Trump can learn a lesson from a four-year old

DIOKNO

It's never too early to learn life's lessons.

OPINION

I was playing the board game of "Candyland" with my grandson. He was about to win, just a few squares from the jackpot when he drew the muffin card. By rules of the game, he would have to proceed to the square with a picture of muffin near the starting line.

"I don't like this card," my young grandson said. He quickly drew another card that moved him to the finish line to unofficially "win" the game.

As the rules of the game was explained to him, negating his brief joy of winning. He was told he would have to move his chip to the muffin square. "You have to play by the rules," we told my grandson.

"I don't want to," he said and proceeded to repeat, "I won, I won."

The "Candyland" game reminds me of Donald Trump and his refusal to concede the election to President-elect Joe Biden.

The Electoral College today officially proclaimed Joe Biden as the next President of the United States. As expected, Biden wound up with 306 votes to Donald Trump's 232. But the count didn't go off without a hitch.

Trump's followers demonstrated against the vote in Washington D.C. and small gatherings around the nation.

Michigan Electors had to cast their 16 votes in a locked down Capitol Building in Lansing, Mich. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer told NPR's Morning Edition that her state's electors would cast their votes within a closed capitol building, citing a "security issue.

Michigan's Attorney General perceived the threats from the state's unregulated vigilantes to be real. The armed so-called militias have already harassed and threatened Michigan lawmakers while the state's legislators were in session and they plotted to kidnap and murder Whitmer.

The FBI has called these unregulated militias as the biggest domestic threat to democracy. If the DOJ spent as much energy investigating these vigilantes -- agitators, really, who would appear want a civil war --- as they have spent on the so-called "China Initiative" targeting Chinese researchers and tech workers, we'd probably fill our prisons.

The Michigan lockdown, a large state police presence and the sub-30 degree temperature brought a much smaller group of Trump-believers than anticipated.

Trump has forced recounts in several states, tried to stop, overturn or negate the vote, because he believes there was massive fraud even though there is not a shred of evidence of any anomalies.

Some of the demonstrations turned violent: one person was shot in Washington, demonstrators attacked predominantly Black churches in the nation's capitol.

Trump's own election security expert said that the Nov. 3 vote was the most secure election ever. Attorney General William Barr said the Department of Justice could not find any evidence of wrongdoing regarding the election.

Still, Trump insists that he didn't lose and is trying to convince his followers that the elections were rigged. In doing so, he is underlying the democracy and what mamkes the United States a beacon of light throughout the world. U.S. elections and bloodless turnover of power is the bane of authoritarian leaders and communist governments thhroughout the world.

“If anyone didn’t know it before, we know it now. What beats deep in the hearts of the American people is this: democracy,” Biden said in a speech after the electors' votes were tallied. “The right to be heard. To have your vote counted. To choose leaders of this nation. To govern ourselves. In America, politicians don’t take power — people grant power to them.”

Trump is the first U.S. leader to make these unsubstantiated claims of a rigged election long after elections have been proclaimed free and fair despite all the Republican attempts to thwart, confuse and dissuade voters -- especially people of color -- from casting their ballots.

I wonder if anybody bothered to play games with Trump when he was a young child when his values and mores were still being formed..

I'm not sure if the lesson from playing "Candyland" will stick with my grandson. After all, he's only four-years old. There will be plenty of other games he'll play to help him learn life's lessons ... about winning ... and losing.