Question for American voters: If a candidate for public office won’t agree ahead of time to abide by the outcome of a legitimate election, why is he or she allowed on the ballot?
Former President Trump has announced he won’t support another Republican candidate if he loses the GOP primary in the coming year. In short, he rejects the legitimacy of the people’s vote – of the election process.
And we already know in clear terms that when he lost the 2020 general election to Joe Biden by 7 million popular votes, he never accepted the “rigged” outcome. He never will. His fragile ego will not allow him to see himself as a loser.
One clairvoyant Wisconsin Internet journalist, Don Shafer, picked up on the reality that underlies the 2024 presidential contest: “The problem is this. Even if he were to lose, there is no way Donald Trump is going to concede defeat.”
Put another way, for Trump, the presidential election is illegitimate unless he is the winner. That convoluted thinking makes no sense in a democracy. It is a rejection of our democracy. It sounds like autocracy.
The most astonishing piece of Trump’s attack on our sacred election processes is how many Americans he pulled into his anti-democratic thinking.
In Michigan, for example, 19 fake electors have been charged with misrepresenting themselves as legal electors. They have pleaded not guilty. But the law is finally working against their election disruption.
In Wisconsin, 10 self-selected electors, who weren’t elected, face similar potential charges. That is as it should be. They need to be held accountable in court for their incredible attempt to dump your vote and mine. They intended to displace the real electors for which a majority of us voted.
Note: The 2020 election results have held up against more than 60 court challenges by Trump’s MAGA allies.
I asked a former Wisconsin legislator, a notorious windbag who promoted election fraud to discredit Biden’s victory, to show me one fraudulent ballot in his district, just one. I asked him multiple times in print and by phone message. He never did.
To run our government at the national, state and municipal levels, we have to protect and preserve trust in a system of valid processes. All the local election officials I know are patriotic Americans who could never be compromised.
They deserve our ultimate respect. The loudmouths can’t be allowed to get away with groundless distortions and allegations that undermine the democratic process that bind us. That goes for former presidents as well. The election was not stolen.
Back to 2023: If Trump won’t debate his fellow Republicans on Aug. 23 in Milwaukee, he should not be on any ballot. The candidates need to honor our long history of putting themselves in the spotlight of honesty via debate.
That also applies if Trump won’t honor an audited outcome of the general election of November 2024. Such an outright anti-democrat should simply not be allowed to be a candidate for our highest office. Our two political parties cannot allow a fake democrat to be their front-runner.
As for the coming GOP debate in Milwaukee, Trumps asks why he should participate if he is so far ahead in the polls. Here are several reasons:
- While he leads the GOP polls nationally, Molly Beck, the Journal Sentinel political writer, reports that Trump trails Ron De Santis in the run-up to the state’s Republican primary and that President Biden currently leads him in a potential Biden-Trump general election.
- More generally, if Trump wants to be our leader, he needs to communicate intensely with U.S. citizens. Communications is Job 1 for leaders of any sort. He owes it to all of us to say clearly and often where he would take the nation during another term. No one can lead effectively without a clear game plan.
