When Al Gore conceded, it was presidential. When Trump concedes, it will be to spite Nancy Pelosi

He will leave, but he won’t be fully gone

“African peacekeepers in America after Trump steals the election,” wrote Daily Show host Trevor Noah on Instagram this week. ““Well, well, well. Refusing to give up power, rampant disease and high unemployment. Who’s the s**thole now, huh?’”

In 1797, this nation’s first president, George Washington, handed over the presidency to his vice president, John Adams. It was a completely ordinary act in a democracy, a peaceful transfer of power between heads of state. It was extraordinary, however, because it was the first time in this country’s history that it had been done. 

And then, not so long ago, on December 13th of 2000 after litigation in the Florida courts and then the Nation’s Supreme Court, Al Gore called George W Bush to concede defeat in one of the most controversial elections in modern history. I was 16 years old in Denver, Colorado during the presidential race when Florida ultimately decided the winner. After the Supreme Court stopped the state’s recount on the grounds that it was unconstitutional and that time to find a remedy had run out, Bush won Florida’s 25 electoral votes with a margin of just 537 votes from the state-wide popular election – putting him at 271 electoral votes compared to Gore’s 266.

Gore acted presidentially when he put the nation’s interests ahead of his own, or at least acknowledged the obvious – that he had lost the electoral vote in the hotly contested swing state. It was later revealed that Gore had won the popular election, much like we saw happen in 2016 with Hillary Clinton. 

Next week on Monday, December 14th, members of the electoral college will vote based on state certifications of who won the presidential election. And on January 6th of 2021, Vice President Mike Pence will convene the House and the Senate to formally declare Joe Biden the next president. While only 33 states and the District of Columbia require their electors to vote in line with the winner in the popular vote, Joe Biden’s 306 to Trump’s 232 is far over the necessary 270 needed to secure the presidency. 

But since he lives in an unhinged, upside-down world, Trump hasn’t yet admitted he lost. Instead, he flails about hysterically spewing lies and conspiracy theories about election fraud and signalling to his militant, white supremacist right-wing base to “stand by”. Meanwhile the vast majority of his Republican sycophants can’t seem to either throw him a buoy or have the good sense to salvage what’s left of their reputation in the history books and abandon ship as this administration descends into the fiery bowls of history, taking its place on the long list of our most shameful moments as a nation.

Why? Republicans are more concerned with their own campaigns than the importance of upholding fair elections in a democracy. They don’t want to alienate Trump’s rabid base before the results of two Georgia runoff elections on January 5th are announced, which will decide control of the Senate. If they lose, Democrats will control all three branches of government. The GOP also wants to be in the good graces of the vengeful but powerful man they see as a viable candidate for the 2024 Republican nomination. How much Republican officials are profiting by staying on the crazy train I cannot imagine. 

No one should be surprised at Trump’s last act of buffoonery and ill will. He has never done anything gracefully or in good faith, and no one should have expected him to hand off the presidency as he should for the sake of a country in the midst of a terrible economic recession, mass unemployment and a once-in-a-century pandemic. This presidency has never been about logic, science, protocol, or values — indeed, it has never been about the American people — it has always been about Trump and his insipient verbal diarrhoea. 

During the past four years, millions of government and Republican Party dollars have gone into the president's businesses. His administration is a textbook definition of nepotism with woefully unprepared and inept family members in top roles administering big budgets. 

Trump won’t give us the pleasure of watching him be dragged out of the White House like my toddler when she doesn’t want to go to preschool. He won’t even let the world see him as he officially leaves the White House one final time. Instead, he will leave in a xenophobic, vitriolic tweetstorm from his garish gold-inlaid commode in Mar-a-Lago as he fundraises for his 2024 presidential bid. Unfortunately, in this democracy we cannot do as the original founding fathers did in ancient Sparta and vote to banish Trump for 10 years. 

On noon of January 20th, Trump will no longer be president of the United States and Joe Biden will be in the White House. And Trump knows that if he doesn’t and there are calls by Republicans that there was electoral fraud or failure, Nancy Pelosi will become the interim president until somehow the question is officially decided. So, he’ll leave, but he’s not gone. 

Democrats take notice: half of America voted for this, twice. This s**t ain’t over.