How many Presidential elections have you been cognizant of with enough maturity to understand the difference in the candidates? My first election was in 1960 at the age of 10. Since then I have experienced 14 elections. This 15th election in 2020, however, is the first time a sitting President, the supposed leader of this Country, and what used to be the leader of the “free” world, has openly chosen to undermine the basic pillars of this democracy.
It should be disturbing, if not terrifying to every person in the United States.
Never once in those 60 years since the Kennedy-Nixon contest did I ever consider that the actual process of electing a President was or would be fraudulent. Further, I felt confident that every other citizen in the Nation felt the same degree of comfort regarding the process, whether happy with outcome or not. After all, we don’t live in a banana republic, where the first rule of corruption is a tacit acceptance by the populous that systemic corruption exists.
In 2016 Donald Trump had proclaimed to his audiences late in the election that certain states were going to have “rigged” elections, notably Pennsylvania. This barely registered at the time given the buffoonery of the candidate and the widespread belief that Trump was going to lose. Those claims evaporated after the election. Poof!
In this election year Trump, as President, has gone far beyond his clown car antics of 2016 and has engaged in rhetoric which damages our Country in a way that may take years to repair, whether he is re-elected (God forbid) or not.
Trump has now proclaimed in multiple gatherings and interviews that the only way he can lose, the only way, is for the election to be “rigged”. He is sending out this message to a vulnerable 30% or so of the electorate who view him as their defender against Left Wing conspiracies and the ravages of wealth-sucking minorities. They will believe him in the face of bare and overwhelming evidence to the contrary, because he has come to embody their political identities.
Of course, the obvious corollary to his proclamations is that even if he should win (God forbid) the election was still “rigged”, just not so efficiently as to elect Joe Biden. Either way Trump has sought to poison a well which has made this Democracy the oldest and most respected in the World, at least up to four years ago.
The question, of course, is has he succeeded? Undermining the confidence of elections is a major step toward autocracy, right after the successful denouncement of a free press. Will our new compatriots be the citizens of Moscow, Manila, and Istanbul?
We won’t know how well or even if we recover from this assault on American Democracy. Even though most of us can speculated that Trump is an aberration in the political history of this Country, I am absolutely sickened to see the Presidency used as an autocratic tool. His unprecedented use of the White House (the “People’s House”) for political campaigning, is like a metaphor for a decline of American prominence.
Four more years of Trump and we could end up with Russia on the Potomac.
What sickens me also, perhaps more, is the silence of Republican leaders and legislators who don’t have Trump’s ignorance as an excuse. They hear what he says and they ignore it. They see what he does and they say nothing. They appear solely focused on retaining their positions and power by courting Trump’s 30% and not bearing the wrath of Fox news or Conservative talk radio.
Republican leaders have crowded on the corroded vessel Donald Trump, and they are more than willing to throw overboard every sacred facet of American Democracy in order to stay afloat.
A
pox on their house, I say…would I could. Even when Trump is removed from office (God willing) they will still be a
presence to participate in the healing.
I won’t be holding my breath.
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