[ad_1]
The president’s attempts to overturn the election result are sloppy and futile. But the longer they last, the more dangerous they become for democracy.
opinion
There must be something to it: A large number of Trump voters have long been convinced that Joe Biden’s victory could only be achieved through fraud.
Photo: Evan Vucci (AP Photo)
And whenever it seems that the limit has been reached, it reaches more. More insanity. Crazy, as Donald Trump’s lawyers tell about stolen servers, rigged voting machines and a communist conspiracy in which he is next to the dead Hugo. Chavez George Soros is also said to have been involved, a gigantic conspiracy that deprived Trump of electoral victory.
All that is now apparently everyday life in AmericaAll of this is now obviously part of a presidential election.
At first, most of them had just scoffed. Should Trump complain about his defeat? If you talk about fraud, tweet and challenge, then you will go. A London Times cartoonist drew the Oval Office after Trump’s retirement: tattered curtains, a red tie, suntan lotion and golf clubs on the carpet, next to it a torn copy of the Constitution, and in the middle Joe Biden, who first has to clean up.
Attempts to pressure local politicians
But now, after another week in which Trump allowed his fight against the election to escalate even further, horror is spreading among his opponents. Not because your attempts to reverse the outcome are successful.
But because it is increasingly clear how far the president is willing to go. How many Republicans follow him or keep quiet about it. How many of your voters believe the unsubstantiated, sometimes creepy, claims about alleged voter fraud, and what does it all mean in the long run?
On Friday, Trump invited Republican leaders from Michigan’s state parliament to the White House. There he apparently wanted to convince politicians to ignore Michigan voters’ decision in favor of Biden and to appoint their own constituents in parliament. Whether he would succeed was doubtful. Both Republican deputies had stated shortly after the elections that there was no basis to annul the electoral result in this way.
“It is difficult to imagine a worse and more undemocratic action by an incumbent president.”
The president had previously called in two Republican poll workers in Michigan and encouraged them to decertify the results in the largest constituency, which had already been decided. This has no legal consequences, but the direction of the move was clear.
Republican Sen. Mitt Romney, one of the few Trump critics in the party, tweeted: “It’s hard to imagine a worse and more undemocratic action by a sitting president.” Maryland Republican Governor Larry Hogan also spoke of an “attack on democracy.”
The horror scene
Such voices are the exception in the conservative camp. Trump’s attempt to proclaim himself the winner of the Republican-ruled parliaments in member states can be clumsy and desperate. And yet it corresponds exactly to what many critics had dismissed before the election as a scenario of hysterical terror from traumatized Trump opponents.
Trump’s attempt is futile, especially since he would have to overturn the election result in at least three states. Even if it is in Michigan (where Biden won by over 150,000 votes) would find willing aides in parliament who maxed out his limited margin, it was not enough to undo Biden’s lead of 306-232 votes in the Electoral College.
An appearance like from another world
Trump’s action is also due to the fact that his path through the courts failed: he and his Republican allies have now been fired with around 30 lawsuits. While the president and his associates still speak publicly about “systematic voter fraud,” his lawyers have never presented evidence of their theories in any court. Most of the time, they did not even report electoral fraud to the judges.
And when most of the key states certify the election result by the end of the month, the opportunities for more lawsuits will also disappear.
The manual counting of all votes cast in Georgia was ordered did not bring the result that Trump had hoped for. The Republican election official, threatened with violence by Trump supporters, confirmed Friday that Biden had won the state by 12,000 votes. No signs of electoral fraud were found.
Confused appearance: Rudy Giuliani, the president’s attorney, during his appearance at a press conference.
Photo: Jim Lo Scalzo (EPA)
All of these setbacks, however, don’t stop Trump and his team from making new claims. Thursday was the turn Rudy giulianiwho gave a press conference alongside two lawyers. Trump’s defenders said that Trump was re-elected with a landslide victory, but that the election was rigged by Communist forces from abroad. There was talk of sabotaged voting software, a theory that doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.
Import in the right media bubble
Again: ridiculous. The left-wing liberal network taunted the sweaty Giuliani, whose hair was running down his face when he appeared. But in much of the right-wing media bubble, it has long been accepted that there is something to all allegations: something must be true.
According to a Monmouth Institute poll, 77 percent of Republican voters believe that Biden’s election came about through fraud. You don’t need any evidence for that. All they need is an elected president and an entourage who will do whatever they can to destroy confidence in the elections. And that is already a success for Trump.
