In Trump’s America, There’s Democracy Only When He Wins

Some days are momentous for what occurs on them. Others, for what they represent. Our democracy relies on both.

Federal Election Day is set by law as the first Tuesday following the first Monday in November in even numbered years. Each state sets its own dates for elections to be certified. In presidential elections, there are even more specific dates. For example, this year, Dec. 11 was the date by which each state’s governor had to sign the official certificate of ascertainment.

The most recent, and most critical of those dates, was last week on Tuesday, Dec. 17. On that one day, presidential electors met in their states to officially select the next president and vice-president of the United States. Before those meetings, Donald Trump was the presumptive president-elect. After that day, it became legally certain that he will be sworn in as the 47th president at noon on Jan. 20, 2025.

The rest of it is really all paperwork. By Dec. 25, the electoral votes had to be received by the Senate and national archives. On Jan. 3, the new Congress will be sworn in. On Jan. 6, that new Congress will perform the ministerial task of counting the electoral votes.

This is the pageantry of American democracy. A series of meetings and forms to count and certify the results we already know. In most years it is unremarkable. In 2020, it wasn’t. That is because four years ago, the losing candidate attacked the pageantry of democracy. First in the media, then in court and finally by instigating a violent insurrection.

During his presidency, President Joe Biden liked to say: “You can’t love your country only when you win.” Donald Trump proved otherwise.

While it may feel like the 2024 election was normal, that is only because Trump won. There were no false claims of fraud, because he won. No election officials were vilified and threatened, because he won. The courts remained free of legal challenges, because he won. On Jan. 6, 2025, there will be no violent insurrection, and Congress will certify the count not because of a new law, but only because Trump won.

Before the election, there was near universal agreement among election officials, democracy advocates and the media that Trump would repeat his attacks on the electoral system in 2024 if he lost. Many predicted that it would be worse than it was in 2020. We will never know how bad it would have been, only because he won.

You might wonder why I am so focused on this now. Trump won’t be on the ballot again and the next federal elections aren’t for another two years.

Here is why.

What Trump did to our elections he is now doing to the other institutions of our democracy. Trump is infamous for relentlessly attacking his political opponents until they give in. As soon as they praise him, all is forgiven.

Trump has, in his own words, “tamed” the legacy media by demeaning and suing them. Once a journalist kisses the ring, Trump stops his attacks. Once a media executive pays tribute, they are his friends.

Business and world leaders have figured this out as well. While many observers mock Trump for being easily flattered, he is the one getting the last laugh. Time and time again he makes threats of retribution to gain docile obedience from his once adversaries.

His cabinet nominations show the same approach. He is selecting loyal sycophants because they are loyal sycophants. But he is insisting that they be unqualified to enforce complete obedience by Senate Republicans. Once GOP Senators publicly surrender their dignity by voting to confirm these obviously unqualified nominees, Trump will praise them.

The trap for Democrats and pro-democracy advocates is to believe that he has changed, that his failure to attack our elections proves anything other than he is satisfied with the results. When Trump stops calling the media the “enemy of the people,” it will only signal that Trump feels the media is obedient. If he starts to praise opposition figures or politicians, it means they are no longer threats to him.

Soon enough, Trump will start to execute his agenda. It will look much like Project 2025. He will also continue to lie about the results of the 2020 election. Those of us who call him out for what he is — a deranged election-denying autocrat — will be vilified and threatened. That is how we know we are doing the right thing. That we are effective.

It is the day that Trump praises us that we should worry and ask what we have done to capitulate.