Over a month after the Nov. 3 2020 General Election, Donald Trump is still refusing to admit that he lost the election to president-elect Joe Biden. As recently as today, Dec. 10 2020, Trump is still outright claiming that he won the election.The vote may be over giving 306 electoral votes to Biden and 232 electoral votes to Trump, but Trump is still attempting to cling to his office through frivolous legal battles. The Trump campaign has filed lawsuits against many states including Pennsylvania, Nevada, Georgia, and Michigan. While the Trump campaign claims that there is hard evidence of electoral fraud behind these suits, when these suits finally reach the courtroom, they fail due to a lack of evidence. At this point, there is no reason to believe that the 2020 election was not a free and fair election. Trump has every right to explore these legal avenues though, no matter how pointless they are. However, Trump’s lawsuits are not without impact: they are rhetorically damaging to democracy, are further polarizing America, and give Trump a reason to refuse to concede defeat.
While these lawsuits may have no basis and are not making it through the courts, their mere existence is undermining confidence in the electoral system of the United States. Trump’s lawsuits are claiming that this election was fraudulent, leading citizens to question if their vote even mattered. Citizens are not sure if their preference was taken into account or if their vote was simply for show. According to Dahl’s prerequisites for a democracy, citizens must be able to formulate and signify their preferences as well as have their preferences responded to equally by the government. This is the electoral process, the foundation of democracy. Citizens must have confidence that their preferences will be taken into account equally in order to participate, and citizen participation is required in order to hold government officials accountable. Due to Trump’s lawsuits though, some citizens are being led to believe that this process is no longer functioning as it should. Whether this is true or not, citizens’ trust in the electoral process is being eroded.
The lawsuits of the Trump campaign are also contributing to the current polarization in the United States. While post-election season should be a time of healing and acceptance for Americans, many Americans believe that the election is not over. This disagreement over election results is creating further division between Republicans and Democrats. Republicans are inclined to believe Trumps claims that he has won the election since these legal proceedings are ongoing. Without his lawsuits and the polarization that they are creating, Trump’s claims would be unacceptable. It would be clear to everyone that Trump’s claims have no grounds, and Trump’s supporters would be forced to confront the fact that Trump did in fact lose the election. According to Svolik, citizens already excuse higher levels of corruption and unethical behavior from members of their own party, and according to Iyengar and Krupenkin these levels of acceptance will only increase in the face of polarization. This combined with the fact that the lawsuits put theoretical proof behind Trump’s claims has lead his supporters to continue to excuse his behavior and allow him to continue to erode trust in the electoral process.
Furthermore, these lawsuits have allowed not only citizens but also government officials to continue to excuse Trump’s refusal to concede even when they recognize Trump’s loss. In a debate between Kelly Loeffler and Raphael Warnock on Dec 6., even when directly asked, Loeffler refused to acknowledge that Trump had lost the 2020 election. Instead, she responded that Trump has every right to pursue all of his legal options. Trump’s lawsuits give Loeffler an out and allow her to depict him as acting in the interest of the American people by ensuring that the election was free and fair. However, this is not what Trump is doing. In reality, Trump is attempting to cast doubt upon the results of the election and the American electoral system as a whole. Loeffler likely recognizes Trump’s loss as she continuously emphasized in the debate that the future of America depends on the Georgia run-off election in January. Why would America’s future be at stake if Trump had won the presidency? Yet, Loeffler, or any Republican, will not be forced into admitting Trump’s defeat in the public forum because they can simply cite Trump’s right to legal proceedings instead.It remains to be seen if Trump will ever admit his defeat in the 2020 election or if he will ever formally concede to Joe Biden. After all of these legal battles and claims that he actually won the election, it is hard to imagine Trump reversing his position and acknowledging that he was wrong. The bad news is that if Trump never peacefully concedes, then there will be a huge shadow of illegitimacy over Biden’s presidency and continued doubt casted upon America’s electoral process in the future. The good news is that in reality the 2020 election was free and fair, and there was no widespread fraud like Trump claimed there would be. When the time for Biden’s inauguration comes, Trump will cease to be president and will be removed from the White House, whether he likes it or not.
Hi Mary, I thought your post did a great job of emphasizing the harm being caused to democracy as a whole due to Trump’s refusal to concede the presidency. The American democracy is quite fragile in the way that it relies heavily upon public perception and political norms. Without a formal concession, it is likely that a long shadow will be cast on Biden’s presidency as those who vehemently support Trump promote and reinforce the belief in widespread voter fraud. Something I speculate about is the future of Trumpians as time passes; is this demographic going to be dispersed (as they were prior to the arrival of Trumpian politics) or will they remain a force to be reckoned with for years to come?
