By Gustavo Coronel

The political history of the United States is full of drama: a bloody civil war, assassinations, prosecution of sitting presidents and close elections that had to go, for resolution, to the Supreme Court. In all these crises, important political and citizen initiatives led the country to a solution, although some left wounds that have not yet been closed.

Today we are living a double tragedy in this immense country, the result of the attitudes of the 45th president of the United States, Donald Trump, who ignored and continues to ignore the results of the 2020 election, which gave the triumph to his Democratic rival Joseph Biden. Unlike the electoral crisis of 2000, the contest between Bush and Gore, which was decided by 537 votes in Florida and by decision of the Supreme Court, President Trump did not recognize in 2020, nor has he subsequently recognized,  the victory of his rival.

Immediately after the election, President Trump and the group of his collaborators and political allies carried out two strategies in parallel. On the one hand, they asked for annulment, arguing the existence of fraud in different states of the country, introducing no less than 56 lawsuits before courts at various levels, including the Supreme Court. On all occasions these claims were dismissed by the different instance, some of them reprimanded by the judiciary, given their low quality and absence of evidentiary elements. The other strategy was in-house, whereby President Trump and some of his close aides asked their political allies in the executive and legislative branches to try to change the electoral results in their jurisdictions through legal or political arguments. This strategy included strong arms tactics such as those exerted on Vice President Pence himself, who flatly refused to try to invalidate the triumph of the rival candidate, despite the pressure from President Trump, who went so far as to call him a weakling (Wimp), for not wanting to give in to his request.

What is the double tragedy?

One is the unusual attack on the integrity of the US electoral process by President Trump, an attack that remains in full swing today, two years after the elections, after the reviews and ratifications of the results have been made. In carrying out this attack in spite of all evidence and findings, President Trump has continued to discredit the American electoral system, to a degree never seen before in American history. The votes obtained by President Trump represented almost half of the country, which gave him a formidable weapon that could have been used to unify the nation but he preferred to use it – for personal political aspirations – to turn it into two large halves separated by rancor, to the point that some states like Texas have begun to talk about secession. 

The second tragedy is a sequel to the first. By insisting on his rejection of the American popular will, pressuring some key officials to reverse the results and continuing to attack the electoral system that is the backbone of the nation’s political stability, what President Trump has achieved is breaking the country into two sub-nations, one Democrat and one Republican, each irrationally attached to “their truth.” This polarization has led the Republican subnation to ignore the relevance and validity of an investigation carried out by none other than the United States Congress, once the undisputed seat of the bipartisan spirit that has historically animated the American political sector. This Republican subnation has refused to sit on the investigative committee and refuses today to recognize the validity of its findings, to the point that some television networks such as Fox News have refused to broadcast the sessions of the congressional committee, in disregard of their reporting duty, arguing that they represent a personal attack on President Trump and not an attempt to establish the truth about the attack of violent groups on Congress in January 2021.  

Some of President Trump’s close aides, including his Vice President Pence, his Attorney General Barr, state officials, judges and first-hand witnesses brought to testify before the committee, even his own daughter, have all said or accepted under oath that President Trump is not right in his position. The denial of truth in the face of evidence – for ideological reasons – represents an immense tragedy for the American nation, because it opens the doors to a tomorrow in which anything could happen, everything can be run over, allowing anyone supported by large segments of the population to rise up against democracy and the laws and customs that have made this nation great.

When my dear wife and I decided to leave Venezuela in 2003, due to the nightmare unleashed by Hugo Chávez in our country, we did not hesitate to choose the United States as a refuge. We said that when this country had a cold, the rest of the planet would have pneumonia.

Now, I see with sadness that what was unthinkable two decades ago is now taking hold in this great nation, as the great melting pot is giving way to the emergence of tribes full of rancor.  

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Gustavo Coronel, Venezuelan geologist and political scientist, post graduate studies at the University of Tulsa (1951-1955), Universidad Central de Venezuela (1961), Harvard (1981-1982) and Johns Hopkins (1986-1987). Worked for 27 years in the Venezuelan and international oil industry. Founding member of the Board of Directors of Petróleos de Venezuela (1976-1979). From 1983 onwards he worked in the public sector from the Inter-American Development Bank (1983-1988), as General Director of CVG (1994-1995), Secretary of Planning and Budget of the State of Carabobo (1996-1998) and President of the Port of Puerto Cabello (1999-2001). For several months in 1999 he was a member of the National Congress for the State of Carabobo. In 2003 he went into voluntary exile and has since resided in the state of Virginia, USA, where he has found tranquility and happiness. The views expressed are not necessarily those of EnergiesNet.com.

Editor’s Note: This article was originally published in Las Armas de Coronel, June 24, 2022. We reproduce it for the benefit of readers. EnergiesNet.com is not responsible for the value judgments made by its contributors and opinion and analysis columnists.

Original article

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