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WASHINGTON: Joe Biden was confirmed as the next US president on Monday when the Electoral College formalized its victory over Donald Trump, nearly closing the door on the incumbent’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election result.
When Biden called on Americans to “turn the page” in the divisive contest, voters gathered from every state in the US to seal his victory, and California pressed Biden on a majority of 270 votes. – and clear the way for him to take office on January 20.
But with his ability to steal the spotlight still intact, Trump announced moments later that Attorney General Bill Barr, who contradicted the outgoing president’s claims that the Nov. 3 election was marred by fraud, would step down. next week.
“Our relationship has been very good,” Trump tweeted, not mentioning their divergence. “Bill will leave just before Christmas to spend the holidays with his family.”
While a senior administration official said Barr resigned of his own free will and was not ousted, the extraordinary convergence of events highlighted the tensions underlying Trump’s final weeks in office.
The more than 200-year-old Electoral College procedure is simply a formality to confirm the will of the people expressed at the polls, but the process had additional significance given the turbulence of last month’s elections and Trump’s refusal to acknowledge his own defeat.
California voters erupted in applause when the president read the 55 count in favor of Biden and none objected. – confirming Barack Obama’s former vice president as the nation’s 46th president.
“Democracy prevailed. We the people vote…. The integrity of our elections remains intact, ”Biden said in excerpts from a speech he was expected to deliver in his hometown of Wilmington, Delaware, later Monday.
“Now is the time to turn the page, to come together, to heal,” Biden said. “I will be president of all Americans.”
This year, the somewhat arcane procedure of the Electoral College was at the center of an ugly – and many warn dangerous – challenge led by Trump against the credibility of American democracy.
Strongly defeated by Biden on November 3, Trump continues to claim, without proof, that he was the real winner.
Court after court has rejected allegations of election fraud by the Republican team and last Friday, the US Supreme Court dealt a final legal blow when it dismissed an appeal filed by Trump allies from Texas and other Republican-led states.
Disinformation
The formal confirmation of the Electoral College drew a new line in the election, in which Biden made Trump a president of an unusual period after campaigning with the message of defeating the Covid-19 pandemic, healing the political divide and restore traditional American diplomacy.
So far, most Republicans in Congress have either backed Trump’s claims or at least turned a blind eye, and many have refused to call Biden president-elect.
The disinformation spearheaded by the president and spread by popular commentators on Fox News and new conspiracy theory outlets like Newsmax means that many Americans have all but given up on faith in their own institutions.
Thousands of Trump supporters, including members of far-right groups, protested in Washington over the weekend, fighting counter-protesters, while in Georgia footage showed camouflaged activists marching through the state Capitol to support Trump’s claims.
Polls show that only one in four Republican voters accepts the election results.
Trump continued his stream of unsubstantiated threats and assertions on Twitter Monday, citing “MASSIVE VOTER FRAUD” and declaring that certifying election results would be “a severely punishable offense.”
Yet the statutory Electoral College vote has left Trump’s train with almost no place to go.
Before Biden’s inauguration, a great formality remains, when Congress, chaired by Vice President Mike Pence, opens and counts the electoral votes on January 6.
In the latest sign of a turning tide, the editorial board of The Wall Street Journal, which staunchly supports Trump, told Trump his time is up.
“President Trump’s legal challenges have run their course, and he and the rest of the Republican Party can help the country and themselves by acknowledging the outcome and moving forward,” he said.
