Trump’s actions make repeat of Bush v. Gore seem more likely
By: Stephen Lynch, Columnist
Views expressed in opinion columns are the author’s own.
Both the Republican and Democrat parties spent the last week in a state of continuous anxiety, wondering which direction the election would go in.
Multiple news outlets confirmed that projected president-elect Joe Biden will be the 46th president of the United States. Yet as Democrats and anti-Trump activists celebrate on Black Lives Matter Blvd. I still find the situation nebulous.
President Donald Trump has bunkered himself up in the White House and refuses to concede even though his allies in right-wing media are announcing his loss. The largest concern I have, a fear that has been confirmed by the President’s actions, is President Trump will not relinquish control of the White House and will attempt to settle the issue in a court he has zealously stacked with members of his party.
The Supreme Court leans 6-3 in favor of Republicans. The abhorrence of this disparity is made clear when I look at the popular vote and I see Joe Biden ahead, exceeding four million votes and with the electoral college now confirming his right to be president. How can a court accurately represent its people when its makeup is so completely one-sidedly Republican and juxtaposed to the party voters clearly favored by a majority?
My fear is Trump will cling to the Oval Office with the help of the Supreme Court and call for recounts while riling up his base with shouts of a rigged election and voter fraud.
Trump has repeatedly posted misinformation on Twitter claiming that votes in battleground states may have been illegally cast or counted inappropriately while there is no genuine evidence to back these claims made by the administration.
With the tragic passing of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Trump was able to make a third appointment to the Supreme Court in his four year term. Amy Coney Barrett, a staunch conservative, accepted the lifetime appointment in a flash, and now Democrats find themselves at a severe disadvantage. There is also the seemingly ironic fact that there are now, with Barrett’s nomination, three Supreme Court justices who were former lawyers for George Bush during the Bush V. Gore hearings that ultimately provided George Bush with the presidency in 2000.
Barrett, Brett Kavanaugh, and John Roberts were all lawyers for Bush during the Florida recount. Justice Barrett did not directly influence the recount that cost Gore the election but she was a part of the investigation team. Thus it is hard to be convinced that the situation is a coincidence instead of a well calculated contingency by the administration in the event of their losing the election.
As the election results came in it was clear to me that we are on the precipice of an event that will shape the next four years with assistance by the judicial system Trump has loaded with conservative judges. I am optimistic that Joe Biden will be the next U.S. President, but it is clear that the Trump administration has no plans on relinquishing control of the governmental reins without an all out war being fought in the courts.
