America’s denialism

The presidential election wasn’t close. Joe Biden won the popular vote by more than 7 million votes, which translates to a margin of 4.5 percent. His Electoral College victory was larger than either of George W Bush’s.

Yet, Donald Trump still refuses to concede. The soon-to-be-ex-president tried to pressure Republican legislators to overturn the election results in the states where Biden’s margin of victory was narrow. They rebuffed him. His legal team filed 59 suits to subvert the popular will – and lost every one of them. The president has even tried to enlist the help of the Supreme Court, which pointedly ignored him.

All of these strategies have failed. Despite many accusations of fraud, the president and his party have been unable to produce even one piece of credible evidence. Wherever recounts took place – two counties in Wisconsin, statewide in Georgia three times – they confirmed Biden’s victory.

Trump’s latest plan is to skip the inauguration on January 20, 2021 and hold a rally in Florida to announce his intention to run again in 2024.

Trump’s sore-loser performance is pathetic. But the denialism embraced by the Republican Party is far more disgraceful, since it represents the failing of an entire institution as opposed to the psychopathy of a single individual. Worse, this electoral denialism is just one of several large-scale delusions that threaten to undermine democracy, tear apart the country, and compromise efforts to address global scourges like Covid-19 and climate change.

Donald Trump has always been a lose-lose kind of guy. His bankruptcies – financial, moral, and otherwise – have always translated into catastrophe for everyone else as well. Now, in losing the 2020 election, he is determined to do whatever he can to burn down the house.

In the Senate, Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) bluntly described Republican efforts to overturn the election as "the most serious attempt to overthrow our democracy in the history of our country." At any other time, this might pass for election-year hyperbole. But a sizable portion of the Republican Party has not just refused to acknowledge president-elect Biden but has actively attempted to subvert the election.

According to a Washington Post analysis, only 16 Republicans in the House and 20 of their colleagues in the Senate have been willing to acknowledge Biden’s victory. One Republican member of Congress even tried to push through legislation condemning any colleagues who call “upon Trump to concede prematurely”.

When Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton launched a bid to overturn the election results in four swing states that went for Biden, not only did 17 pro-Trump states join the suit, but so did 125 Republicans – including Kevin McCarthy, the top-ranking House Republican. The suit was obviously unconstitutional: states don't have legal standing to challenge the electoral procedures of other states. “Dangerous garbage” is how one election law expert described Paxton’s act of desperation. The Supreme Court rejected the case.

Excerpted: ‘America’s Destructive Denialisms’

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