WASHINGTON — Kyiv Post readers who are unfamiliar with U.S. electoral procedures might be perplexed by the insistence of some supposedly serious politicians and fanatical Donald Trump supporters that there is a way for him to overturn last month’s presidential election, won by Joseph Biden, and remain in the White House.
But there is no path for the Ukraine-hating, Vladimir Putin-adoring, Trump to legally remain president beyond one minute past midday on Jan. 20.
On that Inauguration Day, Biden, who has promised to support Ukraine, including with lethal weapons, will be sworn in as America’s new leader.
Firstly, that will happen because there are not enough cowardly or dishonorable Republican members of Congress willing to subvert U.S. democracy by going along with Trump’s groundless claims of electoral fraud.
All the numbers show that this Jan.6 session of Congress will affirm Biden as president-elect.
Trump’s attempts to intimidate, cajole and pervert U.S. institutions into canceling the result of the Nov. 3 election, the U.S Constitution, politicians, election officials and judges – Republican as well as from the Democratic Party – have proved robust enough to resist his unprecedented and scurrilous attempts to cling on to power.
A leaked, one-hour, audiotape of Trump pressuring top Republicans in the state of Georgia last Saturday (Jan.2) to overturn the election result there, was the latest shameful, at least bordering on illegal, an example of his readiness to do anything to remain president.
Trump’s often pathetic tones in the audio also reveal his fear and desperation that after Jan. 20 he could face a slew of criminal prosecutions without the office of president to protect himself.
Most of the Americans still buying into Trump’s fake narratives fall into one of several categories.
There are craven, dishonest Republican Party politicians, whose ambition outstrips their patriotism, terrified that Trump’s influence will linger after he leaves office and could spoil their own future election chances unless they kowtow before him.
Another category contains the many people intelligent enough to know Trump’s claims about rigged elections are untrue but who so hate the Democratic Party they will tolerate him even though many personally despise him.
Among the reasons they tolerate Trump are because he has (like any other Republican would) appointed conservative judges to important U.S. courts or that despite his own immorality and pathological lying, Trump, for utterly cynical reasons, espouses opposition to abortion.
Another group embraces Trump because he signals openly or with “dog whistles” (disguising messaging by using easily-understood euphemisms) that he supports their racist and anti-immigrant views and seemingly promises them a superior position in America’s ethnic spectrum.
Then there are those who have poor education or are willfully ignorant. They ravenously feast on the crazed, mendacious “alt-reality” smorgasbord of distortions and delusions stoking racist and other prejudices.
They absorb those corrosive, fake narratives from extreme right-wing, conspiracy-laden Internet sites like QAnon and Breitbart or Kremlin-emulating TV channels like OAN, Newsmax, and Fox.
This latter category contains the white supremacist, extreme right-wing, armed militias that Trump regularly dog whistles and will answer his call to turn up to protest here in Washington D.C. on Jan 6.
The language of this man, who has sought to degrade American democracy to conform with his third-world autocrat-wannabe behavior, is designed to enrage his gun-toting, cult-like supporters.
That increases the possibility of violence, especially on potentially flashpoint days this week and Jan. 20. and, perhaps, beyond.
Don’t doubt that, a somewhat bruised, American democracy will survive and Trump will be out on Jan 20.
