cupidsbower:

I’ve seen a few people on my dash asking why Obama, Clinton and Sanders are suddenly saying they want Trump to succeed, when he’s obviously still unfit for the presidency. And I actually have an explanation for this, so thought I’d share.

You know how all of them have been saying that the peaceful transition of power is essential to a democracy? That is at the heart of what’s happening here.

You see, once you’re an elected representative, you have certain duties than come with the role which are not about your personal preferences or your party. They are about maintaining the democracy. For quite a while now, a significant number of the Republicans have not been doing these essential duties – that’s why the government had to shut down for a while in 2013. The Republicans refused to do the job they were elected to do.

When you have elected officials refusing to do their jobs, and/or ignoring the rule of law, it undermines democracy. It makes it dysfunctional and fragile, and for people to want to get rid of the things that aren’t working. That’s very dangerous, because if done in haste, it’s is likely to destabilise the whole system and its checks and balances. It can open the way for dictatorships and monopolies and other threats to the state.

Now Trump is elected, and he’s elected without a majority or even a plurality vote. He’s elected via the Electoral College only, which many people have seen as problematic since Gore’s loss to Bush. With this new outcome – which many see as undemocratic (quite rightly, but that is another post, and more complex that it seems on the surface) – people are calling for the Electoral College to be dismantled. Further, Trump was elected on a platform which promised to sweep out a lot of the old political ways of doing things, which is worrying in this kind of climate.

What this means is that America is facing a very real threat to its democracy right now. And it puts Obama in a very difficult position. While he’s still President, he has a lot of power, and he has a voice, and he could easily foment unrest or revolution. It wouldn’t be hard given the current situation. But to deny the peaceful transition of power right now would very likely break the union, break the democracy, and create an even bigger disaster than Trump could. Once you stop the elected representative from taking power, and/or cast official doubt on the outcome, the democracy is irrevocably damaged.

That is not to say Trump’s Presidency isn’t a real danger – it is. But there are still checks and balanced in place right now. Even the Electoral College is one of those checks and balances, for all that it’s not working very well – but that has a lot to do with it now being a party-focused institution instead of an independent one. It’s not actually working as it was designed to, because if it was, they would not endorse Trump. Stopping demagogues was part of its purpose.

Anyway, the point is, Obama is being very conscientious, in order to make sure there are no further cracks in the democratic process that Trump, or more realistically, Pence, can use to destroy or destabilise America’s democracy. No-one wants Dictator Trump or Pence, except perhaps Pence.

Once Obama is out of office, I think you’ll see a significant shift in what he says. He will be more free to speak as a private citizen than he is now, while wearing the responsibilities of President. And once the Electoral College have done their thing and the inauguration has taken pace, I think you will see a shift in Sanders and Clinton as well. This fragile moment will have passed, and there will be other battles to fight to keep Trump and Pence in check.

When we live in long-established democracies, it’s easy to forget that they are just a system we built. They can be broken, and very quickly if we do not take care of them. The outcome of such breakdowns has always been disastrous. Obama is taking care. Clinton and Sanders are taking care. Their hands are tied on this, if they want to maintain America’s democracy, but they will be untied soon enough.

That said, all three of them are speaking in code if you listen carefully. They say “if” a lot, and speak in the general about potential problems without naming names. This is the language of aware politicians who understand that there are fragile faultlines even in a robust democracy.

It’s actually quite terrifying that they are all being so very, very careful.