The Next Two Months...And Four Years...Will be a True Test for American Democracy

Trump has made himself clear even as Biden secured the 270 electoral votes needed to secure his election as the next president of the United States. Through speeches, official statements, and tweets, the current president assured the general public that he is not yet backing down, taking the election to the next stage of recounts and legal conflicts. During this whole process, his supporters stood by him, calling for vote count stoppages, recounts, and throwing out "illegal" votes wherever it suits the incumbent, and for every online article that celebrated the Democratic victory, hundreds of social media posts called that the election is not yet over, echoing Trump himself.

And these Trump supporters remain many..many more than pollsters and Democrats assumed that there would be, given the botched handling of the covid crisis under Trump and the corresponding damages to the American economy. While those on the left expected a blowout election in which many moderate Republicans, especially among minorities, shift their allegiance to a centrist Biden known for his bipartisan efforts during his decades-long political career, instead voters were greeted by a close election where the differences in popular votes in several key battleground states justify Trump's call for recounts and legal actions.

As long as Trump and his supporters remain vocal and defiant, questioning the validity of Biden's victory, the next two months until Biden takes office as the next president in January 2021, is bound to be filled with one existential crisis for American democracy after another. In a country that has not known a presidential candidate that flatly refused to concede defeat after a lost election, and thus no clear mechanism to handle the situation, the media, the bureaucracy, the legal establishment, and if worse comes to worst, the military, will all play a central role in shaping a new political norm for how the transfer of power at the top of America happens.

After all, Trump has too much to lose by just stepping out of the White House to become a private citizen. With presidential immunity gone, he may be prosecuted for everything from past examples of sexual misconduct, to tax evasion, to illegal dealings with foreign governments. Unlike past presidents that have had benign lives after retirement as public speakers, think tank directors, farmers, and painters, Trump will remain in the public spotlight for months and years to come for all the wrong reasons. Many of his supporters, seeing their leader as a victim of political persecution, will continue making noise even as the Biden administration starts governing.

Even in the fortunate scenario in which Trump is forced to step down peacefully, a vengeful Trump is sure to leave his mark in the last couple of months of office, both to punish those he perceived to have contributed to his electoral defeat, and to cement the foundations of Trumpism as a mainstream political force to be reckoned with in the years to come. Both domestic and international agendas will see great volatility in the next months as Trump put together last-minute policies against everyone from "socialists" who voted Democrats, moderate Republicans who defected to the other side, and China, for both covid and economic damages.

Given just how close the election was, the last-minute maneuvering of the Trump team will not simply be reversed when Biden comes into office. Trump's basic message to Americans, of a country that is more isolationist, more self-centered, and less willing to bankroll global projects without clear visible benefits, has struck a chord with a large number of voters, even if his way of communication and personal behavior has not. The Biden presidency will not be able to get things done if it were to go against the wishes and concerns of this chunk of the populace that stood by Trump even as he was mocked by mainstream media and set back by personal issues.

Indeed, one should not be deluded to think that after the tumultuous last two months of the Trump presidency, the Biden presidency will represent the "end of a nightmare" and a reversal to a pre-Trump America. Biden himself, for one, has many of the same ideas as Trump, albeit expressed differently. Especially, Biden has implicitly shown himself to be in agreement with many of the larger trends that Trump put at the front and center of American foreign policy, marked by less desire for unprofitable foreign entanglements and more demand for friends and allies to help shoulder a larger portion of the human and financial costs of being the "world's policeman."

All in all, this election, the last two months of the Trump administration, and the many forecasted political impasses under the upcoming Biden one will show that, unlike what many liberals come to believe, Trumpism is not an aberration but a new normal in American politics. The election showed that Trumpism has a winning formula even without a strict reliance on the core supporters of white rural blue-collar voters. If Biden cannot fight off legal and ideological challenges of Trumpism in the next months and years, it will certainly be back in time for the next election, with a greater probability of winning under someone a tad more eloquent, less confrontational, and less xenophobic than Trump was.