Donald Trump, twice impeached for seeking to undermine the integrity of the 2020 presidential election, says he is running for president again in 2024.
His new campaign has begun with the same ugliness, lies and chaos as the last, but it poses even greater dangers to American democracy.
Mr. Trump and his supporters can no longer pretend to be good-faith participants in the democratic process. They have enshrined the refusal to accept adverse election results as a defining feature of their political movement, sought to install true believers in local and state election offices and demonstrated a willingness to resort to violence.
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Mr. Trump is unfit for public office. As president, he showed himself to be incompetent and self-dealing. He should have been convicted by the Senate in 2019 for abusing his power and in 2021 for inciting an insurrection. Voters repudiated him at the ballot box after his second campaign, but he has the legal right to try again, so Americans must weather the trial of a third candidacy. If he is still in the race when the first votes are cast in 2024, the election will once again be a referendum on American democracy, because if our system of government is to survive, voters must choose leaders who accept and submit to the rule of law.
The first state primaries, however, are still over a year away, and before then, there is work to be done.
Congress needs to pass a bill overhauling the Electoral Count Act before the end of the year to make it harder for congressional supporters of Mr. Trump, or any other presidential candidate, to challenge the election results that are submitted by the states. The legislation also includes other safeguards. For example, it would steer disputes over vote tallies to the courts, giving the final say to judges and not partisan officials.
American voters last week rejected every one of the most dangerous election deniers running for key state offices in battleground states — from Mark Finchem and Jim Marchant to Tudor Dixon and Kari Lake. Still, there is a real danger of meddling by state and local election officials and members of Congress who deny that Mr. Trump lost the 2020 election.
Legal proceedings against Mr. Trump and investigations related to his actions around Jan. 6, election interference in Georgia and his mishandling of classified information at his home in Florida also need to continue. Allowing him to avoid legal accountability by declaring himself a candidate for office would be dangerous.
Mr. Trump has many loyal supporters, who regard him as a flawed but effective champion. His rise to power was built on the idea that he is a winner and, for many Republicans, his victory in 2016 was sufficient justification for having supported him. It allowed the party to cut taxes and take firm control of the Supreme Court, opening an era of conservative jurisprudence, including the reversal of Roe v. Wade this year.
But Republicans, even those who share Mr. Trump’s views on issues like China, trade and immigration, should recognize that it is shortsighted to pursue such goals by undermining the integrity of the political process. If Americans doubt the legitimacy of elections and their leaders fuel and inflame those doubts, they will no longer accept the legitimacy of decisions or policies of the federal government that contradict their views. Without that fundamental principle of democratic governance, American democracy crumbles.
The leadership of the Republican Party initially tried to prevent his rise, but over the four years of Mr. Trump’s presidency they failed to hold him accountable every time they had a chance to do so. Since he left office, they have continued to allow the cult of personality around him to grow unchecked, even as he demands personal loyalty and punishes those in the party who defy him, and many have refused to condemn even his worst excesses.
To see the extent of the damage that support for Mr. Trump has wrought, Republicans might look to any of the communities and institutions — schools, universities, churches and the armed forces, among others — to which their supporters belong. Trumpism has proved to be a damaging and divisive force even among conservative stalwarts. Evangelical Christians, for example, have become deeply divided, not along party lines but because, as Peter Wehner wrote last year in The Atlantic, in many churches, being considered faithful now means professing blind loyalty to one former president.
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His new campaign has begun with the same ugliness, lies and chaos as the last, but it poses even greater dangers to American democracy.
Mr. Trump and his supporters can no longer pretend to be good-faith participants in the democratic process. They have enshrined the refusal to accept adverse election results as a defining feature of their political movement, sought to install true believers in local and state election offices and demonstrated a willingness to resort to violence.
Advertisement
Continue reading the main story
Mr. Trump is unfit for public office. As president, he showed himself to be incompetent and self-dealing. He should have been convicted by the Senate in 2019 for abusing his power and in 2021 for inciting an insurrection. Voters repudiated him at the ballot box after his second campaign, but he has the legal right to try again, so Americans must weather the trial of a third candidacy. If he is still in the race when the first votes are cast in 2024, the election will once again be a referendum on American democracy, because if our system of government is to survive, voters must choose leaders who accept and submit to the rule of law.
The first state primaries, however, are still over a year away, and before then, there is work to be done.
Congress needs to pass a bill overhauling the Electoral Count Act before the end of the year to make it harder for congressional supporters of Mr. Trump, or any other presidential candidate, to challenge the election results that are submitted by the states. The legislation also includes other safeguards. For example, it would steer disputes over vote tallies to the courts, giving the final say to judges and not partisan officials.
American voters last week rejected every one of the most dangerous election deniers running for key state offices in battleground states — from Mark Finchem and Jim Marchant to Tudor Dixon and Kari Lake. Still, there is a real danger of meddling by state and local election officials and members of Congress who deny that Mr. Trump lost the 2020 election.
Legal proceedings against Mr. Trump and investigations related to his actions around Jan. 6, election interference in Georgia and his mishandling of classified information at his home in Florida also need to continue. Allowing him to avoid legal accountability by declaring himself a candidate for office would be dangerous.
Mr. Trump has many loyal supporters, who regard him as a flawed but effective champion. His rise to power was built on the idea that he is a winner and, for many Republicans, his victory in 2016 was sufficient justification for having supported him. It allowed the party to cut taxes and take firm control of the Supreme Court, opening an era of conservative jurisprudence, including the reversal of Roe v. Wade this year.
But Republicans, even those who share Mr. Trump’s views on issues like China, trade and immigration, should recognize that it is shortsighted to pursue such goals by undermining the integrity of the political process. If Americans doubt the legitimacy of elections and their leaders fuel and inflame those doubts, they will no longer accept the legitimacy of decisions or policies of the federal government that contradict their views. Without that fundamental principle of democratic governance, American democracy crumbles.
The leadership of the Republican Party initially tried to prevent his rise, but over the four years of Mr. Trump’s presidency they failed to hold him accountable every time they had a chance to do so. Since he left office, they have continued to allow the cult of personality around him to grow unchecked, even as he demands personal loyalty and punishes those in the party who defy him, and many have refused to condemn even his worst excesses.
To see the extent of the damage that support for Mr. Trump has wrought, Republicans might look to any of the communities and institutions — schools, universities, churches and the armed forces, among others — to which their supporters belong. Trumpism has proved to be a damaging and divisive force even among conservative stalwarts. Evangelical Christians, for example, have become deeply divided, not along party lines but because, as Peter Wehner wrote last year in The Atlantic, in many churches, being considered faithful now means professing blind loyalty to one former president.
Image
Opinion | America Deserves Better Than Donald Trump
Mr. Trump’s return to the campaign trail poses new dangers to American democracy.
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