“Yesterday, electors met in all 50 states. So this morning our country has officially a president-elect and a vice-president-elect,” were the words Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell spoke as he recognized for the first time that President Trump had lost the election. McConnell added, “Many millions of us had hoped the presidential election would yield a different result, but our system of government has processes to determine who will be sworn in on January 20.”
A cascade of recognition came from Republicans who have refused to admit the obvious - Joe Biden will become POTUS on January 20.
Senate Majority Whip John Thune said, “It’s time for everybody to move on” following the Electoral College vote yesterday. “I understand there are people who feel strongly about the outcome of this election, but in the end, at some point, you have to face the music.”
Republican Senator Rob Portman of Ohio commented, “The Electoral College vote makes clear that Joe Biden is now president-elect.” Staunch Trump-supporter Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina admitted the obvious but added that he believes President Trump still has a “very narrow path” to overturn the results of the election. And Missouri Senator Roy Blunt bluntly said, “There’s clearly a constitutional president-elect.”
As flawed as the system for free elections seemed immediately after the election, we can now say that the system worked. In spite of a sitting president who continues to deny the legal and official results of an election he lost, the system proved to be bigger than the selfish will of one president.
Many devout Trump supporters will never accept the results of the election - not because there is actual evidence of widespread voter fraud - but because accepting the results contradicts the truth they were expecting. There is this tendency to believe that everyone feels the way you and your family and friends feel, but that does nothing but provide a false sense of righteousness.
As the reality of Trump’s loss in the 2020 election became undeniable following the Electoral College vote, yesterday, threats of violence from the far-right seemed to grow. During the vote of the electors in Michigan, the state capitol was closed due to credible threats of violence. In Arizona and Pennsylvania, the locations for the vote were kept secret out of fears of violence.
Having passionate feelings about election results that are disappointing is an acceptable part of the American system of government. Threats of violence over a disappointing outcome is very un-American because it denies the votes of fellow Americans.
For the many listeners who have called and texted my talk show and condemned the threat of violence from the left, it is now time to accept the reality that there are those on the right who are now threatening violence.
We heard questions about whether President Trump will accept a peaceful transfer of power. Now, it’s time for individual Americans to accept the peaceful transfer of power and refuse to, even tacitly, accept violence as a legitimate solution to disappointing election results.
In 2016, many Democrats screamed the election was rigged by the Russians and that Donald Trump was not the legitimate winner. Here we are in 2020, and many Republicans are claiming the election was rigged by Democrats and Joe Biden is not the legitimate president. If the possible manifestation of this hypocrisy were not so threatening, it would actually be humorous.
Respect the process, and celebrate that the system won and American democracy lives on. There will be other elections and new disagreements over the outcome; but through all of the turmoil of counting and recounting and numerous court challenges, our system for free elections prevailed.
