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Donald Trump was
soundly defeated in the presidential election by 74 electoral votes,
which included loses in the reliably deep red states of Georgia and
Arizona, and lost the popular vote by the landslide number of more
than 6 million. He energized the mobilization of Black voters for the
largest Black turnout in the history of presidential elections, most
fatal to him in the urban areas of Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Detroit,
and Milwaukee. But the troubling other side of those numbers is that
more than 70 million Americans voted for him; record-breaking numbers
for a losing candidate, and a substantial core of those votes came
from the “cult” component of his followers, meaning their
allegiance to him and trust in him has not diminished. With the
strength of those constituents, Trump will continue to be the most
powerful force in the GOP at the state and U.S. Congressional levels,
which means that the GOP leadership, in fear of his political wrath,
will not speak out against his bogus, unsubstantiated and outrageous
claims that the election was rigged. But, in time, that ultimately
will change. What makes this so stunning is that the vote tally
clearly discloses that this election was more a referendum on his
failed leadership than on that of the GOP at the local, state and
national levels, where they outperformed the expectations of the
polls, and those of most pundits.
Voters
rejected Trump for four years of divisiveness, excessive narcissism,
racism, incompetence, fraud, and sustained assaults on constitutional
democracy, common sense, decency, and the American ideal. The erosion
of norms during Trump’s single term is unprecedented in the history
of the American presidency. Virtually on an unrelenting daily basis
for four years, his excessively deviant behavior and relaxed
relationship with truth have mirrored the world-wide nightmare we
continue to witness. Until Biden is inaugurated, this psychologically
deranged human being remains the most powerful and dangerous person
on earth. Equally disturbing are his political and media enablers
who, with minimal dissent, have anointed his failed leadership, and
less than a handful have summoned the courage to even admit that he
lost the election fair and square. What they realize and are afraid
to ignore is the forcefulness of his “cult of personality,” one
still sufficiently strong enough to allow him to say or do anything,
regardless of how absurd and nonsensical. Nothing, however, can deny
that within the White House, Trump is a dead man walking, and his
desperate and almost comical last ditch resistance to his imminent
destiny brings fresh meaning to the aphorism, “a dying mule always
kicks the hardest.”
For
now, the GOP remains Trump’s party and though he was soundly
defeated by Biden, only “former” GOP elected officials, and those
whose appointments he “terminated” are comfortable in criticizing
him. Those currently holding office are loathe to take the risk,
because they comprehend the mesmerizing influence he has on his cult
followers, and fear his ability to turn them against anyone in the
GOP who is not loyal, which explains their prolonged silence on his
unsubstantiated charges of voter fraud and rigged elections, and
extended reluctance to congratulate Joe Biden as the President-elect.
Even those in the GOP who have 2024 presidential aspirations, such as
Marco Rubio, Nikki Haley, Mike Pompeo and Ted Cruz, among others,
hope Trump will just fade away, but understand and have calculated
that he is leaving office with unprecedented power, much more than
other one term presidents like George H.W. Bush, Jimmy Carter, and
Gerald Ford. The GOP, in effect, is being held hostage by Trump,
unable to plan or move forward without his consent. This will cause
friction and the tight grip Trump now has on the party will
ultimately loosen.
Unfortunately,
too often in politics the common good is secondary to reelection,
artificially inflated egos and individual political agendas. Much of
the GOP leadership, at this point, is uncertain whether a defeated
Trump is a liability or an asset, but prefer to play it safe and not
cross him too soon, but this posture would most likely change should
Trump announce plans to run again in 2024. That’s a double edged
$64,000 blade that could create fissures within the GOP. There is a
lot of runway between now and 2024, and during that stretch, Trump
will be faced with difficult challenges on several levels including
the inevitable “confessions” of insiders in his orbit, which will
be much more damaging than the leaks that occurred while he was in
power, and there are the mounting civil and criminal legal problems
he will face in the Southern District of New York. As soon as Trump
becomes a private citizen, the uphill fight of his life begins, one
where his odds of winning are less than those he had with Biden. The
legal shield that has protected him from pending civil and criminal
court cases will be gone, and there will be no misguided publicly
funded Department of Justice arguments for immunity. He’s on his
own dime.
There
is also Joe Biden. If he restores normalcy to America, has good
approval ratings, is able to sustain a good economy, effectively
confronts a divided country, the climate crisis, racial inequalities,
listens to the concerns of rural and non-college educated whites, and
strategically exploits the changing demographics in America, which
suggests a favorable 2024 battleground map for Democrats, that -
should it evolve - may be too much for Trump or any Republican to
overcome.
Moreover,
it is inconceivable that should Trump run again - without the
advantages of an incumbent - that he would not face other formidable
GOP candidates in the primaries. Only Grover Cleveland has been able
to lose the presidency as an incumbent and later win reelection. But
Cleveland won the popular vote plurality in all three elections.
Trump lost in both by wide margins. Also Cleveland did not have a
track record as controversial as that of a first term Donald Trump.
The next four years, with Trump in exile, will allow for it all to be
digested during more normal times, when there is more time to
consider and correct the circumstances that led to a demagogue
winning the nation’s highest political office.
H.L.
