Will Trump Surrender Power?

Washington DC, January, 2021:

Donald Trump has lost the presidency, but refuses to concede. The election was rigged, he maintains. He was the victor, as the investigation he has ordered will confirm. In the meantime, he will not surrender the presidency. To do so would be undemocratic, he says. It would thwart the true will of the people.

His administration has not cooperated with the transition team of the president-elect. In a hastily brought lawsuit, the Supreme Court is considering the matter, but Trump says this is not the Court’s decision to make. It is the people’s decision. And the people have re-elected him, as his investigation will show. In the meantime, there will be no transfer of power.

He has ordered the military to cordon off Washington. As a precaution, he says, to prevent agitators and terrorists from trying to thwart democracy. The White House is surrounded by tanks, guns pointed out toward the sparse clumps of people who have dared to gather. Some carry placards denouncing Trump. News video, taken clandestinely, shows protesters being hauled away by uniformed men.

Couldn’t happen, you say.

Are you sure?

This is the man who said he might not accept the election results in 2016 if they didn’t go his way. The man who is signing executive orders to wall us in and to deport those he doesn’t think belong here. The man withdrawing support for reproductive health care for women around the world, threatening to withdraw support for our allies in NATO, openly admiring a ruthless autocrat. The man who brazenly claims to have won the 2016 popular vote because there were millions of illegal votes, who tried to pressure the Park Service into supporting his patently absurd claims about crowd size at his inauguration, who sends his senior counsellor out to meet allegations of lies with “alternative facts.” This is the man who's chief strategist thinks the media is the opposition and that it should "keep its mouth shut."

Is he delusional? Or is he just a coldly calculating tyrant? Does it matter? 

When we consider how fast and ruthlessly he is acting now, can we even imagine the scope of his power, and the threat it will pose, after four years?

What can we do?

First: acknowledge that the threat is real. This is not politics as usual. Our democracy and the rights of all citizens are in jeopardy.

Second: resist. Now. Not later, when it may be too late. Resist every single step he takes toward making himself a dictator. Call him out. March against his usurpation of power, his perversion of rational thought, his lurid appeals to fear and anger. Don’t stand by and watch it happen. 

As citizens of the world’s greatest and most enduring democracy, this our crisis, our problem, not someone else’s. Get involved. Go into the meeting halls and streets of America and raise your voice for what you know is right about the way we should treat one another: with deference, with respect, and with optimism.

Risk your comfort and tranquility.

Or risk your freedom.