Trump Tried To Make This Election 2016 Again. It Didn't Go As Planned

(CNN)America delivered its verdict on Donald Trump last week, and it was devastating for him.

He became one of the select few incumbent Presidents to lose his bid for a second four years in office, the first since President George H.W. Bush was defeated by Bill Clinton in 1992. But Trump was not swept from office in an anti-Republican rout -- his party did exceptionally well in other races across the United States. His defeat was a clear statement that the nation, speaking through voters in states controlling a majority of electoral college votes, finally had enough of Trump himself.
"Donald Trump defeated Donald Trump," wrote David Axelrod. "Trump's political demise wasn't caused by the coronavirus but by the underlying and familiar deficiencies of character and leadership of America's first reality show president."

Yes, Trump's polarizing approach to politics was rewarded with record support from GOP voters, but, Axelrod added, "for the president who placed his bet on the politics of division and practiced it with a relentless ferocity, the math just didn't add up. He not only inflamed his own base but a larger coalition of Americans, determined to end his stormy, divisive rule."
The winner, Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr., campaigned as the opposite of Trump, a uniter who would seek common ground with Republicans. "Character proved to be the clearest contrast with the incumbent president he dislodged with a decisive defeat," John Avlon wrote. "Now his success will be our country's success, and by leading with character he might help our nation rediscover the central importance of character, not only within the presidency, but within ourselves."
By his side will be Kamala Harris: the first woman, and the first woman of color, to be vice president. Arick Wierson wrote, in a letter to his 4-year-old daughter, that "Today, millions of young girls like you across this great land will go to bed knowing that this country has a place for you, no matter where you want to go in life." He added, "That a woman of color will soon be first in line to the presidency won't mean that people won't put up obstacles in front of you based on your sex or race as you go through life. But Harris broke new ground today."
A brazen attack on democracy
Donald Trump has governed as no other American President has. And in defeat, he continued to break virtually every norm. With no evidence, he charged in a speech from the White House Thursday evening that the election was a fraud and that Democrats were stealing it from him. Republicans launched a volley of lawsuits that appeared to have virtually no chance of overturning the election result.
"At its core, the President's speech was an attack on our democracy and the legal voting systems long established in every one of our states and territories," wrote Anne Milgram. "The President screaming that the polls and voting were fraudulent -- without any evidence of fraud -- was the political equivalent of someone falsely screaming 'Fire!' in a crowded movie theater. The goal was to create confusion and undercut the outcome of the election."
The vote counting made it clear that Trump has lost, wrote Joshua A. Douglas.
"It is now time for leading Republicans, such as Sens. Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham, as well as former President George W. Bush, to speak up. They must demand that Trump cease his dangerous language that casts doubt on the legitimacy of the election and -- unless he has real evidence -- end his baseless lawsuits that seek only to further undermine people's faith in the outcome."
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Trump was on the golf course when CNN and other networks called the election Saturday, and there was no immediate way to tell how he reacted. But Michael D'Antonio pointed out, "The one certain fact about Trump in his moment of defeat in his race against former Vice President Joe Biden is that he is not feeling good at all. Presidents are rarely denied when they pursue a second term -- it has happened four times in the last 100 years -- which means Trump cannot escape the label he hates most of all: loser. Losers are, in Trump's view, undeserving of respect, admiration, and affection."
Candidates who lose presidential elections routinely concede, noted Julian Zelizer. Trump chose not to, and he vowed to continue challenging the results. "The good thing is that it doesn't ultimately matter," wrote Zelizer. "A formal concession after an election is not embedded in our Constitution -- it is a norm." Biden will become the 46th President on January 20 whether or not Trump concedes.
Trump will then be an uneasy new membeTrump Tried To Make This Election 2016 Again. It Didn't Go As Planned
r of the normally convivial club of former Presidents, wrote Kate Andersen Brower. In 1980, today's senior living former President, Jimmy Carter was soundly defeated by Ronald Reagan. He took it hard, Brower wrote.
Ultimately, "Carter, like Gerald Ford before him and George H.W. Bush after him, accepted the humiliating loss. We suspected that Donald Trump would not be so graceful about accepting defeat. But he is turning out to be the first president who will be dragged kicking and screaming into the Presidents Club."