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Business News/ Opinion / Columns/  The ugly spectacle that Trump has turned US democracy into
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The ugly spectacle that Trump has turned US democracy into

His brazen rallying of supporters for an unconstitutional cause has appalled admirers of America

Photo: APPremium
Photo: AP

For a president who plumbs to lower depths with each public utterance, Donald Trump’s graceless performance since his electoral defeat in November would surprise nobody. But the manner in which he has tried to subvert institutions is appalling. His lawyers have made unhinged assertions. He has welcomed a disgraced former associate to the White House whose recommendation is for Trump to call in the army. He has tried bullying Georgian officials, by claiming—without any evidence—that the election in that state was flawed, and pleaded that the officials somehow find some 11,000 votes so that he can flip the state in his favour. He has not criticized his supporters who vandalized four African-American churches in Washington.

In a pathetic exercise of grandstanding, a few Republican members of the House of Representatives and about a dozen Republican senators are trying to challenge the electoral college vote, with the sole aim of compelling their saner Republican colleagues to defend the duly-certified electoral college votes, or repudiate those. If the majority of Republican senators ratify the vote for Biden, they run the risk of insurgent pro-Trump challenges when they seek re-election (and five relatively moderate Republicans are particularly vulnerable). If they do repudiate the vote, they unleash the energized Trump supporters they disagree with. The role of a relatively senior senator like Ted Cruz (who ran unsuccessfully for the Republican nomination in 2016) is particularly cynical and galling. He and senator Josh Hawley are fighting against the inevitable not because they believe Trump’s alternate view of reality; rather, they seek to inherit the Trump constituency in 2024 for the next presidential race. It places vice-president Mike Pence, a likely candidate in 2024, in a quandary: he must declare the outcome. If he stays loyal to Trump and lets the dispute fester, he throws the constitution overboard; if he act responsibly, he allows Cruz to become the frontrunner.

The situation is grim enough for ten former secretaries of defense to write a joint appeal calling upon the army to stay out of the electoral process. Dozens of corporate chiefs have urged the US Congress to name Joe Biden as the duly-elected president. It is preposterous even to think that such appeals have become necessary; such shenanigans are common in countries new to democracy, unused to peaceful transfers of power; not in a country that has held elections since the late 18th century, even during world wars and an economic depression. Think of how the US State Department has reacted to presidents in other countries holding on to power after losing elections. Trump is following those presidents, but only up to a point. He hasn’t jailed opponents, imposed censorship, or called in the troops yet, but it’s hard to argue that’s because he cherishes democracy. He probably realizes that the generals will say no. After all, several judges he has appointed at federal courts have thrown out his legal challenges in 60 cases across America, and even the Supreme Court, where he appointed three of the nine judges, has dismissed his fact-free complaints.

Trump’s singular achievement is the destruction of the Republican Party. A party that believed in a small government, which was on the right side during the US Civil War, which believed in free trade, and which focused on individual responsibility (against collective obligations), now looks like a reckless organization where racist, homophobic, xenophobic and misogynist views are being normalized. Critics of Republicans would argue that they were always like that, but that’s unfair; there have been many constitutionalist and responsible Republicans. The effort to impeach Richard Nixon wasn’t partisan.

To be sure, there are Republicans who claim to stand by those values. But a few exceptions apart, many have left it till too late. Establishment Republicans have allowed their party to be stolen; it is now a grotesque caricature of its former self.

Politicians like Cruz assume that America has changed, and humouring an extremist base will yield political dividends. That’s not unreasonable. Trump got 74 million votes in November, more votes than any candidate in American political history except Biden, who won 81 million votes. Trump got 11 million more votes than his 2016 tally (when his rival that year, Hillary Clinton, had outpolled him by 3 million votes but lost the US electoral college). Biden not only won more votes, he won key states, to win the electoral college 306-232. Trump is popular, but we should remember that in neither 2016 nor 2020 did he win the majority of votes.

Cruz’s embrace of extremism could destroy moderates. If Trump does not run in 2024 (he will be 78, which is Biden’s age now), and doesn’t anoint a successor (his daughter Ivanka, for example), or is mired in lawsuits, his constituency is up for grabs. That’s what Cruz, Pence and others want.

American institutions have held firm so far, but they have been shaken at the core. America needs to safeguard its constitution. The law will catch up with citizen Trump; but he has eroded and undermined norms, and recovering what’s lost will be hard.

Salil Tripathi is a writer based in New York. Read Salil’s previous Mint columns at www.livemint.com/saliltripathi

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Published: 06 Jan 2021, 09:07 PM IST
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