A Sore Winner is Bound to be a Sore Loser
(Disclaimer: La Tonique Media LLC does not represent any political ideology. While we do not espouse any political beliefs, we do seek to provide a balance perspective by incorporating voices from both sides of the political spectrum.)
By Stepan Gauvreau
As the results of the 2016 Presidential Election trickled in, the confident exultations of countless Clinton supporters melted into looming dread over the impending upheaval they saw as inevitable in a Trump presidency. Cities throughout the United States witnessed groups of confused and disillusioned protestors flooding through the streets. Aggrieved progressives and Democrats lamented President-elect Trump’s overall win, despite having lost the popular vote decisively. The results were seen as unfair, unrepresentative of the American will. Democrats were not alone in doubting the outcome. Trump, surprisingly, also took exception with the popular vote.
Perhaps embarrassed, Trump expressed his displeasure with having been out-voted by nearly 3 million Americans. After securing the presidency through the Electoral College, Trump claimed that millions of votes for Hillary Clinton were the result of voter fraud, including illegal votes from non-citizens and votes cast under the names of the deceased. Trump convened a commission to investigate the supposedly widespread and coordinated voter fraud. The commission was disbanded after having found no such voter fraud as claimed by Trump, despite assertions otherwise by Republicans on the commission.
The very mechanism that handed Trump the presidency in 2016, despite losing the popular vote, may well hand him the presidency in 2020. (Paula Bronstein | Associated Press)
Trump’s claim of gargantuan levels of voter fraud, which were made before Trump even assumed the presidency, portended an onslaught on the fundamental underpinnings of America’s representative republic: voting. Since that time, especially in the run up to the 2020 election, Trump, flanked by his caucus, has unleashed a multifaceted assault on voting. The list of attempts to gum up the voting process is large–Perry Bacon Jr. of FiveThirtyEight outlines the numerous offenses well. The most insidious of these attacks has been a continuous drumbeat of rhetoric casting doubt on the electoral process.
The very mechanism that handed Trump the presidency in 2016, despite losing the popular vote, may well hand him the presidency in 2020. Americans–and many across the world–eagerly await as votes get counted. Unsurprisingly, Trump prematurely proclaimed that he won the 2020 presidential race, even as millions of votes remained uncounted. He has yet again taken to the pulpit to sermonize on another round of widespread voter fraud, creating a buffer of support for contestations in the case of defeat. As votes continue to be counted, the blue shift–absentee, mail-in, and provisional ballots that tend to lean Democrat–are slowly whittling down Trump’s lead in many key states. Trump’s team has already called for a recount in Wisconsin, and more bitter battles are sure to ensue.
Even in victory in 2016, he baselessly claimed that voter fraud had occurred; it will not be shocking if, in the case of a loss, President Trump becomes increasingly vociferous about apparent voter fraud and ardent in his fight against unfavorable results. He assured his base that he will pursue legal challenges in the event of a loss, a promise he is keeping as states start to turn blue.
Such rhetoric has contributed in a significant way to the increasing polarization among the American electorate. Many Republicans have been rankled by what they see as conspiracies emanating from the deep state, Democrats, and foreign intervention to cause the demise of Republican power and oversee the perversion of the American way of life–whatever that is. Though these cacophonous accusations, Trump has energized a loyal band of followers to see voter fraud as a major problem. He has been able to stoke fear in his base and use its subsequent support to willfully erode democratic institutions. 47% of Republicans agree or strongly agree that a strong leader must bend the rules sometimes to get things done. Further, 50% of Republicans believe that force may have to be used to preserve the traditional American way of life, which they see as disappearing quickly due to demographic changes. Nearly 30% responded as unsure–or neither agree nor disagree–to each question. Thus, an underwhelming portion of Republicans either disagree or strongly disagree with the aforementioned anti-democratic sentiments. The result is a stalwart coalition willing to sacrifice vulnerable democratic practices for political and cultural gain.
Therein lies the dangers of anti-democratic rhetoric; therein lies the catalyzation and deepening of polarization, on which Trump has thrived. He has sown the seeds of distrust in a manner hardly fathomable in our modern democracy. Few Clinton supporters who wept in 2016 could have imagined Trump so unabashedly sieging American democratic institutions–especially one as sacrosanct in our modern psyche as voting–for his personal gain. Few could have foreseen GOP party elites and adherents so encourage and enable Trump in his quest for autocratic power. The results of the 2016 election augured a deeply troubling shift in the beliefs in that which undergirds the foundations of American democratic reflexes and norms. Trump, having lost the popular vote but still winning the general election, degraded the election and the electoral process; if he loses, who knows what will come, but we know it will not be pretty.
Stepan is a political writer for La Tonique.
