Listening to President Trump, the leader of the American democracy, insist that a state official change legally cast ballots to overturn the 2020 election results in his favor was shocking but clarified the truth; Donald Trump despises and disrespects democracy, is a criminal and is mentally unstable. On the tape, Trump tells Raffensperger to announce he is ” re- examinating the votes” to justify finding 11,780 votes in his favor which is one more vote than Biden won by. Trump also attacked Raffensperger calling him weak and corrupt and implying the Secretary of State knowingly allowed the election to be stolen from him. He also made mob-like threats such as, ” you could get in a lot of trouble for this”. Equally disturbing was hearing Trump make delusional statements like, “I won Georgia by hundreds of thousands of votes” and “thousands of ballots had been shredded and there was a rush to illegally dismantle voting machines.”
The negative backlash from the political and legal communities has been monumental. Constitutional lawyers are speculating Trump may have committed a federal crime by trying to coerce state officials to manipulate the vote count to give him the win in Georgia. On the call, he directs Raffansperger to “find him a vote” which proves his request intended to change the election outcome. During Trump’s impeachment trial, House of Representative and Chairman of the Intelligence Committee Adam Schiff passionately warned the Senate and the country, ” he will do it again” referring to Trump’s pattern of interference in American elections. During the 2015 presidential campaign, he invited Russia to interfere in our politics by encouraging them to find Hillary Clinton’s missing emails. He supported the efforts of Wikileaks to keep leaking negative information about Democrats to influence his chances of winning the election. The recording released yesterday is indisputable proof that Trump does not defend the Constitution but rather has been working to dismantle it when and where it will embolden his power.
The narrative even more disturbing than the public mental decompensation of Donald Trump is the subservience of the members of congress who are declaring loyalty to Trump over loyalty to the Constitution. Twelve Republican senators and 140 Republican members of the House have announced they plan to vote against certification of the electoral college vote. These elected officials know their efforts will not change the fact that Joe Biden and Kamal Harris will be the next President and Vice- President of the United States. If they act in defiance of democracy on Wednesday, an effort should be made to memorialize them as traitors to democracy. On MSNBC tonight, New York Times Journalist Thomas Friedman suggested the senators who dissent from certifying the vote should forever be referred to by the label Senator “Coup d’etator”. Friedman believes Trump’s enablers should suffer the same career damaging and legal consequences as Trump will encounter.
The reason why dictators and autocrats have tragic, disastrous endings is that they cannot control their corrupt hunger for power. As a result, they sabotage themselves in ways similar to Trump’s lawbreaking call to Raffansperger. They push the boundaries in pursuit of ultimate power, loyalty, and adoration and yet never feel satisfied. Trump sees his presidency ending and fears losing the legal protections the presidency affords him. He is becoming the cliched mad ruler going over the edge at the end of his reign.
A steady leader is coming on January 20th and sanity, decency and competence will once again occupy the Oval office. A campaign to rid the government of the Republicans who enabled Trump to threaten our democracy is organizing.
