Donald Trump should resign now, hand over to Mike Pence

There is a long way still to go to resolve the incendiary events that have rocked the US in the wake of President Donald Trump’s election defeat. But there are procedures to deal with them that can preserve the dignity of a democracy that remains a beacon of freedom for the world. These processes will best be conducted with legal precision and away from the heat of the moment. The worst response to mob behaviour is the tyranny of another mob that risks making a martyr of Mr Trump. Include in this actions by social media to expunge his legacy and deny him access to the digital public square.

Mr Trump’s behaviour since he lost the election has been outrageous; but the clamour of his detractors to crow, and the interventions of tech giants exercising near-monopoly powers, show the lessons of history have not been learned.

One key lesson is why Mr Trump was able to tap into a deep well of alienation among forgotten voters who became his base. Another lesson is that humiliated leaders with tens of millions of loyal and disenfranchised supporters are best treated with caution. The Democrats have begun moves to impeach Mr Trump, to add humiliation to his election defeat. The charges against the President are of “incitement of insurrection” and, if successful, the Democrats will seek to bar Mr Trump from holding public office again.

Mr Trump’s political opponents have a legitimate right to initiate this process. It is essential that Mr Trump’s actions, and those of his family and advisers, leading up to the storming of the Capitol are fully scrutinised with the forensic dispassion of the law. A chronology of events last Wednesday, published in The Weekend Australian, outlines what appears to be the close involvement of the Trump clan in efforts to derail the confirmation hearings. As thousands of supporters gathered for a “Stop the Steal” rally, the Trump family milled about in a tent on The Ellipse, a park just south of the White House. Rudy Giuliani, the lawyer who spearheaded the attempt to overthrow the election result, exhorted the crowd to “trial by combat”. Donald Trump Jr told them: “You can be a hero, or you can be a zero. Choose wisely.” The President himself told the crowd: “You’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to be strong.”

Analysing events of that day, The Wall Street Journal’s Gerald Seib said people acting in the name of one president, and inspired by him, broke into the Capitol building in an effort to stop the transfer of power to the next president. In doing so, they assaulted a building in which the top three people in the presidential line of succession were in the same room. Such a move would be considered an act of war if perpetrated by an outside power. The Wall Street Journal’s view is that Mr Trump’s actions crossed a constitutional line and are impeachable. We agree with The Wall Street Journal that Mr Trump’ s position now is untenable and think he should resign as President and hand over to his deputy, Mike Pence. With just over a week to go until Joe Biden’s swearing-in, a resignation would help restore stability to the office and short-circuit claims that Mr Trump is a victim of circumstance or conspiracy.

Whatever happens, the events of last week do not provide complete succour to those who claim it was inevitable. The fact is 63 million Americans voted for Mr Trump in 2016 and almost 75 million voted for him in 2020 to be returned for a second term. Even if Mr Trump’s behaviour was expected by those who oppose him, events must be treated on the basis of fact, not expectation.

This is where social media groups with a penchant for de-platforming views they don’t like are overstepping the mark. Mr Trump’s behaviour will not disappear simply because he no longer appears on Twitter. He thrives on turning exclusion into validation. Many of his 88 million-strong army of Twitter fans no doubt will follow him wherever he goes. It is better such affairs are conducted in public, or are at least open to general inspection. The alternative is to further feed the politics of grievance that helped to get Mr Trump elected in the first place. The problem for the tech giants is both confusion about whether they are publishers or simply carriers, compounded by their near-monopoly position, which adds a new dimension to their accountability. For Democrats, it would be a big mistake to forget the lessons of Mr Trump’s election because of the fireworks of its termination. It would be jut as foolish to expect that Mr Trump will now start to act like any other politician, exemplified by his refusal to attend the swearing-in of his successor, the first time this has happened for 152 years. To his credit, Vice-President Mike Pence has said he will attend, earning him derision from the President and chants of “Hang Mike Pence” from Trump fans.

Mr Pence deserves the gratitude of all Americans for holding things together in Washington, standing up for proper democratic processes, and defying Mr Trump’s unrelenting demands that he use his office illegally to act unconstitutionally. Mr Pence’s courage has enabled the US’s democratic institutions to survive the crisis and reassure worried allies. It is these institutions that will allow the US to deal with the events of last week and move on.