Ignore Him!

The result of the election has not been in serious doubt since Thursday, November 5. Joe Biden was fairly and properly elected by a “landslide”—306 electoral votes and a six million popular vote majority. For the weeks since then, Trump has refused to acknowledge his defeat, and has continued to declare himself the winner. He probably knows better, but is using his typical puffed-up braggadocio in an effort to hold his base together. For what purpose? It won’t take long until we find out.

His final disgusting attempt to save his presidency involved strong-arming Republican governors asking them to ignore the will of their people and instead of sending the electors chosen by the voters, substitute a slate committed to him. The assumption was that these Republican officials were as dishonest and unAmerican as was he. Of course, they were not. Now evenTrump’s favorite lapdog, Bill Barr The Attorney General, says that there is no evidence of massive voter fraud.
So what does this defeated president want to accomplish? Obviously his refusal to publicly affirm that Joe Biden is the legitimate president-elect is only the first step in his commitment to undermine the incoming administration. Contrary to a series of lies by Kayleigh McEnany, Trump’s press secretary, Obama did everything possible to secure an orderly transition, offering Trump whatever he needed. What is more, Hillary Clinton conceded defeat the day after the election Now the Biden administration has to find its bearing without much of the traditional support offered by every outgoing president.

Here is just one more illustration of a sorry man whose ego has continually gotten in the way. Trump wanted the spotlight, but was not committed to the consuming task of piloting the ship of state into the next harbor. So while the other heads of state were busy dealing with the virus, Trump left the meeting and headed to the golf course. He has abandoned the ship and the world sees it. Who knows what he is planning, but we should not be surprised if it centers on keeping Joe Biden from dealing with a dozen of the most important issues facing the nation. Whatever he does, you can bet that it will keep himself in the spotlight. The nation be damned!

So here is my suggestion. The new administration has much on its plate and should not be distracted by temper tantrums thrown by a bully. More than anything else, Trump wants to dominate the center of the stage. But no matter what he does he should simply be ignored. His name and image should not appear in any publication, newspaper, magazine or broadcast. In doing so he would have no power. Let Fox News be the sole source of coverage. His name will no longer appear in this column. The American people have already declared him to be a banished nobody. Not only should he be banned from parading around the center of the stage, he shouldn’t even be allowed in the theater.

Should the isolation somehow dramatically alter his conduct, we might need to take another look. But for the time being he should be treated like Phillip Nolan in the short novel, The Man Without a Country, by Edward Everett Hale. Nolan had damned the United States and said he never wanted to hear that name again, so for the rest of his life he was shuttled from one ocean-going ship to another, never to hear or see anything about the nation he had disowned

While we might pity him, and offer proper respect for the positive things he accomplished, for now Donald J. Trump should be a man without a country.