President-elect Joe Biden’s win doesn’t mean we’re in the clear yet.
President Donald Trump has shown himself to be quite keen on sowing chaos wherever he lands, and there’s no reason to think that he’ll stop after he leaves office.
His refusal to concede when the election was called for Biden emboldened other Republican leaders to perpetuate myths about the fairness of the election, which will absolutely carry over into later elections.
Criticism from the right on the fairness of elections should not be taken seriously by anyone when the Republicans have made it their mission to demolish free and fair elections through hacking away at the Voting Rights Act.
Trump will continue to make himself the spokesman for the right and there’s no reason to believe that the Republicans have any plans to truly distance themselves from him.
Even his most vocal Republican opponent Senator Mitt Romney has towed the line and voted with Trump the majority of the time, importantly in the confirmation of Justice Amy Coney Barrett.
So, Trump isn’t gone, and he won’t be. The Republican party never opposed him and almost anyone who says they did isn’t telling the truth.
This isn’t about what individual voters think, this is about what the goals of the political party and their leaders do in their actions, not what they say they will do.
Trump wasn’t unique in his legislation or goals as a Republican president, he just said the quiet parts out loud.
If you oppose Trump’s policies you have to continue to oppose the party that allowed him to be their leader, and who will likely allow him to continue as their leader—whether formally or informally.
Trump is going to continue to hold rallies and bemoan his loss and use that as a way to rile up his base to continue to maintain power through other political offices and media spots.
Even though Biden won, Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene—who supports the QAnon conspiracy theory—won a seat in the U.S. House. This happened in Georgia, a state Biden won.
Other people like her are going to continue to work on gaining power and others already in power are going to want to maintain it.
This is why a Biden win means this isn’t over. Success will not be in a straight line, especially after such a contentious four years.
This election stretches farther than just the days it took to call it. There are many days ahead including finding out who Biden’s cabinet picks are and seeing how Trump’s exit from office will turn out.
The record turnout for election 2020 still resulted in a tight race, and that record turnout was for Trump just as much as it was for Biden.
Voters successfully opposed Trump as president, but they also have to oppose other politicians who supported him.
Trump may have lose the election, but he did not lose his supporters and neither did other Republicans politicians who supported him.
It took Trump losing the election for social media platforms like Twitter to start censuring the misinformation he spreads and for news outlets like CNN to finally cut the cameras when he perpetuates lies in his press conferences.
We have to make sure these platforms and news outlets keep up that standard for other politicians when they appear or are broadcasted while spreading misinformation.
