Judging by past comments, Donald Trump has long dreamed of becoming the U.S. president for life like his former friend, President Xi of China. As president for life, he could indulge to the fullest his obsessive narcissism, penchant for corruption and indifference to the hundreds of thousands of Americans who have died from the coronavirus. The one thing he didn’t want—his greatest fear—was to be a loser. But that is what he is. He was decisively beaten by Joseph Biden with a six-million-vote margin and 306 Electoral College votes, 36 more than necessary to win the presidency.
After the abject failure of almost 30 legal actions directed toward changing the result, he has changed course and is now directing his efforts towards directly overturning the election—in no way acknowledging the suffering of Americans as the pandemic surges toward a new peak. He is attempting to pressure state legislatures to override the will of the voters in states that Biden won by getting them to send an alternative Republican slate of Electoral College electors to the Congress—contrary to the will of the people. Georgia has certified the results of the election there and its Governor has signed the certification, formalizing Biden’s win in that state. Trump has been working to subvert the vote in Michigan, a state won by Biden by more than 150,000 votes. Trump had summoned the Michigan Senate Majority Leader and the House of Representatives Speaker, both Republicans, to a White House meeting yesterday (November 20) in an attempt to pressure them to overturn the vote in Michigan and to declare the state for Trump. Upon emerging from their meeting with the president, the two legislators issued a joint statement indicating that they had learned nothing to warrant reversing the outcome in their state. Michigan Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey (R) and Speaker of the House Lee Chatfield (R) said, “We will follow the law and follow the normal process regarding Michigan’s election, just as we have said throughout this election.” These two men are heroes like many other state officials who have stood up for democracy in these trying times.
There were strong words from the United States Congress on Trump’s efforts to overthrow the people’s electoral decision. The House of Representatives Majority Leader, Steny Hoyer, said, “I think this borders on treason. He is undermining the very essence of democracy, which is: you go to the poll, you vote, and the people decide. There is no doubt that the people decided.”[1] Senator Mitt Romney, former Republican candidate for president said, “Having failed to make even a plausible case of widespread fraud or conspiracy before any court of law, the President has now resorted to overt pressure on state and local officials to subvert the will of the people and overturn the election. It is difficult to imagine a worse, more undemocratic act by a sitting American president.”[2]
Trump intends also to pressure Pennsylvania and Georgia officials. Pennsylvania has rebuffed Trump pressure before. A spokesperson for the Secretary of State of Georgia, Brad Raffensperger, a Republican official, said yesterday that there is a “zero” chance he would take a telephone call from the president or his advisors.[3] He is another stalwart state legislative official, also a Republican, who has determined to carry out his duties.
Trump’s latest legal strategy was presented on November 19 by Rudolph Giuliani, his chief lawyer, and his two assistants Jenna Ellis and Sydney Powell. After Giuliani’s wildly irrational presentation, Sidney Powell pointed to its central claim, “that the voting system used in many states, including those manufactured by Dominion Voting Systems, use software ‘created in Venezuela at the direction of Hugo Chavez to make sure he never lost an election . . . .’ There is no evidence to support this theory.” [4] It is one of a number of far-right conspiracy theories spread widely on social media and right-wing websites. It has been confirmed as false by the Georgia hand recount, which recorded what vote each voter actually did cast.
