R Krishna Das
Donald Trump had scripted the aftermath of his defeat in the American Presidential elections well before the results were out.
Going by the predictions hinting a landslide for Democratic nominee Joe Biden, Trump was probably aware of the outcome. “As soon as the election is over, we are going in with the lawyers”’, he declared in Pennsylvania just before his last rally.
The President had clearly lost hope of winning the election through ballots and was now getting ready to use legal options to stay put in the White House. And what powered his confidence was a majority of conservative judges that he had already packed the Supreme Court with.
Trump is not willing to accept the defeat easily; something that no American President has dared to do so far. And if he refused to vacate the White House, America was heading for big crises with democracy literally coming to a grinding halt.
The TIME magazine in its latest issue said the United States of America would be facing ‘the moment of truth’ a few hours from now. If an American president himself refuses to accept the peoples’ verdict, the entire democratic system will be hollowed.
No one really knows what happens to American democracy if Trump refuses to concede a fair electoral verdict and uses the legal system to continue in office. Unfortunately, signs are that Trump is ready to hurt even American soul; Biden’s punch-line “a battle for American soul”.
If Trump continued to go with his plan of exploring the legal options to challenge the verdict, he was pushing America to an unprecedented crisis that might lead to street violence. People are already storing arms and shops in cities like New York putting up barriers to protect their stores from mobsters.
The sole superpower going adrift and creating a sort of vacuum would certainly be a great advantage for China and Russia. Donald Trump’s peaceful exit rather than putting up a show over his defeat might neither be in the interest of American nor the rest of the world.
