Eight years ago, the incoming president was nowhere close to ready for the job, I believed. The election of a untested freshman senator was a very severe mistake, I thought.
But I never doubted Barack Obama won the election. From the start, I objected to what became an eight-year-long effort to discredit his right to hold office. This smear job grew more absurd each year. The presidency -- and the process that chooses its occupant -- deserves respect, whoever holds the office.
That's still true. Rep. John Lewis, D-Georgia, is a bona fide civil rights hero. I respect his decision to not go to the inauguration of a man who embodies a backlash to everything Lewis fought for. But Lewis declaring Donald Trump's election illegitimate because of Russian intervention goes too far. It triggered another ugly, childish Twitter spew by Trump. That contributed to at least 50 Democratic members of Congress declining to go to the swearing in of the president.
President Donald Trump is a clear threat to constitutional government in the United States. Nobody's belief of that is greater than mine. No one will be quicker to speak out about the abuses of power he will commit than me. But an even bigger step toward destroying democracy would be for a large body of the public to consider his election illegitimate.
Nothing and no one is a bigger threat to democracy than the belief that the result of an honest election doesn't count. "Honest" doesn't mean "fair." It means the votes were counted correctly.
Trump won. Yes, he heavily lost the popular vote. The popular vote isn't what matters in our system. It never has. Our Constitution has always protected smaller states from political domination by big ones. Small states would never have ratified it without that protection.
The fact the Russians helped Trump makes no difference. As I said three weeks ago, it should surprise no one that Russians -- or anybody else -- consider the election of the president of the United States to be a big deal. Of course, they wanted to influence the outcome.
The Chinese, the Israelis, the Saudis, the Germans, the Japanese, the Koreans, etc. and so forth, aren't disinterested, passive observers of our elections either. And the United States most certainly doesn't sit on the sidelines when important elections happen overseas.
Are only corporations headquartered in the United States -- as if that made any difference -- involved in our elections? Does anyone really believe that the co-founder of the Clinton Foundation and a former secretary of state would have been less influenced by power brokers abroad than Trump?
Yes, the FBI played favorites with its blatant intent to help Trump win. The Wall Street Journal editorial calling for director James Comey to leave for the good of the bureau is spot on.
The best answer to claims that Trump is an illegitimate president is found in the words of the late, peerless Mike Royko: Politics ain't beanbag. Rough forces were at work. Anyone willing to look could see it. In fact, the FBI and Russian moves can be fairly described as ham-handed. Wikileaks became a bad joke.
Our much bigger problem is that millions of leaders, voters and donors for each of the two major parties never view an election as legitimate if their side loses. Does anyone doubt that Hillary Clinton would already be the subject of an impeachment drive if she had been sworn in Friday?
The problem is not an excess of partisanship. The problem is the lack of patriotism. Love of country never trumps -- pun intended -- partisanship any more. Both sides prefer that the country's government fail when the other side is in power. If things get bad enough, their theory goes, then the rest of us will vote for their side in the next election.
This "he's got to lose if our side is going to win" was an ordeal for the past eight years. Now it looks like we will get another four years of it -- very possibly eight. Democrats might be too decimated to be much of an obstacle this time. Sadly, that was the case during the George W. Bush administration. Look how that turned out.
Like it or not, Trump is president. Some illegitimacy claim won't whisk him away. He's a reality we have to face, a dangerous one.
Commentary on 01/21/2017