Enough is Enough

Throughout the history of America, our government has upheld a tradition of classiness, integrity and understanding — the tradition of peaceful presidential transitions. As terms come to an end, both sides are able to put their differences aside and come together for the sake of the country. This, unfortunately, couldn’t be farther from true in the weeks following the 2020 election.

The actions of Trump and his administration come as no surprise. Far prior to the election, he was alluding to the terrifying notion that he would not leave office willingly. During a September press conference, when asked about a potential transition he answered by ranting about the ballots and said, and I quote, “We want to have — get rid of the ballots and you’ll have a very peaceful, there won’t be a transfer, frankly, there’ll be a continuation”.

This has always been his prerogative.

And now, while the world watches, America has a president who blatantly refuses to honor tradition and respect the decency that should come with the oval office. Our democracy should be much bigger than the narcissism of Trump — it requires us to respect the results of an election even when we don’t like the results.

Instead, he has made it entirely about himself — and what’s worse, establishment Republicans aren’t standing up to it. Trump has taken to Twitter and is spewing tweets about the election being false, rigged, crazy, a hoax. He has decided that a margin of millions of votes cannot possibly be true, that Joe Biden under no circumstance would procure those many votes.

We have a president who dissuaded mail-in voting, then votes by mail then turns around and takes to Twitter in a completely unhinged flurry of rants. Trump tweeted, “how come every time they count Mail-In ballot dumps they are so devastating in their percentage and power of destruction?” (Nov. 4th), as if he had not personally told his followers not to vote by mail, and thus the majority of mail-in ballots were cast by Democratic voters.

Other favorites of mine are “STOP THE VOTE” (Nov. 5), “I WON THIS ELECTION, BY A LOT” (Nov. 7) and finally, “Twitter is out of control, made possible through the government gift of Section 230! (Nov. 6). This last one brings up a great discussion – should social media be allowed to fact check or add checks & balances of their own to content made on their platform?

I personally believe so. Twitter merely adds disclaimers — they do not delete his tweets or account, and the platform provides sources and links to back up their claims. Twitter is certainly not the one out of control.

Overall, Trump’s behavior 1) is extremely dangerous and casts doubt on our democracy, 2) was completely, and sadly, expected, and 3) tarnishes the reputation of the Republican Party, and dishonors the Oval Office and America. Enough is enough, and Trump needs to swallow his massive ego, and aid in the transition for the sake of America.