The following is the opinion and analysis of the writer:
Heading into election day, there were two crucial questions. First, who would win? Second, in a divided era, how would the loser respond?
Joe Biden won by more than 4 million and is calling for unity. Donald Trump lost and is inciting division.
The president’s reaction to a “Dear Donald” letter from the American voters has so far been appalling. His ego maniacal personality prevented him from seeing the breakup coming. He has rejected the message and is attempting to enforce a broken relationship on the country, possibly making him the most dangerous jilted lover in the world.
Many critics predicted this temper tantrum; what few imagined, including me, is that the GOP leaders would go along with the kinds of treacherous behavior that humiliates America before the world.
This is not the Republican Party that I knew. The first Republican President in my lifetime was Dwight Eisenhower, a war hero to my family and our middle class neighbors in a post-war neighborhood in St. Louis. Ike promised to end the Korean War and did. He also built the Interstate Highway System.
The second was Richard Nixon who before leaving office in disgrace opened relations with China, created the Environmental Protection Agency, and helped the cause of Native Americans.
Gerald Ford brought the country together after Watergate.
Ronald Reagan was the JFK of the conservatives who brought image and style to the White House and is credited with bringing down the Berlin Wall signaling the collapse of the Soviet Union.
His successor George H.W. Bush lost a second term because of a act of patriotism when he raised taxes to control a spiraling deficit.
His son’s star-crossed Presidency saw 9/11 and never ending war in the Middle East
Then came Donald Trump. He unleashed on America a form of angry Populism that appealed to millions who felt left behind by the high-tech secular culture of the 21st Century. Trump trounced a weak Republican field and squeaked by a very capable but tone deaf Democrat.
He inherited a presidency whose power had been greatly expanded by Barack Obama who resorted to rule by executive order when blind opposition from a Republican Senate majority blocked his programs.
Trump used it on steroids. Before long he simply ignored Congress. He built 300 miles of border wall with money appropriated to fill the needs for military housing. He filled cabinet offices with so-called “temporary appointees” in order to avoid the inconvence of Senate confirmation.
Donald Trump inherited the world’s greatest democracy and left the beginnings of autocracy.
Now Mitch McConnell and his allies will have to decide whether to continue that mission or take a walk with Joe Biden on the road to restore our democracy.
But if they have chosen Trumpism as the future of their party, I pray for Joe Biden — and the country.