Tucker Carlson interviewed Ms. Powell for Fox News on Thursday. During a press conference earlier that day Ms. Powell had made her argument about the Venezuelan origin of the software utilized by Denver-based Dominion Voting System, which originally had been developed to benefit President Hugo Chavez, who died in 2011. According to the account in The Hill,
[Powell] claimed votes were manipulated overseas to favor President-elect Joe Biden. There is no evidence to [Ms. Powell’s] claim that votes were manipulated, and it has been criticized by a number of conservative officials, including Senator Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) who on Thursday called it ‘absolutely outrageous.’ Carlson said he frequently reached out to Powell for evidence for her claim and invited her on the show. . . . ”When we kept pressing, she got angry and told us to stop contacting her.’ Carlson said, ‘When we checked with others around the Trump campaign, people in positions of authority, they told us Powell has never given any evidence either. Nor did she provide any today.”[5]
“Day by day,” says The Washington Post, “President Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of a free and fair election grow more brazen. Day by day, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky) and other so-called leaders of the Republican party grow more complicit in this banana republic assault on democracy. . . . “ His earlier legal challenges having failed, Trump is now trying to directly pressure state officials and legislatures to corrupt the process of vote certification, ignore the will of the people and flip the election to him, the loser, not the winner. Says the Post of this effort,
. . . it is a pathetic spectacle when the burden of defending democracy is falling on such state leaders, as well as principled secretaries of state such as Georgia Republican Brad Raffensperger, while the likes of Mr. McConnell and Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) — who, having both just won reelection, have no conceivable excuse for such spinelessness — hide behind platitudes about allowing Mr. Trump to play out his legal options. Mr. Trump is not playing out legitimate legal options. He is maneuvering to undo his defeat through lies and chicanery. Let us all remember who abetted this disgrace and who stood up to it.[6]
Thomas Friedman in his recent New York Times article raised a closely related question with regard to Republican support for Trump’s efforts to overturn the election and destroy our democracy: “How do you trust this version of the Republican Party to ever hold the White House again?” In its leadership and through its representatives in Washington, it is no longer the party of Lincoln or even a party of principles. It has become a party that loves power for its own sake. As Freidman says of the party,
Its members sat mute while Trump, rather than using the federal bureaucracy to launch a war against our surging pandemic, has launched a war against his perceived enemies inside that federal bureaucracy. . . . A political party that will not speak up against such a reckless leader is not a party any longer. It is some kind of populist cult of personality. That’s been obvious ever since this GOP was the first party to conclude its presidential nominating convention without offering any platform. It declared that its platform was whatever its Dear Leader said it was.” That is why Biden’s mission—and the mission of all decent conservatives—is not just to repair America. It is to marginalize this Trumpian version of the GOP and help to nurture a healthy conservative party—one that brings conservative approaches to economic growth, infrastructure, social policy, education, regulation, and climate change, but also cares about governing and therefore accepts compromise.”[7]
So, there you have it, a criminal president, a largely supine party enabling him in any way they can and a general neo-fascist attack on our liberty, our values, our democracy and our country. We need a president with principles and competence and, hopefully, we will soon have one in office. We need a strong Democratic party supporting him with the backing of the principled conservatives that remain in the Republican party. That party in its present form has disqualified itself from future participation in American national governance. It is no longer a party that supports or cares about America. It is a party that has tried to sell us out to Russia to enrich its senior members. One of its prominent senate members is reported to have urged voter tampering in Georgia during the recount—probably thus engaging in a criminal act. Its majority leader in the Senate is in many ways indistinguishable from Trump. The GOP must be dismantled or split—with one part evolving into a party of principled, tough, pragmatic and patriotic conservatives and the rump left to sink further in its morass of neo-fascism, fake conspiracy tales and limitless lies. There are strong Republican leaders at the state level but few at the national level in Washington. If principled patriots in this country stay together, nothing can defeat us.
Now let’s consider views from our Founders.
“But if the laws are to be trampled upon—with impunity and a minority (a small one too) is to dictate to the majority—there is an end put at one stroke, to republican government and nothing but anarchy and confusion is to be expected thereafter…” — George Washington, 1794
“If it be asked, What is the most sacred duty and the greatest source of our security in a Republic? The answer would be, an inviolable respect for the Constitution and Laws—the first growing out of the last…a sacred respect for the constitutional law is the vital principle, the sustaining energy of a free government.” — Alexander Hamilton, 1794
“A government of laws, and not of men.” — John Adams, 1780
“That people who pay a greater respect to a wealthy villain than to an honest, upright man in poverty, almost deserves to be enslaved, they plainly show that wealth however it may be acquired, is in their esteem, to be preferred to virtue… Surely you never will tamely suffer this country to be a den of thieves.” — John Hancock, 1774
“A Constitution of Government once changed from freedom, can never be restored. Liberty once lost is lost forever.” — John Adams, 1775
“The liberties of our country, the freedom of our civil constitution are worth defending at all hazards and it is our duty to defend them against all attacks.” — Samuel Adams, 1771
“It is a very great mistake to imagine that the object of loyalty is the authority and interest of one individual man, however dignified by the applause or enriched by the success of popular actions.” — Samuel Adams, 1748
“I have sworn on the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.” — Thomas Jefferson, 1880
“If there be a principle that ought not to be questioned within the United States, it is that every man has the right to abolish an old government and establish a new one.” — James Madison, 1793
A lady asked Dr. Franklin, “Well Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?” “A republic,” replied the Doctor, “if you can keep it.” — Benjamin Franklin, 1787 (outside Constitution Hall)
John Jay
[1] Rucker, Philip, Gardner, Amy, Dawsey, Josh, “Trump wages full assault to overturn election,” The Washington Post, November 20, 2010.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Ibid.
[5] The Hill.com, November 20, 2020.
[6] Editorial. The Washington Post, November 20, 2020.
[7] Friedman, Thomas L. “How can we trust this GOP in power again?” New York Times, Op-Ed page, November 17, 2020.