Donald Trump alarms the United States, and the world

US President Donald Trump’s refusal to commit himself to a peaceful transfer of power after the November presidential election is alarming. Instead of assuring Americans that he would respect the people’s mandate, whatever it is, he has equivocated on the matter. Not only did he not explicitly express commitment to the democratic process and its outcome, he even undermined it by raising doubts about postal ballots and describing them as a “whole big scam.” Opinion polls indicate that Trump is trailing his Democratic challenger Joe Biden by several points. The Trump camp is growing increasingly nervous. An incumbent President’s reluctance to commit himself to a peaceful transition of power should not be taken lightly. This is not the first time that Trump has displayed his contempt for democratic processes and verdicts. In the run-up to the 2016 presidential election, too, he had refused to commit to accepting the results. Only then, he won the election -- though through the electoral college and not the popular vote -- and did not need to challenge the verdict. Still, he showed his contempt for voters by refusing to accept that he had indeed lost the popular vote.

Should Trump lose the upcoming election, he can be expected to challenge the verdict by questioning the postal ballots. Hence, his repeated undermining of the postal voting process in preparation of that. His strategy appears to be to challenge the verdict in the courts, and it is to ensure that the judicial verdict goes in his favour that he is racing ahead to appoint a loyalist judge to replace Ruth Ginsberg, the recently deceased progressive judge in the Supreme Court. There is also fear that he could resort to using federal troops to break up protests post-results.

Respecting the outcome of an election and allowing a smooth transition of power is one of the basic tenets of democracy. The 2000 presidential election result was also disputed, but Democratic candidate and former vice president Al Gore, who won the popular vote, conceded to his Republican rival George W Bush “for the sake of our unity as a people and the strength of our democracy.” Trump has indicated he is willing to destroy this principle. That the threat to America’s democracy is real is underscored by the fact that even Republican leaders are worried. The party must assure Americans of a peaceful transition of power if Trump loses. What’s the hope for democracy elsewhere if it is imperilled, or seen to be so, in the oldest modern democracy?