his supporters see, once and for all, that he (and they) are not all powerful, and cannot simply do whatever they want. Cannot will himself to continue to be president, going around the laws and elections. Let them see him lose, and let them see him exit the White House, even if it is against his wishes. Hell, especially if it is against his wishes.
Let them see their man finally defeated and diminished. I will admit to never taking Trump seriously, viewing him as a clown, basically. That was what he seemed to me back in the decades before he ever ran for the White House, and he seemed even more like that during the disastrous 2016 campaign. And probably, he seemed even more like that during his presidency, because he never really looked like he belonged. He just is not a serious individual, although by now, his title and the prominence and publicity that it held were no joke. It should have been sobering, but he just kept on being the same clown most of us always knew him to be.
So let us hope that he loses this election, that Biden’s lead in Arizona and Nevada, and his apparent wins in Michigan and Wisconsin, hold. Let us hope that Biden is officially declared the winner of this election, and then let Trump panic, growing ever more desperate for the entire world to see, as his own powerlessness becomes more evident to all. He talks big, tries to walk big. But he is a small man. I think deep down, most of us understand this. As a nation, we should be big enough to get past his enormous ego, and for the country to survive the big threat to democracy and decency that Trump posed. That threat was, frankly, the only big thing about this man and his presidency. Let it end now.
Republican allies break with Trump, say take time to count all the votes by Alex Seitz-Wald, Nov. 4, 2020:
Their comments came after the president urged that ballot counting in some states be stopped and baselessly claimed a "major fraud on the nation
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