This president will not go quietly
We continue in the last few weeks of what is called the lame-duck period. Historically, this transition has been sometimes difficult, sometimes uneventful, but reliably businesslike and purposeful. The health of the Republic and the welfare of its citizens require that personal rivalry and partisan difference be muted in the process. In this moment, America desperately needs the example of history to prevail. However, we are living in an alternate and perilous reality.
Our duck, Donald, is more than lame. He denies the defeat. He alleges corruption of the Democrats, the media, and election officials. He rages at Fox News, Republican leaders, and the courts. He blithely encourages thuggish behavior in the streets by his fawning, often armed supporters. He will not go quietly.
He is now pressuring Georgia officials to cheat and “find” enough votes to reverse the election result (“President demands Ga. pad his votes,” Page A1, Jan. 4). Lawsuits, extra-constitutional maneuvering, and even the prospect of a coup are frightening enough, but there may be much more daunting hazards. A classic narcissist can never admit to himself that he is wrong or capable of failure. Everyone else must be to blame for his predicament, and everyone else must pay. There may be no limit to the havoc Trump might inflict on the American people in the coming weeks.
In 1974, a distraught and heavily drinking Richard Nixon reportedly was separated from the nuclear launch codes just before his resignation. Facing potential criminal prosecutions and disgrace, might Trump be capable of such terror? Need we trust that one of this president’s flunkies has the courage to hide the so-called nuclear football from him? Yes and yes.
William Koscher
Ludlow
Ga. secretary of state resolute in carrying out election process
Re “President demands Ga. pad his votes”: I nominate Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, and his state’s election workers for the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage award. Here are people who are standing up for truth, our democracy, and fair and secure elections in the face of unseemly intervention and pressure from the president of the United States and many of his Republican supporters.
Too often, those in power try to bully their way to securing what they think is owed them. Raffensperger, in a calm, clear voice, has continually shown the world what ordinary Americans can do to live the principles upon which this nation was founded.
Raffensperger noted that ballots in Georgia were recounted not once but twice, and that signatures were scrutinized and matched. It gives one hope that the Trump years will eventually pass and our nation can stand tall again, thanks to the efforts of people who truly understand and act out what democracy means.
Linda L. Greyser
Boston
Crazed desperation, but that’s not all
We miss a bigger picture when we characterize Donald Trump’s phone call urging Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, a fellow Republican, to “find” enough votes to overturn his defeat as crazed desperation. Trump is delegitimizing the entire voting system of Georgia. He is trashing the results of a massive organizing of Black voters and doing so because there could well be two Democratic senators from Georgia joining Congress after Tuesday’s runoff.
Trump’s aim is not only to disenfranchise millions of Georgia voters. He is roiling civil unrest. He disrupts and bedevils both the legislative and executive branches of our government by calling election results illegitimate. He poisons the well of democracy while doing a hit job for authoritarianism.
In the words of Shakespeare: “Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t.”
Norah Dooley
Brookline
Biden won. What we’re seeing now is treasonous
It is clear by now. All courts, including a Supreme Court made up of three Trump appointees, have upheld the fact that Joe Biden won the election. And he won by a lot.
By pressuring the secretary of state of Georgia to “find” votes to overturn the election, Donald Trump — and the Republican officials who abet him — are, quite simply, traitors. They are attempting to overthrow our democracy very much as Hitler overthrew the democratic government of Germany. They should not only be thrown out of office; they should be put in jail.
Susan Jhirad
Medford
Our democracy should not hinge on who holds sway in Congress
Your reporting on a bid by GOP senators to reject election certification notes that the effort is unlikely to be successful because Democrats control the House. Are we to infer that if one party had control of both houses, it could overturn a valid election? I hope the new Congress will take a hard look at our outdated election rules and make changes to better protect our democracy.
Cecile Sandwen
Carlisle
"Hour" - Google News
January 05, 2021 at 10:00AM
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Trump jams his thumb on the scale at the 11th hour - The Boston Globe
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