However dishonest and inept the 2020 election was or may have been, let us stipulate that it is over, that Joe Biden will take the oath of office on January 20, and that the tumultuous presidency of Donald Trump is now effectively ready for the history books. The question now is: what comes after?
Wednesday was Trump’s Last Stand and, true to form, he fought to the end, both for himself and, however inelegantly, for the U.S. constitution in the teeth of an electoral system that is unwieldy, arbitrary, and ripe for abuse. If nothing else emerges from this experience, it is the realization that our scattershot methods of choosing a president need to be regularized and rendered as fraud-proof as possible. One confirmed and eligible citizen, one vote, one time, on one day would be a good place to start.
Still, there was never the slightest chance that vice president Mike Pence was going to overturn the state-certified votes of the Electoral College during the ceremonial opening of the ballots during Wednesday’s joint session of Congress. In his own eyes, and in the opinion of constitutional scholars, he simply didn’t have the power.
Much about Wednesday’s disturbance at the Capitol, during which a woman named Ashli Babbitt of San Diego was shot at close range and killed inside the building by a Capitol Police officer, remains unclear—who organized the attack on the building? Was the demonstration infiltrated (as seems highly likely) by agents provocateurs from Antifa? Why weren’t the Capitol Hill police better prepared?
(Where are the calls on the Left for justice for Ms. Babbitt? The name of Heather Heyer, who was accidentally killed in Charlottesville during the 2017 clashes there, is consistently evoked on the Left, as are of course George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, secular martyrs to the BLM cause. Will the cop who shot her ever face charges, or even be identified? Does anybody besides her family care?)
Peaceful Assembly
True, the president had earlier addressed his supporters on the Ellipse, his resentment over what he views as a stolen election both visible and audible. But there was nothing “treasonous” about either his attempts to challenge the electoral votes or the large crowd of his supporters exercising their constitutional right to assembly in support of its candidate. Peaceable assembly is a time-honored American tradition—where would the civil-rights movement be without it?
For almost a year, we have heard from the Left that the violent and destructive BLM/Antifa riots that broke out across the country last year were “mostly peaceful,” and by those elastic standards, so was Wednesday’s demonstration. Those responsible for the violence must be punished to the fullest extent of the law, but to claim that anyone participating in the demonstration should now be identified and “canceled”—as the media is now doing—is the essence of retaliatory fascism.
Similarly, the parliamentary maneuvers by a group of Republicans to challenge the validity of the contested states’ electoral votes and to try to debate them were fully constitutional. There is, in fact, ample precedent, most recently by the Democrats in 2016, 2004, and 2000—all Republican victories. But those challenges, led by Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, died in the aftermath of the riot that same evening, and thus Biden is now officially and constitutionally president-elect.
Media Invested
Were we robbed? It is very likely, given the suspicious circumstance of Biden’s materializing popular votes in precisely the swing states that were needed for victory. While the multiple lawsuits contesting those votes have been consistently thrown out in various courts (including, disgracefully, the Texas suit presented to the U.S. Supreme Court), they were dismissed on procedural grounds, and the evidence remains to this day unheard.
In the aftermath of Bush v. Gore in 2000, the Florida counts were analyzed independently several times after Bush had been sworn in, and each review showed a narrow Bush victory. The election of 2020 deserves no less—but don’t hold your breath waiting for the media to do its duty. The media has spoken on the subject, and will now draw a curtain of silence around the issue. It’s simply too invested in the Democrat Party for it ever to return to the days of “objective” journalism.
Indeed, until the Democrat/Media Complex—which includes the partisan big tech outlets of Google, Facebook, and Twitter—is broken up and destroyed, American democracy will remain imperiled. In a functioning two-party system, it is unacceptable that one party can declare its rival anathema, and have nearly one hundred percent of the mainstream media outlets cheer on its totalitarianism. That way lies the one-party states of Communist China and the old Soviet Union, which apparently are the models for contemporary Democrats
Blood in the Water
But the Left now smells blood in the water, Despite their underwhelming performance in the congressional elections, the Democrats find themselves in the barest possession of the Congress as well as the White House—but they will act as if they had a mandate on the landslide lines of Nixon in 1972 and Ronald Reagan in 1980. And they want revenge.
It is not enough for their repellent leaders, Nancy Pelosi and Senator Charles Schumer, that Trump must leave office in less than two weeks. They want him gone now, before his term is up. They want to humiliate him and expel him from the White House either via the 25th amendment or by a second impeachment, as Pelosi now says she endorses.
In addition, the president has been suspended from Twitter as well as Facebook, thus cementing the role of social media as arbiters of official orthodoxy. State lawsuits also await him and his family the moment he leaves 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
The prospect of Trump’s organizing a competing event as Biden is sworn in on January 20, and spending the next four years rallying his supporters against the Biden-Harris administration, or forming a third party, absolutely terrifies the Permanent Bipartisan Fusion Party of Republicans and Democrats. They need to destroy him politically as well as personally.
But why should his exit be any different from his entrance? The Washington Post was advocating his impeachment on the day of his inauguration. Members of the intelligence community and political officials, including perhaps Barack Obama and Biden themselves, sicced the FBI on Trump during his campaign, monitored his communications, set perjury traps for his incoming officials, opened an entirely bogus “Russian collusion” investigation they knew was false, and impeached him over a phone call to the Ukraine that threatened to expose the breathtaking extent of the Biden family’s corruption—something the disgraceful legacy media covered up as well.
There was never any goodwill, no honeymoon, nor even any common decency.
For the 70+ million Trump voters, what to do now? Bitter as it is, accept the loss, re-assess their relationship with the Republican Party, learn to organize at the grassroots level, and develop a donor base that will finance and support ideas instead of candidates, and then find the men and women who embody our core principles of liberty and equal justice under the law and nominate them. Either that, or start a new party, one explicitly dedicated to the preservation of the Constitution.
Most of all, pray for the health of Joseph R. Biden, Jr., who will be 82 years old when his term finishes. Because if you really want to be driven mad, contemplate this: Kamala Harris, president of the United States.
Michael Walsh is the editor of The-Pipeline.org and the author of “The Devil’s Pleasure Palace” and “The Fiery Angel,” both published by Encounter Books. His latest book, “Last Stands,” a cultural study of military history from the Greeks to the Korean War, was recently published.
Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author. First published in The Epoch Times.
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