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There is a lot of noise, but there is no cause for confusion, as President Donald Trump is venting about how the elections turned out and promising to subvert them even still.
This truth is clear: Joe Biden is on his way to becoming president on January 20. The machinery of government and democracy is moving inexorably toward that end despite Trump’s attempts to undermine the will of the voters.
Trump this week demanded a “KICKBACK” of the result in a collection of tweets arguing that he could only have lost the election if it had been “FIXED.” He tried to back up his case by saying that election night gamblers largely favored his re-election, “so-called ‘bookies,’” as if a player’s bet mattered. It’s not like that.
Americans who don’t want to get caught up in the thick of Trump’s attempts to undermine the election can follow the lead of one of the many justices who have dismissed complaints from his team or his allies that the vote or the count was corrupt.
“This ship has sailed,” said US District Judge Linda Parker, dismissing a lawsuit challenging Biden’s victory in Michigan this week.
Not only has the ship set sail, but it has reached a safe harbor and dropped anchor.
Biden’s victory was essentially secured yesterday by the so-called safe harbor deadline established by federal law for states to complete their certifications and resolve legal disputes. It is an insurance policy to prevent Congress from trying to manipulate the electoral votes that will be cast next week and sent to the Capitol for recount on January 6.
These steps – the deadline, the convocation of the Electoral College in the state capitals, the congressional count in early January – are rituals routinely ignored by the general public. They became less ignorable as Trump began exploring each and every avenue to stay in power.
But the election is over and has been for weeks. This is why:
—Biden obtained a decisive majority of electoral votes in the states that certified his results.
The Democrat is set to end up with more electoral votes, 306, a total that Trump called overwhelming when he won the same in 2016.
—No systemic fraud or even consequential error has been established in an election that state monitors and the courts have repeatedly found was conducted fairly. More than that, the election proceeded with surprising efficiency given that it was held in the midst of a deadly pandemic.
—Trump’s attempts to intimidate Republican officials in Georgia and Michigan into overturning Biden’s victory in those states failed.
Judges across the country have torn apart Trump’s legal arguments in favor of overturning the result, including some that he named and hoped would therefore side with him.
Trump reformed much of the federal bank with his own nominees during his tenure and placed three justices on the Supreme Court. None of that has helped him reverse his loss to Biden.
In all, the Trump campaign or its allies have seen more than 35 of their court cases fail. Trump won one, related to the deadlines for proof of identification for certain absentee ballots and mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania, and did not change the result.
This week, the Supreme Court deflected a bid to reverse Pennsylvania’s certification of Biden’s victory. Trump now says his campaign will join a Supreme Court case led by the Texas attorney general, who is basing the case on false and unsubstantiated allegations that have been discredited in other courts.
—Although Trump cries that Biden appointed his cabinet and other senior staff, the Trump administration is working with the incoming Biden administration on the transition. Republican lawmakers are adjusting to the transfer of power while still for the most part refusing to acknowledge Biden’s victory out loud.
