I’VE always considered myself sympathetic to the Democratic Party when it comes to presidential elections in the US. This identification of mine dates back to my childhood fascination for John F Kennedy (and, later on, for Robert and Edward as well) a fascination that even got me to complete, early in life, what I consider the “JFK Pilgrimage.”
This pilgrimage has led me from JFK’s birthplace to the JFK Museum in Boston, from the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin to the Texas School Book Depository in downtown Dallas and, of course, to the Arlington National Cemetery where the eternal flame continues to burn.
‘What will Trump do this time should he again lose?’
Because of my Kennedy fascination, I have always rooted for the candidates of the Democratic Party from the moment I was conscious of US politics, party platforms and the electoral college. I have followed closely how its candidates gained the party’s nomination, watched how some choices for vice president bombed (Hillary’s choice in 2016 being the latest), and how presidential contests were won or lost by landslides or by the skin of their teeth.
And I’ve also studied with keen interest how the peaceful transition of power occurs, from the certification of the election returns by the outgoing Vice President to the inaugural address on January 20. Of the former, it strikes me that Richard Nixon in 1960 and Al Gore in 2000 must have been tortured having had to certify their own defeats.
Losing, you see, is part of the electoral process. But losing politicians have a way of transforming into statesmen because that is what the interests of the people demand of them.
America in 2024 faces a big problem – arising from the fact that Donald Trump, the candidate of the Republican party, has time and again asserted that he will only lose if he is cheated and he will not accept the results of such an election. This, we know now, is no idle boast, for in 2020 Trump as the incumbent President egged on a mob to storm the US Capitol to prevent the certification of the election results. And this was his last card, having failed before that to convince his Vice President to not do his duty under the US Constitution and refuse to certify the victory of Joe Biden.
Trump has never been able to rise to the level of statesmanship.
What will Trump do this time should he again lose?
Here’s another question: What is Trump doing now to make sure he wins? Engage in voter suppression efforts in states with heavy African American voting populations, for example?
Democracy has to win in November.
