James Campbell: No surprises in Trump’s reaction to US election
That Donald Trump says he is being cheated out of an election win by a corrupt system is hardly out of character. The big surprise was that Republicans were prepared to apparently join him in fantasyland, writes James Campbell.
James Campbell
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That Donald Trump should be having trouble accepting the reality of his situation isn’t really surprising, is it?
This is, after all, a man whose presidency began with the fantasy that the crowds at his inauguration had been larger than at his predecessor’s, despite clear evidence that this was not so. That would be the predecessor of whom for years Trump stoked a fantasy that he had been born overseas.
That he should be appear at the White House to say he is being cheated by a corrupt system, like some beaten strongman from a former Soviet Republic, is depressing, certainly, but hardly out of character. Was there anything you could point to in the past four years that made you think it would be any different?
No, the only surprising thing — at first glance anyway — was the speed with which others were prepared to join him in the alternative reality bunker. Not his media camp followers — both at home and abroad — who made their choice ages ago. Journalists love people who provide lively copy and Trump clearly jazzed a large slice of the audience. It’s easier to give it what it wants to hear than to be a speaker of uncomfortable truths.
And so if Trump wants to go out ugly, there’s no downside for them in backing him in. As journalists and commentators, it’s our inalienable right to change our mind later.
No, the surprising thing was that Republicans were prepared to apparently join him in fantasyland. Because let’s be clear, it is fantasyland. The overwhelming evidence is Trump’s election night lead was not being eroded by fraud but by the drawn-out process of counting votes which had been properly cast before election day.
To believe the election is being stolen, you have to believe there is a massive conspiracy in Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, as well as Georgia, with its Republican governor and Republican Secretary of State.
Yet there was Senator Lindsey Graham of Kentucky on Fox News denouncing Philadelphia elections as “crooked as a snake” saying he would donate $500,000 to the President’s legal fighting fund. He was backed by Senator Ted Cruz of Texas who raised the temperature by saying the state legislatures should get involved, the first Republican leader to raise the prospect that they might ignore the popular vote and select a slate of electors for the electoral college along partisan lines.
The former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, who some think dreams of national office, tried to have a bob each way, tweeting “We all owe @realDonaldTrump for his leadership of conservative victories for Senate, House, & state legislatures”, but adding “He and the American people deserve transparency & fairness as the votes are counted. The law must be followed. We have to keep the faith that the truth will prevail.”
That might sound like a responsible message to send at time when emotions are running high, but it wasn’t good enough for the Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz who replied that “While some of us are fighting for President Trump ... Nikki Haley is eulogizing him. Sad!”
What’s going on here? As things usually with politicians, it would seem to be all about the future.
Graham, Cruz and Gaetz would seem to be betting that while Trump the politician may soon be no more, the Trump movement will live on and it won’t do to be seen as having deserted the fallen leader. Their bet would seem to be that the white working class voters who gave Trump the Republican nomination and then the White House are here to stay as the new base of the party.
Can there be Trumpism without Trump? Time will tell.
Haley’s position would appear to be more nuanced. She paid tribute to the man who has made the Republican Party his own since 2016, while at the same time betting it is going to return to something more like the movement it resembled before the plain folk foisted Trump upon it.
It’s hard to remember today how ambivalent the Republican establishment was about the man they nominated in Cleveland four years ago. Just how ambivalent was rammed home to me during early hours of the third day of that convention when the man sitting on the bar stool next to me suddenly leaned in and whispered “I’m thinking of voting for Hillary”.
Which was surprising really as he had just introduced himself as the head of the delegation from a medium-sized southern state.
If Trump does lose — and that looks very much more likely than not — this argument won’t be resolved until the mid-terms in a couple of years’ time.
Personally, I prefer the Haley position but I fear Cruz, Graham line is more likely to prevail. The history of American politics over the past few years — both Democrat and Republican — suggests that in internal party debates, the moderates tend to come second.
The Dems’ selection of the moderate Biden would on the face of it be the exception to that rule but he only won by aping the lines of the more Leftist candidates. Nor interestingly, did he pivot back to the centre after he had secured the nomination either, as evidenced by his selection of Kamala Harris as his running mate.
Does this bode ill for American democracy? Does it matter that the President is simply denying the reality of the result?
Up to a point, obviously it’s hard to argue it’s a good thing. But to end where we began, it isn’t exactly a surprise, is it?
The Trump diehards were always going to follow him and believe what they want to believe. It’s America, after all.
But as this election has shown, there are a lot more Americans who weren’t buying.
James Campbell is a Herald Sun columnist