Mary – these lawsuits keep me awake at night. Thank you for writing about them. This was very well written and you’re absolutely correct when you say that they are undermining confidence in the electoral system. This makes me nervous for the future of our democracy. Our institutions are proving to be solid – the Supreme Court’s dismissal of his lawsuits is a promising sign that while our democracy is definitely under attack, it is safe for now. I’m curious as to when Trump will concede, or if he ever will. If he doesn’t, this will leave a permanent stain on American democracy. Will his supporters ever realize that the lawsuits are based on nothing but a pure conspiracy? I do worry about the stability of our nation, as we are extremely polarized. For the time being, we can be thankful that our institutions are holding strong.
I agree that these lawsuits are detrimental to the health of our democracy, especially if Trump does not concede. I will offer a counterpoint though, in that many people I know are emboldened by how the court system has held up. The most powerful person in the political system, the President, has tried his very best to manipulate election results. In the end, it was not even close to working. I remember in the initial phase, of these lawsuits, some of my peers had genuine concern that Trump could escalate the lawsuits to courts where he was favored and overturn election results. Yet despite the time and money spent, he was unable to converge on any meaningful results. I still agree that this is problematic for the overall health of democracy, given many Trump supporters will not concede or willingly say that Joe Biden has won the election. However, I take what has happened in the last few months as a positive for the court system. It was unable to be knocked down.
Mary, I agree that Trumps continuing tries to overturn the election are creating further problems for America. He has and continues to create a space for hate and racism to continue. I believe he has purposely brought doubt forward about the election even before the election started because he already knew many groups had been mobilized to vote against him. I hope that Biden will be able to bring back together our country and create a safe place for people of all ethnicities. Mass incarceration as well as police brutality against black people cannot be tolerated anymore.
This is a very interesting article that excellently analyzes the consequences of spreading misinformation. In the beginning, you brought up the point that the lawsuits “mere existence is undermining confidence in the electoral system” which I absolutely agree with. I would like to add that it contributes to the paradox of voting, which is because statistically speaking, an individual vote in the United States is unlikely to make a difference in the election, it is easy for voters to conclude it does not matter if they do not participate. Because of this, any extra burdens or barriers to voting will make people feel like it is not even worth their time to vote. So the United States is already dealing with voting burdens that disproportionately affect voters, but now on top of that, lies are being spread about the integrity of the ballot. Time is already the biggest cost of voting, so if people are not going to vote because a line is too long why would they bother voting when they feel the ballots are not secure? The consequences of these lies are very concerning considering the state of our voter turnout and voter restrictions.
Misinformation about election results will also lead to more high knowledge voters. These high knowledge voters are voters who have high political information and are highly involved in politics, but whose information is tainted by whatever they identify as, meaning they are very engaged and knowledgeable in their domain. I am bringing up high knowledge individuals because they are the ones most susceptible to conspiracy theories and emotions of anger and rivalry. I think it is important to identify this because these individuals selectively receive information and surround themselves with people that reaffirm it, and this contributes to intense polarization. Thus, high knowledge conservatives are going to believe Trump’s lies and exhibit high levels of anger and rivalry. This is exactly what we saw with the insurrection at the capital where high knowledge individuals stormed the capitol to “protest” the corrupt electoral system in which their anger could be felt through the news channel you were watching it on, and the rivalry was clearly shown when they trashed democrats’ offices and hung trump, confederate, and blue lives matter flags on the building. The division between parties is becoming much more extreme and deadly.
Furthermore, another part to consider is how the repetition of his claims reinforce there truth. Fluency seems to be the new conspiracism, and it requires no evidence for people to decide whether it is accurate or not. Unfortunately, all the news sources discussing Trump’s unwillingness to concede and belief that the election was fraud increases the number of people who believe the lie. An increased amount of fact checkers does not decrease the amount of people that believe the claim; it increases it. People are profiting from the spread of misinformation. Trump profits by getting more and more people to support him and more and more people to doubt the integrity of the electoral system. Even though there is no evidence to support his claims that the election was fraudulent, people believe him, which is threatening the overall stability of our democracy. Free and fair elections are a staple of any democracy and when integrity is being questioned, it destabilizes the entire system. If people cannot count on elections, what can they count on? Simply by repeating his false, unprovable allegations, Trump has managed to achieve considerable democratic backsliding. Conspiracies threaten democracy in a number of ways. For one thing, it insights violence and increases conflict, which we saw happen at the capitol; a conspiracy rallies people behind a unique cause they all believe in because it makes them feel safe within a group of like-minded individuals and gives them the confidence and courage they need to rally. In addition, conspiracies delegitimize political opponents by turning them into evil monsters that need to be stopped in the name of all things good. They don’t just delegitimize opponents but the whole government, which along with increased polarization, prevents things from getting done. Finally, they create openings for populist leaders to swoop in and use the conflict and lack of government trust to his or her advantage. However, I will argue that one good thing to come out of this entire process is that our court systems have held true and guarded the integrity of our elections. On the other hand, I have heard individuals who go a step further and start believing the court system is corrupt as well which is even more terrifying.