Mencken, a cynical writer of democracy, may have best described the
demagogue as one “who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to
men he knows to be idiots.” While Mencken’s contemptuous opinions
of ordinary citizens reflected his elitism, devaluing of common sense
and intellectual arrogance, they are instructive in understanding why
rural and working people, whose needs, hopes and fears have been
ignored by Democrats and Republicans, voted for Trump. Far too many
Democrats and traditional Republicans speak about these ordinary
people without knowing them or having a clue as to who they really
are. Trump’s rise as a demagogue must be analyzed through the prism
of that dynamic, and Biden would do well to address that void in the
Democratic party. Trump went too far and the coronavirus pandemic -
not the grievances of Black people - as writer Jon Katz explains, is
why Trump failed “in the same way that protagonists in Greek drama
always fail.” In a concentrated period of time, his lying and
bullying became “too much, too often, too obvious.” It was not a
“hoax of the Democratic party” and it did not as he promised, “go
away quickly.”
The
crimes, violations, misdeeds, vulgarity, and abuses of power during
Trump’s presidency will all be revisited in the research and
publications of scholars, essays of journalists, memoirs of political
officials, lecture halls of professors, bars, restaurants, halls of
labor unions, conversations in pool rooms, barbershops, beauty
salons, social gatherings, and most of all in the minds and memories
of those who survived it. In these places and spaces the record of
his presidency will live in infamy as much as December 7, 1941. Thus,
the prologue of Trump’s presidential obituary is obliged to
include:
Failed Covid-19
responses directly resulting in the deaths of American citizens
Abuse of the pardon power
Obliterating of the emoluments
clause of the U.S. Constitution
Nepotism at the highest level of
government
Politicizing of the military
Bribery of a foreign government for
personal gain and Impeachment
Undermining of consensus reached
within the U.S. intelligience agencies
Using government resources for
partisan and personal ends
Interfering in investigations of
the Department of Justice
Countless lifetime
appointments of politically filtered “unqualified” federal
judges
Politicizing of the diplomatic and
foreign services
Attacking and defaming the
character of judges with whom he disagrees
Framing of all
political opponents not only as enemies but as un-American
Refusing to release his income
taxes and paying virtually no income taxes for years
Abuse of appointment power
Terminations of political
appointees for having opinions with which he disagrees
Branding of respected media as fake
news and the enemy of the people
Obliterating
traditions and protocols of Congressional oversight
Making racialized appeals and
attacks
Continued appeals to White
Supremacy, Homophobia, Transphobia and Xenophobia
Embracing authoritarianism
Unaddressed sexual
misconduct, harassment and bullying
Disclosures of corrupt family
business dealings
Transparent collusion with Russia
and Obstruction of Justice
Insulting of
America’s most trusted allies and of respected international
alliances
The most prolific pathological liar
in the history of American politics
Bold and corrupt attempts to
overturn a legitimate presidential election
Resisting the legitimate Biden
transition to the presidency
Summoning state
lawmakers to the White House to overturn the election results
While
it will take a well-funded curator to archive the volume of
atrocities, obscenities and crimes against decency committed by Trump
during his term in office, through his speeches, public statements
and tweets, some will remain more memorable than others : On climate
change, “It’s really cold outside, ... we could use a big fat
dose of global warming.” “There are good folks on both sides,”
was his observation of the neo-Nazi invasion of Charlottesville.
“They’re suckers and losers,” he commented on soldiers whose
sacrifice in the military was the loss of their lives in defense of
our nation. “POW’s are not war heroes, I like people who were not
captured” he opined when maligning John McCain. “Sons of bitches”
was his label for NFL players who sought to peacefully protest. “He
did not come to my inauguration, and he did not come to my State of
the Union speeches,” was his explanation for not paying final
respect to John Lewis. “I’ve done more for ‘the Blacks’ than
anyone since Abraham Lincoln” came from the mouth of the most
racist president since Woodrow Wilson. “They’re bringing drugs,
they’re bringing crimes, they’re rapists,” were the words he
wrapped around his campaign flag pole when characterizing
undocumented Mexicans in the U.S. When asked at the Helsinki Summit
if he believed his own intelligence or the Russian president when it
came to allegations of Russian meddling in the elections, without
hesitation he replied, “President Putin says it’s not Russia. I
don’t see any reason why it would be.” During a closed-door
meeting with congressional leaders and Cabinet members, he referred
to Haiti, El Salvador and an assortment of African nations as
“shithole countries.” And, of course, the finale he spewed during
the presidential debates when he admonished the extreme right-wing
Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by.”
Speaking
of enablers and double-standards, of all the transgressions listed,
two observations cannot be ignored. The lips of Trump’s GOP
enablers were sealed and rarely was a word of dissent or rebuke
uttered and, secondly, had Barack Obama ever done anything remotely
close to Trump’s serial violations of presidential decorum, ethics
and expectations, he would have been summarily impeached and removed
from office by these same GOP congresspersons who said nothing about
Trump’s abhorrent behavior.
Every
road has got to end somewhere, and on January 20, at 12 noon, the
curtain will close on the Trump presidency, though not likely on
Trump himself. For the short term he will remain influential, but his
political strength will not be the same. Once demagogues are toppled,
they rarely regain power, and the legal protections and immunities of
the Chief Executive in federal government will not transfer to
Mar-a-Lago or to Trump Towers. He will have his day in court and the
public will learn more than ever about his unscrupulous and
dishonorable business practices and immoral character.
Following
Grover Cleveland’s defeat in the presidential election of 1888, his
wife, Frances reportedly told a White House staff member, “Now
Jerry, I want you to take care of all the furniture and ornaments,
for I want to find everything just as it is now, when we come back
again. We’re coming back four years from today” and they did.
Trump should be advised to take all of his belongings with him and if
Melania shares those same ambitions, both should be warned that the
Bidens - unlike Motel 6 - will not be leaving a light on.
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His books, essays, reviews and articles appear widely.
He is a frequent contributor to The Black Commentator. 
