“This is not politics, this is the language of authoritarianism”
Donald Trump took to the stage at the White House late on election night and declared victory in an election which he has labelled “a fraud on our nation” in what was a chilling if predictable response to a tight race.
Hours after his opponent Joe Biden said that neither he nor Trump were in a position to declare victory, the American president did just that, before announcing that he would take the result to the Supreme Court.
#BREAKING: President Trump declares victory, says he'll go to the Supreme Court: "This is an embarrassment to our country. We were getting ready to win this election. Frankly, we did win this election." #ElectionNight
NOTE: Trump has NOT been declared the victor in the election. pic.twitter.com/OH8ZkfDMuJ
— The Hill (@thehill) November 4, 2020
In a speech that a large number of commentators predicted and which Trump himself suggested he would carry out, he laid the groundwork for a long and bitter legal battle to retain his grip on power, and called for an end to vote counting in states where he is ahead. In states where he is behind, he stated that the count should continue.
Continuing his pre-election slandering of mail-in ballots as fraudulent, Trump cited his early lead in the key state of Pennsylvania as a reason for stopping the vote count, stating that he didn’t “want them to find any votes at 4 in the morning”.
The controversial speech has widely been viewed as an attempt to delegitimise the election result, and has been labelled “authoritarian” by many, with the likes of Chris Christie, a Trump ally and former US attorney, stating that Trump has “no basis to make that argument”.
Despite the foreboding language used in his speech, many pundits predict that it will backfire on Trump.
ABC White House correspondent Jonathan Karl said: “He has no power to stop the counting of the votes, and the Supreme Court is not going to stop the counting of the votes. There is no basis in law for doing this.”
However, with the Supreme Court stacked with Republican selections, that remains to be seen.
