Playground bully Donald Trump has hurt democracy around the world - Christa Ackroyd

It read “When I walked into this office now I felt the same sense of wonder and respect that I felt four years ago. I know you feel that too. I wish you great happiness here. There will be very tough times made even more difficult by criticism you may not think is fair... just don’t let the critics discourage you or push you off course. You will be OUR President when you read this note. I wish you well. I wish your family well. Your success is our country’s success. I am rooting hard for you. Good Luck - George.”

That letter was written by the last sitting President who failed to secure a second term in office, Republican George H.W. Bush. It was sent to Democrat Bill Clinton and written with the dignity and pride the office demands. That is how to do it.

At 11.40pm our time on Thursday evening President Donald J. Trump addressed the nation from the White House. He had finally broken free from his bunker kicking and screaming. His advisors, or those he hasn’t sacked, must have had their head in their hands. For 17 minutes he reminded us, as if we needed reminding, why this pathetic excuse of a man is not fit for office.

His attack on a voting system that more people had taken part in than at any other time in the history of America was nothing short of an attack on democracy. And it should offend us all, whatever our political persuasion. It was excruciating to watch for so many reasons not least because here was the President of the United States of America accusing his own country, a country he professes to love, of being corrupt. Donald Trump does not love America. Donald Trump just happens to be an American who loves himself. Worse still he accused the very bedrock of democracy that people have laid down their lives for, the right to vote for the leader of our choice, as being a sham. Well Mr President it isn’t the system which is a sham. It is you.

President Trump was not simply behaving like a baby spitting out his dummy when he thought he couldn’t get his own way. He was in full playground bully mode. What is worse is his comments were deliberately made to incite others to join in his bully boy tactics, bully boy tactics which we have seen far too often these past four years. His supporters answered his call, as he knew they would. They believed his lies. So they came out in force, with guns in some cases, to the places where good honest folks were risking their lives during the Covid pandemic to ensure democracy was done and demanded they stop counting. But the counting went on. Because that is what democracy is about. The right for each and every one to register their choice. Because each and every one of us counts too.

Now even those who have praised him as a man who at least does what he says he is going to do now knows why over the past few years in this column I have been so against him. He has given me too many reasons to despise him from his attitude towards women, his refusal to condemn white supremacy, his sweeping away peaceful protestors with tier gas, and his dismissal of a virus which has killed 240,000 people in his country. But this 17 minutes of rambling was proof, as if proof were needed, that he is not just the maverick, not just the man who gets things done, he is both unstable and dangerous.

To me the biggest disappointment in this whole sorry saga is that he polled so many votes, that too many people believed his tarnished rhetoric. That is their choice.

I defend their right to do so. But why, you may ask is it important here in this country what a man the other side of the Atlantic rants about in the White House?

And not for the first time. Because every dictator in every land where elections really are rigged, or where votes are not freely cast, is laughing at him, laughing at us and laughing at all we hold dear.

When he rants in person or shouts in capital letters on Twitter that the voting system of one person one vote is unfair, or corrupt, he gives power to all those who deny their citizens that choice, that freedom. And that is something we have fought wars over. Here is the supposed leader of the free world talking about ‘suppression’. They are the tactics of a megalomaniac.

When he screams this is an embarrassment to our country’, all I would say is if the cap fits Mr President. If the cap fits.

Forget the election. Forget the result. Forget the promised litigation. Whichever way you look at it this man is a loser. From the moment he announced a few hours after the polls closed ‘I win ‘(even if I don’t) he had lost.

Which is why both the republicans in his own party and leaders in every free country in the world must denounce Donald Trump now and forever to ensure democracy is the real winner.

In the meantime I will share with you what one eminent politician from Yorkshire shared with me in the early hours of the morning before the results were in.’

I am just glad the ultimate political populist when it came to it, he said, was forced to realise he is just not quite so popular as he thought.‘

So promise me America when all this is all over bar the shouting (whenever that may be) you never ever let this man run for political office again. Let democracy and freedom be the winner. Not arrogance, not dishonesty and never ever the cynical tactics of the playground bully.

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