Shake off narcissistic fantasies; start speaking truth to power
Many candidates and supporters have been hurt after losing a presidential election. Every four years in the United States, one candidate wins and the other loses. One party is disappointed, the other elated.
I was disappointed four years ago when Hillary Clinton lost, and my husband was so grieved that he would not talk to me about politics for many months after. When Al Gore lost to George W. Bush in 2000 by a razor-thin margin in Florida, we were equally crushed. I remember thinking, “This election was unfair.” Gore, however, quickly conceded after the Supreme Court ruled in Bush’s favor, saving the country further pain.
The loss for the losing candidate must be excruciating — but while defeat is always devastating, only one candidate in American history has embarrassed the nation before the world and intentionally divided the country by his refusal to concede. Only one has called America “a Third World country” because the election did not go his way and inspired his followers to intimidate those who do not blindly follow his lead.
Every opportunity has been given to President Donald Trump to prove his case in court. He has lost more than 50 court cases, with some judges — even his own appointees — admonishing his lawyers for their lack of evidence and spurious reasoning. When legal cases, including appeals to the Supreme Court, proved of no avail, Trump and his surrogate, U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, contacted Republican officials in other states in November to see if they would declare their state’s election rigged and put in their own slate of electors. Fortunately, the state representatives and officials had more courage than do some in Washington.
Now, the electors have voted and all that is left is for Congress to read out the votes and authorize the count. Trump has encouraged House and Senate leaders to object to the electoral votes. Those who do Trump’s bidding will go down in history as ambitious and craven sycophants who were willing to risk our democracy for their political power.
On New Year’s Eve, Republican U.S. Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska wrote of his colleagues’ fears: “When we talk in private, I haven’t heard a single Congressional Republican allege that the election results were fraudulent — not one. Instead, I hear them talk about their worries about how they will ‘look’ to President Trump’s most ardent supporters.”
Republicans know that Trump and his base will reward or punish them according to their willingness to validate his lie. Some will be willing to cry “election fraud” today, even though Trump’s own officials have declared the election sound and U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch Mcconnell has congratulated President-elect Joe Biden and announced that “the Electoral College has spoken.”
Chris Krebs, former head of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, was fired by Trump soon after calling the 2020 election the “most secure … in American history,” and former Attorney General William Barr, one of Trump’s greatest enablers, mysteriously left his position after announcing his investigation had found “no widespread election fraud.”
Perhaps destroying democracy for a falsehood was one bridge too far for Barr. After so many failed attempts to overturn the election, it is clear to all who value facts, reason and evidence that Trump lost the 2020 presidential election to Biden. It is long past time to stop the charade. There was no grand conspiracy or fraud, just voting and counting.
Though energetic and charismatic, Trump is sadly an egocentric bully and counterfeit. He was a fraud when he promoted Trump University — cheating earnest students with bogus claims of teaching real estate success — and he is today as he raises donations by means of unsubstantiated claims of election fraud.
Trump is not a “loser” because he lost an election; he is a “loser” because he claims what is not his. He diminishes himself and endangers the United States by encouraging conspiracies, obstructionand violence.
Many of us, unfortunately, have allowed ourselves to be drawn into his narcissistic fantasies. It is time for us as a country to accept Biden as president-elect and give him the courtesy and respect that he deserves. Leaders in Washington must put America before their careers before it is too late. Speaking truth to power is not very much to ask of our leaders in a democracy.