Will Trump Be Accepted as the Next President?

Henry Srebrnik, [Summerside, PEI] Journal Pioneer

Voters upset that Donald Trump has been elected president have begun scrambling for ways to change the results.

Almost instantly, protests, some of them violent, erupted in dozens of cities, with participants insisting that Trump was “not my president,” and blaming the Electoral College.

Actually, there have been five elections since 1820 in which the recipient of a plurality of the popular vote did not become president. Presidents are not elected by a national vote, but in 51 separate jurisdictions.

The Electoral College is part of the U.S. Constitution and is composed of 538 members, with each state and the District of Columbia having one elector for every member of its Congressional delegation – its Senators and members of the House of Representatives.

Except in Maine and Nebraska, the winner of the popular vote in each state gets all of its electoral votes.

The Electoral College exists to ensure that the states, through their own electorates, would choose the president. America is a federation, and has checks and balances built into its political system.

Actually, if the states all had an equal say in who was elected the president, the Democrats would fare even worse, as Republicans win most of the states.

Still, thousands of people have taken to the streets. There were demonstrations in Baltimore, Chicago, Denver, Detroit, Indianapolis, Miami, Milwaukee, Oakland, San Diego and numerous other cities.

Several thousand protesters marched up New York City’s Fifth Avenue to Trump Tower, the president-elect’s skyscraper home. “We’re horrified the country has elected an incredibly unqualified, misogynist, racist on a platform that was just totally hateful,” declared one, who held a sign reading, “No Fascism in America.”

A flag was set ablaze in front of the Georgia State Capitol in Atlanta, as protesters chanted “America was never great.”

In Los Angeles, several thousand protesters gathered in MacArthur Park holding placards reading “Dump Trump” and “Minorities Matter.” A protester in Portland, Oregon, was shot in a night of rioting and vandalism.

A post-election Washington Post-ABC News poll found that one-third of Clinton supporters do not view Trump’s election as legitimate. I’ve never seen this before.

As well, petitions have appeared demanding that the actual members of the Electoral College, which is to meet on Dec. 19, switch their votes to the Democratic candidate.

A petition on Change.org, signed by millions of people, noted that electors can vote for Hillary Clinton if they choose. Even in states where that is not allowed, their vote would still be counted, if they would simply pay a small fine – “which we can be sure Clinton supporters will be glad to pay!”

Organizers in a drive led by Faithlessnow.com are targeting roughly 160 Republican electors in the 15 states that Trump won but which don’t have laws bounding the electorates to the winner.

All of this is unprecedented. I vote in Pennsylvania, and found myself unable to support either of these flawed candidates. But we have to accept the result.

As a comparativist, I study countries where very deep divisions, usually based on ethnicity, religion or class, result in polarizing elections that lead to violence when the outcome is not accepted by the losers. Is democracy in the United States now under the same threat?