Washington: Winston Churchill was not known to leave his thoughts silent. One of them was the following: “It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried.”
President Donald Trump, who has professed admiration, if not deep understanding, of the British prime minister, is putting Churchill’s observation to one of his greatest tests by refusing to accept the results of an election that brought Democrat Joe Biden the victory .
Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama, calls this a “dangerous path” for the United States.
Trump has forced to dust off the arcana of the Electoral College proceedings, which for almost the entirety of the nation’s history has been a formality and not an instrument to revoke people’s votes.
A sitting US president is, for the first time, trying to convince the people not to believe the numbers that clearly demonstrate the victory of his rival.
Rather, Trump is making unsubstantiated claims of massive fraud, demanding recounts and calling for audits in an effort to discredit the outcome and, in the process, put democracy on trial.
The fickle president may be one tweet away from a change of mind, but so far that’s not the case. And the vast majority of his fellow Republicans are allowing him to play with this.
Obama, who invited Trump to the White House shortly after Trump’s election four years ago and promised cooperation in the transfer of power, is not surprised that a man who “never admits loss” refuses to acknowledge defeat now. .
“I’m more concerned that other Republican officials, who clearly know better, agree with this, they are pandering to him in this way,” Obama said on CBS’s “60 Minutes.”
“It is one more step in the delegitimization not only of the incoming Biden administration but of democracy in general. And that’s a dangerous path. “
With one eye on Trump, Republicans may have the other seat in Georgia, where they want their energy to help their candidates win two Senate elections in January and at the very least ensure that Biden has to deal with a divided government. Republicans have watched Trump beat up dissidents, and few have chosen this momentous moment to cross it.
“The Republicans are with him out of fear,” said Eric Dezenhall, a crisis management expert who worked in communications in the Ronald Reagan White House. “Fear has always worked for Trump. Tantrums have always paid off.
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