During a recent CBS “60 Minutes” interview former U.S. President Barack Obama stated that many of his successor’s activities while in the Oval Office, including his recent unsubstantiated claims of election fraud, are “delegitimizing” democracy. Many contend that the current commander in chief’s refusal to concede last week’s election to President-elect Joe Biden, while launching legal challenges, is merely motivated by the self-centeredness Donald Trump has demonstrated throughout the past four years.
“They appear to be motivated, in part, because the president doesn’t like to lose and never admits loss,” notes Obama. “I’m more troubled by the fact that other Republican officials who clearly know better are going along with this, are humoring him in this fashion. It is one more step in delegitimizing not just the incoming Biden administration, but democracy generally, and that’s a dangerous path.”
He makes mention of these charges in his new memoir, “A Promised Land,” released this past Tuesday, Nov. 17. In it he traces his humble beginnings in Hawaii, through his political career in Chicago, up to his 2008 ascent to the Oval Office, and his first-term as U.S. president.
On, and leading up to, Nov. 3, U.S. voters elected to get rid of the megalomania mannerisms of the 45th president and replace him with his predecessors vice president, Joe Biden. Obama described the president’s unwillingness to concede transition as “yet one more example of how Donald Trump’s breach of basic democratic norms is hurting the American people.”
He likened Trump’s child-like antics: “We would never accept that out of our own kids, behaving that way if they lost, right? I mean, if my daughters––in any kind of competition––pouted and…and then accused the other side of cheating when they lost, when there was no evidence of it, we’d scold ’em,” Obama said.
Last week’s race was deemed “the most secure in American history,” by some senior U.S. officials tracking it, adding that they found “no indication it was compromised.”
Obama contends Trump “is denying reality” by not conceding. Adding: “It’s one more step in delegitimizing not just the incoming Biden administration, but democracy generally, and that’s a dangerous path. And when your time is up then it is your job to put the country first and think beyond your own ego, and your own interests, and your own disappointments.”
He added that he’d assist Biden “any ways that I can,” and the importance of inspiring the youths, “You had a whole generation of kids who grew up not thinking it was weird or exceptional that the person who occupied the highest office in the land was Black.”
He concluded with: “This democracy doesn’t work if we don’t have an informed citizenry. This democracy doesn’t work if we don’t have responsible elected officials at other levels who are willing to call the president when he’s not doing something right, call him on it.”