US election 2020: Trump supporters need to accept defeat

While Donald Trump flails like a dying king, Americans are taking the first steps on the path to redemption.

Clark County public information officer Dan Kulin steps in front of a Trump supporter protesting the vote count. Picture: AFP

Donald Trump’s disastrous, degraded and divisive presidency has been dispatched to history. This is the voters’ verdict which has delivered Joe Biden a large popular vote margin and a likely clear electoral college majority.

Biden’s victory is one for the ages. Trump’s defeat, after just one term, makes him what he fears most: a loser. He is only the third president to serve a full term and not win re-election since 1932. In the US, the expression “one-term president” is a catchphrase for a failed presidency.

Biden has played the role of president-elect with grace and dignity. He asked for all votes to be counted, urged his supporters to be patient and called for calm. He has been strong but not boastful. He is ready to be president and begin healing a divided nation.

Trump has been flailing like a dying king, desperately making false accusations of ballot fraud and unable to face up to the reality of losing. However, Trumpism will survive. But it is time for Trump supporters to accept the result: their man lost.

Biden won the popular vote by a whopping four million margin and perhaps as much as six million or seven million. It reflects the will of a majority of voters across the nation — mainstream Americans who decide elections. Biden has won more votes than any other presidential candidate in history.

An anti-Trump vote helps explain Biden’s win. Yet he built a broad coalition of support in states from east to west and north to south, coast-to-coast and from the rust belt to the sun belt. Biden will win Michigan and Wisconsin, and almost certainly Pennsylvania, by bigger margins than Trump did four years ago.

While Biden made inroads into Trump’s support, a partisan divide remains on age, class, gender and race. Democratic strongholds in cities and suburbs strengthened, as did the Republican dominance in rural America. There was no blue wave. But as the US becomes more diverse, thereby altering demographics, several red states are ­becoming more blue.

Biden winning Arizona and possibly Georgia, holding Nevada, and being competitive in Florida, North Carolina and Texas, could represent a new Democratic pathway to the presidency. If Trump had not trashed John McCain and John Lewis — two genuine American heroes — he may have done better in Arizona and Georgia.

The US is deeply divided. What form Trumpism now takes is uncertain. Will Trump remain the head of his movement and run again for president in 2024? Will he inaugurate a dynasty of Trump politicians? Or will Republicans wrest back control and purge the populist nativism, protectionism and xenophobia from its ranks?

In February, before the pandemic, I argued Trump was vulnerable and his re-election far from assured. Trump had historically low approval ratings and most Americans thought the country was on the wrong track. He deserved impeachment. But it was Trump’s catastrophic response to COVID-19 that sealed his fate.

Above all, Trump failed the presidential character test. Former cabinet and staff members concluded he was not up to the job. He demonstrated poor judgment, was a narcissist on steroids and had near-zero empathy for others. The dishonesty, malice, bullying, chaos and dysfunction fatigued voters. He had no respect for presidential norms or conventions, his predecessors or opponents, or the electoral process.

Trump’s autocratic instincts are beyond the pale. The founders who won a revolution and created a republic would be appalled. Calling for votes not to be counted and declaring the election “rigged” and “stolen” is anathema to the ideal of the US as a beacon for democracy.

The challenge for Democrats was to select an experienced and moderate candidate who could ­expand the party’s support. Biden was this candidate. Moreover, he is a man of integrity, dignity and compassion — the anti-Trump.

Biden’s immense challenge will be to heal the wounds of the Trump years and try to bring Americans together. It is a difficult task. But at least Americans will now have a president who respects the office and other institutions, and respects them.

I have never been a Trump supporter. His character defects and policy failures are manifest. His style of governing is a repudiation of great Republicans such as Dwight Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan and the Bushes. Trump betrayed their legacy and diminished the office of the president.

I had little doubt Biden would win. Other Australian commentators were certain Trump would win and prematurely said he had won. My criticisms of Trump were evidently shared by a majority of US voters. I also put my money where my mouth is and made a sizeable wager with Sportsbet months ago. It paid very well.

Biden’s election means the US can return to a more normal presidency. Trump’s defeat shows most Americans are still striving, in the words of Abraham Lincoln, to live up to “the better angels” of their nature. It is the first step on the path towards redemption.