A week ago, I began the long wait to see who won the US presidential election. On Saturday, November 7th, the election was called for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. Those two people, who have a plan to deal with Covid, climate change, social injustice and the economy, beat a man whose party platform only had two words; "Donald Trump".

When the final news came in I wasn't filled with an abundance of joy and excitement. I was happy but I knew that, once again, the norms of American political life would not be honored. There would be no consolation phone call from the President of the United States and no speech from the President to his supporters to stand down. Instead, I knew that the next few months would be filled with baseless conspiracy theories and attempts to further hobble America's democracy.

Trump has held to his intention of not committing to a peaceful transition of power. Instead, his surrogates spent last week spouting mad theories about people stealing mail-in ballots from mailboxes in Nevada and the burning of Trump ballots in Virginia. Both of those claims were lies. This week has the addition of the United States Cabinet joining in the farce with the Secretary of State claiming that Trump will start his second term on January 20th while the Attorney General opened the door to bogus investigations into claims of voter fraud. This has led to a federal election official resigning in protest. More worryingly, Trump has fired, via Twitter, the Secretary of Defence and replaced him with a less qualified anti-terror specialist in the last 10 weeks of his Presidency. There are even rumors that Trump may start rallies again and, if that doesn't send a chill up your spine, it should.

Here's the problem folks, he's still the President. Its the part of our system that is the most logical but relies almost entirely on a person's honor. We rely on the visual image of the outgoing President working with the incoming President to show that everything is ok. In the UK, for example, there's no transition time between Prime Ministers so, the new team has to hit the ground running on day one. We allow the new team several months to prepare for a much smoother transfer of power but it all relies on the outgoing President playing ball. When Trump won the electoral college in 2016, Obama welcomed him into the White House with the hope that he would take this position seriously because one, its kind of a hard job and two, the American people needed to see these leaders work together for them. We are lucky that this is not Joe Biden's first time in the White House so he has a better chance getting off to a good start. 

In 2016, Trump gave his victory speech at 2:50 am on November 9th. That speech was not given in December after the votes were certified, but on the day the media projected that he would win the election. Now, he's completely ignoring that same process, with the help of the GOP, promoting the idea that if he didn't win; the election is invalid. 

This isn't Bush v. Gore 2000. Trump is behind by tens of thousands of votes across the battleground states and Biden's leads continue to grow. Those margins are basically insurmountable. These are the desperate last gasps of a man who knows he's finished.

It is no secret that I have never liked or respected Trump but, the primary reason I cannot stand Trump is that he is a dangerous and destabilising force in American society. 70 percent of Republicans think the election was not fair or free. Those are the kinds of numbers that are damning to democracy and it is being led by the President of the United States. The United States of America gains nothing from this drawn-out and destructive process. 

Its time for America to move on from this embarrassment and start to repair the damage that he, and the GOP, have wrought upon this country. 

Nearly 240,000 Americans never saw Election Day because of the Coronavirus. I think it's only fair we never see Trump in public again. I know that may be a bridge too far but, for what he's done to this country I think he should stay low for a very long time.   

As I said at the beginning of the post, I wasn't filled with a sense of overwhelming joy and relief when Biden won. I'm saving that for inauguration day. Then the real work can begin.