As the US reached a new grim Covid-19 record Thursday –more than 120,000 virus infections in one single day – the Trump presidency reached a new low with Trump’s horrific threats and claims of fraud and a stolen election uttered in the White House briefing room Thursday.
Despite the gains of candidate Joe Biden in the presidential election, Thursday, November 5 will be looked upon as a dark day in American history and a new low for Trump himself.
During his inflammatory and falsehood-filled address from the White House, Trump once again claimed he had won. He asserted “This is a case when they are trying to steal an election, they are trying to rig an election,” Trump said. “If you count the legal votes, I easily win,” he said. “If you count the illegal votes, they can try to steal the election from us.” Trump offered not one scintilla of evidence in his claims of fraud and theft.
He also claimed he “won” the states of Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Georgia, citing his substantial early leads in the vote counts there. Untrue.
Trump called mail-in voting “a corrupt system,” and that there is “tremendous corruption and fraud going on.” Untrue. He lied and said states had sent out tens of millions of “unsolicited” ballots “without any verification measures whatsoever.” Wrong.
Trump claimed, “Detroit and Philadelphia, known as two of the most corrupt political places anywhere in our country, easily, cannot be responsible for engineering the outcome of a presidential race, a very important presidential race.” No basis, but an attempt to undermine confidence in the vote totals from Detroit and Philadelphia.
He said, “Our campaign has been denied access to observe any counting in Detroit.” False. Plus he made other baseless claims. (see here.)
Trump’s tyrannical bluster was full of lies, was un-democratic, un-Constitutional and an effort by the US President to undermine the validity of a national election, an attack on one the main pillars of American democracy – the right of Americans to vote for their leaders. CNN called it “the most dishonest speech of his presidency” on Thursday evening.
Trump’s speech was so bad, so dark that several TV news networks – including MSNBC – cut away rather than air his words, and were forced to correct the false statements of the chief executive.
Trump’s speech was an act of desperation at a moment when it was clear he was losing the presidential race. It should be noted that no one stood beside him as he made the outrageous claims, no Pence, no Barr, no Jim Baker-type.
A few Republicans made supportive statements of Trump. Loyalist senators, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Ted Cruz of Texas, both echoed Trump’s claims. But others tweeted statements like, “Count all the legal votes,” and distanced themselves from Trump’s lies. Rick Santorum, former Pennsylvanian senator, said Trump’s comments were “dangerous.” Hours after Trump’s speech, two armed men were arrested a block away from the vote counting center in Philadelphia.
The overwhelming reactions to Trump’s statements were negative and damning. A general consensus emerged quite immediately that this was Trump’s lowest point in his presidency, that he was flailing, desperate, and becoming increasingly isolated. Apparently, he is totally surrounded by sycophants who don’t dare give him any reality-checks.
However, Russian Today picked up Trump’s lies and rebroadcast them back into the US. And his lies will probably be believed by the millions of Americans who voted for him.
For months, Trump has disparaged voting by mail and had made claims that if he didn’t win the election, it was rigged.
How this plays out will be followed carefully by both loyalists and everybody else. And hopefully, Trump supporters and the mass of Republicans will accept the results of the free election that has elected Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. If they don’t, then this low point and dark day in our history will be the beginning of a very rocky road in the peaceful transfer of power.
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