Amid a global pandemic that has already claimed 246,000 American lives, lame-duck President Donald Trump continues to refuse to concede to President-Elect Joe Biden and continues to deny the integrity and security of the 2020 elections in an attempt to cast doubt on the safety of the nation’s voting systems. The refusal to concede by a sitting president in an election he clearly lost is unprecedented in such a nontight race and is dangerous to the United States as a whole.
The transition to a new presidency begins when the General Services Administration (GSA) confirms that the President-Elect is the winner of the election, though there isn’t a clear basis as to how this decision should be made. The Trump-appointed head of the GSA has refused to confirm that President-Elect Biden has won the race.
Beginning the transition would allow Biden staffers to begin assessing federal operations to ensure a speedy takeover on Inauguration Day on January 20. A delay in starting the transition would mean that filling critical national security and health positions will be delayed, particularly bad considering the state of the country.
The President has so far refused to concede the presidential race. Here are some of his tweets claiming a “rigged election” and claimed the results were “fake” (even the Department of Homeland Security has said that these claims are false).
He only won in the eyes of the FAKE NEWS MEDIA. I concede NOTHING! We have a long way to go. This was a RIGGED ELECTION!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 15, 2020
RIGGED ELECTION. WE WILL WIN!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 15, 2020
….perhaps like never before! From large numbers of Poll Watchers that were thrown out of vote counting rooms in many of our States, to millions of ballots that have been altered by Democrats, only for Democrats, to voting after the Election was over, to using Radical Left
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 16, 2020
I WON THE ELECTION!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 16, 2020
Amid Donald Trump’s refusal to concede, top U.S. government officials have called for the transition process to begin. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious diseases expert, has called for the transition to begin so that health officials could begin working with the President-Elect’s coronavirus task force. Biden’s Chief of Staff Ron Klain has said that due to the current administration’s refusal to trigger the transition process, the Biden team is unable to work with and talk to top health officials.
A number of officials slated to work on Biden’s coronavirus advisory board have condemned the President’s refusal to concede and continues to call for the transition to begin.
Even a number of congressional Republicans have said that Biden should, at the very minimum, be receiving intelligence briefings.
The refusal of the president to concede is inflaming tensions between the right and the left. In Washington, D.C. on Saturday night, protesters rallying on behalf of the president clashed with left-wing counterprotesters, resulting in over 20 arrests. Fireworks, guns, tasers, knives, and more were used. Many Trump supporters are outright refusing to accept that Joe Biden won this election, repeating the president’s claims that the election was “rigged.”
Former President Barack Obama said in an interview that Trump’s propagation of misinformation concerning the election was hurting America’s ability to conduct basic functions of democracy. He said he was worried that many people in this “deeply divided” nation believed Trump’s falsehoods.
Though on the surface many top Republicans continue to insist that the election was rigged, in private, many Republican officials have been urging the president to concede and accept that Joe Biden will be the next president.
It appears that Trump is now desperate to try each and every way to overturn the results of this election, from filing over 20 lawsuits in various states (only to have them all thrown out by judges) and even mulling over the idea of ignoring the popular vote and trying to convince Republican legislatures in states that voted for Biden to appoint electors in the Electoral College that would vote for him.
It is clear that this is an obvious attack on the foundations of U.S. democracy. We must refute all of Trump’s falsehoods and accept, no matter who we voted for, that Joe Biden will become the 46th President of the United States in order to allow the country to move on to a new era.
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