Trump’s refusal to accept the results of the election is distracting the full attention of the federal government and civil society from throwing their full weight against a deadly and destructive pandemic. At a moment when we need social solidarity at every level of society and sustained and coordinated government action, he is organizing division, distrust, and denialism. Trump is the Jefferson Davis of our time. And neither we nor history should forget that. What he is doing is criminal.

Trump’s assault on the election system won’t prevent Joe Biden from taking his oath of office on Jan 20, but it is further radicalizing an already anti-democratic, authoritarian, white nationalist, Trumpian mass base. If anything, this base, trafficking in conspiracy theories and alternative facts, could well be the most enduring legacy of his presidency. Any hope of weakening this racist, revanchist juggernaut will turn not so much on uplifting words as the enactment of anti-racist and anti-crisis policies by the incoming administration and Congress. Such policies won’t neutralize this reactionary grouping entirely; that is too much to ask for. But if they cause some of its working class supporters (broadly defined) to reconsider their loyalties and views that may be about as much as we can hope for in the short term.

Our democracy survived 4 years of Trump. But it also revealed cracks in our democracy and a party – the Republican Party – that has littler attachment to democratic principles and governance. That should cause democratic minded people to pause. Even though we dodged a bullet this time, the experience tells us that “it could happen here,” if action isn’t take to democratize our political/constitutional structures and extend and safeguard democratic rights, beginning with voter rights. Republicans whose future rests on white minority rule will surely resist such efforts and will likely find support from the courts. The struggle continues.