Is Donald Trump an Illegitimate President?

Henry Srebrnik, [Summerside, PEI] Journal Pioneer

Donald J. Trump is now president of the United States…or is he?

Apparently, many Democrats don’t think so.

Not wishing to tarnish the American “brand” of democracy by stating that the American people voted for the “wrong” person, they instead insist that Trump only managed to defeat Hillary Clinton because of the machinations of the Russians and FBI Director James Comey – as if those by themselves could swing an entire election.

A large number of actors, journalists, pundits and entertainers refuse to accept him as their head of state, and refused his invitation to the inauguration.

Others openly mock him or brand him an authoritarian danger to the republic. A typical example was Meryl Streep’s speech at the Golden Globe Awards Jan. 8 in Los Angeles.

There were also major demonstrations against the new president, in the nation and around the world. A Women’s March in Washington Jan. 21 drew about 500,000 people.

Some, in Russian hats, marched with signs calling Trump “Putin's Puppet” and “Kremlin employee of the month.” One woman carried a sign reading “Trump is a Ruskie,” apparently not realizing the irony of using a phrase similar to those employed by right-wing anti-Communist McCarthyites in the 1950s.

Starting with John Lewis, a member of the Democratic caucus from Georgia in the House of Representatives, some lawmakers have openly branded Trump as “illegitimate.”

Lewis told journalist Chuck Todd in an interview on “Meet the Press” Jan. 15 that “the Russians participated in helping this man get elected, and they helped destroy the candidacy of Hillary Clinton.” He called it a “conspiracy.”

To make this point as clearly as possible, more than 65 Democratic members of Congress boycotted the inauguration.

Even before Trump assumed office, the American Civil Liberties Union announced it had filed a Freedom of Information Act request for documents about his potential conflicts of interest, and it released a seven-point plan to challenge every aspect of his agenda.

In fact the effort to impeach Trump is already underway, led by two liberal advocacy groups, Free Speech for People and RootsAction, which are making their case on Trump’s insistence on maintaining ownership of his luxury hotel and golf course business while in office.

It’s also unprecedented that the Obamas will continue to live in Washington. No president in recent memory has stayed in the capital after their term ended; the custom has been for the outgoing tenant of the White House to leave immediately, so as not to prove a distraction to the incoming incumbent.

The last president to stay in Washington after leaving office was Woodrow Wilson, in 1920, and he was incapacitated by a stroke.

But things are different now. Clearly, if Democrats don’t accept Trump as their chief executive, they might in effect be setting up the equivalent of a “government-in-exile,” centred around Obama and Clinton. She remains a heroine, unjustly robbed of her rightful place in history.

Maybe the Obama’s new home, a few kilometres from the White House, will become the equivalent of a 19th century salon for Democrats to gather, resembling the royal court of a “pretender” to the throne exiled in another European kingdom.

Such was the case with the Stuart monarchs in Britain, who became “pretenders” after being overthrown in the Glorious Revolution of 1688.

After all, if Trump is a Russian puppet, the Democrats must continue to serve as the “true” face of America – the way Charles de Gaulle and his Free French movement based in London defied the Nazi collaborationist regime of Marshal Philippe Pétain after the fall of France during the Second World War.

Certainly Obama will be by far the most politically active ex-president in U.S. history. He told reporters at his final news conference that he finds some ideas advanced by Trump so alarming that it may draw him back into the fray.

This “government-in-exile,” including people from the massive Clinton Foundation, will increasingly be portrayed in the international media as the legitimate voice of the American people. And they will do their utmost to remove Trump from office through impeachment proceedings.