People tend not to hold politicians to the highest standard of candor and integrity. Personal ambition is necessary to be willing to expose one’s private life to the intense inquiry that public officials must endure. Nonetheless, there has been an expectation that those elected to office will be guided at least by the nation’s Constitution and the principles of democracy.
With his incessant campaign to establish that the 2020 presidential campaign was stolen, Donald Trump is gradually destroying the public’s reliance on fair elections. He induced officials in Arizona to conduct an expensive audit that reported Joe Biden had won by even more votes than originally established. Then Trump called for the audit of several counties in Texas, some of which he had won.
The objective seems to be to damage public support for the voting process so that state legislators would make changes that would benefit Republicans. According to the New York Times, 30 such revisions have been passed in 18 states. Many of the changes impede the right of Blacks and poor whites to vote.
But most damaging of all is Trump’s indefinite perpetuation of the voting process. With him, elections never end. Challenges can go on forever. According to the Constitution, the term of the president shall end at noon on the 20th day of January. All problems and irregularities have to be resolved by then.
The insurrection on Jan. 6 was to prevent Congress from approving the votes of the Electoral College as required by the 12th Amendment to the Constitution that would approve Joe Biden as Trump’s successor. We should learn from this fiasco that voters must be well-informed and must have even higher standards for those whom they elect to office.
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