On November 8, 2016, Donald J. Trump received 306 pledged electoral votes versus 232 for Clinton. The official count was ultimately 304 to 227. Trump became only the fifth person to be elected president , receiving nearly 2.9 million fewer votes than Hillary Clinton. Trump also became the only person elected to the presidency of the United States who had neither served in the military nor held any government office.   He was inaugurated on January 20, 2017, as the nation’s 45^th president, and his presidency ended on January 20, 2021, with the inauguration of Joe Biden. 

So, beginning on January 20, 2017, Donald J. Trump was the President of the United States of America.  We all know the story; Trump started out with a rather good economy and lots of initiatives from the previous administration still in place. As with any President, he ushered in changes…some popular and some unpopular.  He had his defining problem to deal with…COVID 19.  We all have our opinions on how he managed the presidency overall…but that is not what this article is about.

As his re-election approached, Trump began to sow doubts about the election, claiming the election would be rigged and that the expected widespread use of mail balloting would produce massive election fraud.  The important thing to remember is who was President…it was the former president Trump.  In August, the House of Representatives voted for a $25 billion grant to the U.S. Postal Service for the expected surge in mail voting, Trump blocked funding, saying he wanted to prevent any increase in voting by mail. He repeatedly refused to say whether he would accept the results if he lost and commit to a peaceful transfer of power.  But remember, this was the president who claimed “I alone” could fix anything…any even if that claim were a bit over-reaching, he was the POTUS and had the power to fix a lot of things.  It certainly begs the question, if he knew all of these things were going on and he was the President, why didn’t he do something to fix the problem? Why just complain and plant fear in the minds of voters? Why encourage your voters to use mail-in voting? He was the President who was the overseer of the country. Biden wasn’t the President, Trump was. Biden only had the power to campaign.

Biden won the election on November 3, receiving 81.3 million votes (51.3 percent) to Trump’s 74.2 million (46.8 percent) and 306 Electoral College votes to Trump’s 232.

Everyone knows about January 6^th. Everyone knows what the dialogue was the day after, and everyone knows how it changed after Kevin McCarthy’s infamous visit to Mara Lago. Most of us know an article of impeachment charging Trump with incitement of insurrection and the House voted 232–197 to impeach Trump on January 13, making him the first U.S. president to be impeached twice. Ten House Republicans voted for the impeachment—the most members of a party ever to vote to impeach a president of their own party. Trump was acquitted when the Senate vote fell ten votes short of the two-thirds majority required to convict, however, seven Republicans joined every Democrat in voting to convict, the most bipartisan support in any Senate impeachment trial of a president or former president. Republicans voted to acquit Trump, although some held him responsible but felt the Senate did not have jurisdiction over former presidents. Trump had left office on January 20th and was no longer President…note the Senate voted 56–44 that the trial was constitutional.

But here’s the thing, no one had more power over addressing problems with the elections than the President of the United States who also by the way had a GOP-controlled Senate.

Let me get to my point…this President who had all this power and who many want to return power, if what he says is true, did not protect the foundation of our democracy…our elections. If what he says is true, then he knew of some yet to be substantiated attack on our elections long before the elections and did little about it. And yet, some think he has what it takes to protect our country from enemies domestic and abroad, to handle the challenges of an economy that he didn’t have to fix because it wasn’t broken when he got it, and yet, he oversaw and didn’t fix what he felt was important enough to incite harm upon our U.S. Capitol.

Think twice before voting for President Trump’s return my fellow Americans.