Revolt Against Democracy

The breadth and intensity of the President and his followers’ revolt against the incontestable results of the presidential election represent an extraordinary threat to the American democracy.  The most recent and perhaps most brazen action was the Texas Attorney General’s suit asking the Supreme Court — without providing any evidence of wrong-doing — to overturn the results of the November election.  Twenty-seven other states’ Republican attorneys general and 127 Republican members of the House of Representatives signed on to an amicus brief in support.  This is despite the failure of over fifty legal challenges since the election that have claimed fraud or other reason for rejecting its legitimacy.  The Supreme Court summarily dismissed this one, too.  

This is not a case, as his congressional supporters claim, of assuring that the President is afforded all his constitutional legal rights.  This is a case, rather, of siding with Trump and his supporters’ baseless claims as they subvert the democratic process.  Just three days before the Electoral College met, only 27 congressional Republicans accepted Biden’s win a month earlier.  

The Electoral College has now certified the results of the presidential election.  Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has acknowledged Joe Biden as President-Elect, but anyone who believes that Donald Trump will change his behavior as a result of these events hasn’t been paying attention to the President since November 3 or, actually, long before.  He won’t change that behavior after Joe Biden is sworn in as President on January 20, either.  What will be “interesting” (as an approaching tsunami might be called “interesting”) is how many of his congressional followers will continue to support his claim to the presidency.  At this point, 48 hours after the Electoral College vote, most Republicans in Congress have yet to acknowledge Biden’s victory

What is going on?  I cannot believe that even President Trump now actually thinks he will change the results of the election.  But he does apparently actually believe that the election was stolen from him.  And he appears to be positioning himself to remain the leader of the Republican Party.  Six weeks after the election, according to a Fox News poll, 77% of Trump voters and 68% of all Republicans believe that Trump was robbed of the election.  The President is well positioned to lead a movement that will continue to challenge the legitimacy of the election, the Biden presidency, and the American democratic process.

It’s a time of enormous uncertainty.  What power will citizen Donald Trump have after January 20?  Will the Republican Party continue to follow President Trump down this rabbit hole of rebellion?  If enough people distrust the legitimacy of the election, will that become the rallying cry for nationalists for years?

In the more immediate future, how will our democracy function if over a third of the country refuses to believe that Joe Biden has a legitimate claim to the presidency?  

The President-Elect seems to recognize the danger and is, it seems, making every effort to reach out to the Republicans in Congress and speak to those Americans who distrust him.  Restoring that trust may be the most important task of his presidency.