This post was written for the Nov. 13 print edition of the Wilson Times.
The Trump administration’s four years have given America numerous new precedents — things no other president or administration officials had ever done. With the announcement a week ago that Democrat Joe Biden has won the election, both in the determining Electoral College tally and in the popular vote, Trump appears to be putting his name in American history in another way.
For the first time in history, an outgoing president might prevent a peaceful transfer of power to the newly elected president. President John Adams set the precedent in 1800 when he conceded the election to Thomas Jefferson, his political opposite and long-time rival. Every president since then, for all 220 years, has accepted “the will of the people” and stepped down to make room for the new president. The peaceful transfer of power is considered the fundamental test of a working democracy. Will we still have one?
Trump has refused to concede the election, which was “called” when it became mathematically impossible for the trailing candidate to catch Biden, who already had more than the 270 electoral votes needed to clinch the presidency. Instead, Trump has persisted in proclaiming the election was “rigged,” “unfair,” “crooked,” “horror stories,” and so on. He has claimed that the election was stolen by Democrats who counted fake ballots or threw away ballots for Trump. He claimed the vote counting, which went on for five days after the Nov. 3 election day, was a fraud.
But ballot counting has always gone on after an election. Trump hurt his own cause by telling his followers they shouldn’t vote by mail, which he claimed was fraudulent. He continues to criticize the counting of ballots, although this year’s counting was probably the most transparent in history. Philadelphia, for instance, placed the non-partisan counters in a glass-front room, where passers-by could watch the process, and closed-circuit TV links allowed citizens to watch the count from home.
State laws, which govern elections, require that observers from both parties observe the casting of ballots and the counting of those ballots. The president’s myriad lawsuits over the counting have been tossed out, except for one in which the Supreme Court decided ballot observers could move closer to the counters — from ten feet to six feet — and the counting resumed.
The only confirmed false ballots incident involved a pair of Virginia men, Trump supporters linked to QAnon, CNN and other news outlets reported. The men were arrested after arriving in Philadelphia with loaded guns and a truck full of counterfeit ballots.
Trump will retain presidential powers until noon on Jan. 20. This gives him time to take revenge on his perceived enemies. He has already fired the director of USAID, a career diplomat and manager, and his defense secretary. He has also threatened to fire Anthony Fauci, the career epidemiologist who earned Trump’s ire by contradicting his erroneous statements at COVID news conferences. This ten-week interregnum will allow Trump a second chance to settle scores and clean house. Don’t think he won’t use it. He may also pardon more of his loyal friends and maybe even himself.
It appears that, despite all of Trump’s bluster, the election vote will be certified, and Biden will be inaugurated on Jan. 20. If Trump mellows (is that possible?), he might not go down in history as the only president to be physically removed after losing an election. Some members of his own party have warned him that he doesn’t want that to be his place in history.
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