What Trump Has Done to America
The Supreme Court slammed the door on President Donald Trump’s preposterous lawsuits. State legislators ignored his pressure to countermand the voters. The Electoral College cast a majority of its votes for President-elect Joe Biden. Trump’s efforts to usurp the presidency have failed. That is cause for relief.
But not too much relief. No one who understands the law believed that Trump and his supporters and enablers stood more than a minuscule chance of overturning the election. In the course of failing to usurp the presidency, however, Trump succeeded at usurping the Republican Party. On that front, his accomplishments since November 3 have been impressive. With his legal challenges safely out of the way, now is a good moment to take stock.
Trump has consolidated antidemocratic forces’ control of the Republican Party
Many Republicans still believe in democratic norms such as the rule of law, the centrality of truth, the peaceful transfer of power, and the legitimacy of the , Benjamin Wittes and I warned that the Republican Party, as an institution, had become a danger to the rule of law and the integrity of our democracy. Thereafter, Trump only escalated his assaults on democratic norms.
