After this most consequential of elections the country remains as divided as ever. But we can all take some measure of comic relief as the buffoon who remains the outgoing president’s chief legal spokesman masterminded a Three Stooges operation that went awry.
Rudy Giuliani had planned a rousing press conference to be held at a 5-star Philadelphia hotel. Communications sometimes have a way of getting muddled. Instead of that 5-star hotel, the venue turned out to be a parking lot located between a porn bookstore and a crematorium. But Trump’s ace attorney managed to achieve his chief goal, remaining in the spotlight.
This election rendered something for everyone to cheer about, and to worry about. The major takeaway is that, much to the relief of anyone paying attention, the march toward autocracy has been stopped, at least for now. Critics and analysts of all stripes cite the success of checks and balances as a course correction. No, it was not institutions designed to check the accumulation and abuse of presidential power that did it. It was the ultimate power of ordinary voters that steered the country away from a march to autocracy, for now. But let us not be Pollyannaish about this; we must face reality.
There is a difference between pessimism and realism. Realistic observers know that democracy is never assured. The lesson here is not that “checks and balances work,” but that we have just experienced how fragile our democracy is.
A smooth demagogue who masters the art of “divide and conquer,” taps into anger and discontent of those left behind and who fear change, who attains power and uses position to accumulate and consolidate more power, can lead us down the road to autocracy. That’s how democracies die. We escaped this time. But not by enough to bring comfort.
The presidential numbers look good in some respects for Democrats. Biden wins the Electoral College with 306 votes, the exact number by which Trump won in 2016 and considered a “giant landslide.” Biden increased the Democratic popular vote majority to over five million and counting, compared to Secretary Clinton’s roughly three million popular vote majority. It’s tough to beat an incumbent, but Trump has been only the tenth presidential incumbent in U.S. history to be ousted. In addition, it was the largest majority by which a presidential incumbent has ever been defeated.
Nevertheless, Democrats have significant cause for concern. Although Democrats hoped to gain a majority in the Senate and end Senator McConnell’s reign as majority leader, they netted a gain of only one seat. The chances of Democrats winning both of those two contested seats in the Georgia January runoff are slim. McConnell, the self-proclaimed “Grim Reaper,” and the Republicans stand to retain control of the Senate.
Democrats did not do well in down-ballot legislative and governorship races. Nor did they do as well as expected in some places with the Hispanic vote, namely South Florida and the Lower Rio Grande Valley.
Although the Biden victory was solid, and uncontestable by any reasonable standard, it was not the total repudiation that Democrats had hoped for. Trump still received some 73 million votes, including fifty-five percent of the white vote. While many traditionally Republican college-educated suburban women apparently switched to Biden, the total vote of white women for Trump actually increased from fifty-one percent for Trump in 2016, to fifty-three percent in 2020. There were many women in 2016 who “just didn’t like Hillary.” Just as clearly, there are many conservative women in this nation who, even if skeptical of Trump’s style, are willing to tolerate him, and vote for him.
If Trump’s 306 Electoral College victory in 2016 was considered “a giant landslide,” why does not Trump consider Biden’s 306 Electoral College vote “a landslide?” That’s easy. It’s because Trump and many of his supporters don’t believe the results of the election. Why would they? Trump didn’t even believe the results of the 2016 that he won, insisting that Clinton’s three million popular vote majority was through fraudulent votes.
Trump warned the nation that anything but a Trump victory could only be the result of a “rigged election,” and he would “throw it to the Supreme Court.” Fortunately for the nation, there is no evidence of voter fraud in any state run by either Republicans or Democrats. If these elections gave victories to down-ballot Republicans, how could these same elections give fraudulent votes to Democrats? This is a clear case of grasping at straws. The results are too clear for Trump to throw a lifeline to the Supreme Court.
Some Republicans are going to the ludicrous extreme of demanding the resignation of Georgia’s Republican Secretary of State, Brad Raffensberger, because of Biden’s victory. What’s this? He didn’t suppress enough Democratic votes to ensure a Trump victory? With Georgia’s history of voter suppression, Mr. Raffensberger wants no part of any shenanigans this time around.
Trump supporters chastise Democrats for “not accepting” results of the 2016 election. That’s simply more eyewash. Democrats criticized not the final count, but rather, Trump’s acceptance of Russian interference in the election that is affirmed by U.S. intelligence agencies. There is all the difference in the world between criticizing foreign interference and not accepting the final count — that Trump refuses to do.
During all past presidential elections even the bitterest of rivals cooperated in the transition of power. As in 2008, a Democratic president once again in 2020 takes office with the nation in terrible shape. In 2008, incoming President Obama praised the Bush Administration for its cooperation in making the always-difficult transfer of power smooth and effective. In contrast, Donald Trump not only refuses to accept the results of the election, but is making the transfer of power as difficult as he can.
Trump’s recalcitrant behavior can only delay the nation moving forward in addressing our serious problems. And while a graceful concession speech is not obligatory, it would afford Trump the opportunity to display some welcome class.
— John Waelti’s column appears every Saturday in the Times. He can be reached at jjwaelti1@tds.net.
