Trump continues to embarrass and endanger our country; it’s up to GOP leaders to make him stop

It’s finally over. Well, it’s ALMOST finally over. I am talking about the 2020 presidential election, of course, and while it’s clear that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris won and will become the president and vice president, respectively, on Jan. 20 at noon, there are still a few, shall we say, “loose ends” left to clean up.

The 2020 race between the incumbent duo of Donald Trump and Mike Pence and Democratic challengers Biden and Harris has been called the most consequential election of our time. Would we continue down the dangerous and destructive path the Narcissist in Chief set us on four years ago? Or would we wrest the wheel of this ship of state from his grip and set our country on the road to sanity once again?

We have our answer now; we chose sanity. But I have to tell you, the five days it took us to get from Election Day to knowing for sure who won were perhaps the most difficult, gut-wrenching, insomnia-inducing bipolar five days of my life. I went to sleep Nov. 3 (well, in the early morning hours of Nov. 4) in despair. I was sure that Trump had won, and my exhausted brain was racing haphazardly through the options available for moving out of this country while keeping my job and my family. I woke up later that morning overcome by the same despair.

Then I looked at the news, and the despair lifted. As I had slept, the vote-counting had continued, and slowly but surely, Biden was pulling ahead. I didn’t truly relax until around 10 or 10:30 a.m. on Saturday, Nov. 7, when word came: Pennsylvania had gone to Biden. And that put the Democrat over the top in terms of the Electoral College votes necessary to clinch victory. Final tallies were still out in Arizona and Nevada and Georgia, but it didn’t matter anymore. Biden had passed the magic mark of 270.

Arizona and Nevada finally finished their vote tallying and declared for Biden, as did — surprise, surprise — Georgia, although the paper-thin margin in Georgia has prompted a recount, which is still expected to go Biden’s way. And two Senate seat runoffs there will determine who has control of the Senate for the next two years — something nearly as important as the outcome of the presidential race.

So it is done. At least, it should be done. But there are those “loose ends” I mentioned.

There’s really only one loose end, when you get right down to it. But man, is it a doozy.

That loose end, of course, is Donald Trump. He didn’t manage to totally destroy our democracy over the last four years, but he is certainly giving it his best shot in his last nearly three months in office.

Donald Trump has lost the popular vote by — at last count — 5.7 million-plus votes. And as things stand now, he will lose the Electoral College vote 306-232 (the same margin by which he defeated Hillary Clinton in the EC vote in 2016 and that he and his minions then called “a landslide”). And yet, this lunatic continues to claim, in nonstop tweets, that he won. He claims he won “by a lot.” He claims the Democrats are trying to “steal” the election, and his campaign is bombarding those on their email list with constant pleas for money to help them “stop the steal” and “defend the integrity of the election.”

It would be laughable if it weren’t so pathetic. And embarrassing. And dangerous to our democracy.

Short of an outright military coup — and no, I don’t believe that will happen — Donald Trump has lost the presidency and will have to leave the White House no later than noon on Jan. 20, 2021, even if he has to be dragged out, kicking and screaming, like the ill-mannered toddler he is. But his insistence on challenging the election outcome, his constant claims of “widespread voter fraud” are tainting our whole election process, casting doubts that will take decades to clean away, if they ever can be.

I don’t expect Trump to suddenly grow up and start acting like a reasonable adult. That will never happen. But it is time — past time, really — for men and women of conscience in the Republican Party to stand up and demand that this lunacy end. Stop enabling Trump’s temper tantrum (I’m looking at you, Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham and Ted Cruz and John Cornyn). Step up and do your duty to this country and your constituents. You can stop this madness and make sure we see a peaceful transition, so that we can put these last four years of endless bad decisions and embarrassing antics behind us and take the first step on the road to recovery.

Tammye Nash is managing editor. The opinions expressed here are her own and do not necesssarily represent the opinions of her coworkers or of Dallas Voice as a whole.