What are signs of a healthy democracy? Michael Beschloss interviewed by Brian Williams on MSNBC, November 4, 2020, stated:
One-On-One with Michigan Secretary of State on the importance of continuing the vote count of every vote cast by Michigan voters in the November 3, 2020 Election:
On September 24, 2020 before the November 3, 2020 Election, Presidential Historian and author, Michael Beschloss, warned the American people about exactly what Donald Trump might try to do to prematurely seize power.
Michael Beschloss forewarned Americans in the above September 2020 video-taped interview with Rachel Maddow about Trump’s efforts to try to discredit the 2020 election. Here is a partial transcript:
Rachel Maddow: Did any other president ever play with this kind of fire in advance of the votes being counted talking about the election as something that ought to be disregarded?
Michael Beschloss: Nothing even remotely similar. You want to go into history to look for something like this? Go into Italian history and look at Mussolini.
This is the way dictators come to power. He’s telling you what he intends to do. And we’ve got to make very sure that in the next 5 1/2 weeks and after that, we do not get into a situation where, just as Senator Sanders announced tonight: Donald Trump announces that he’s won and puts us in a situation where our democracy is being stolen minute by minute. This is not a drill.
Franklin Roosevelt said in 1940 at the time of Adolf Hitler, “Never before since Jamestown and Plymouth Rock has American civilization been in this kind of danger. We are approaching that point tonight.”
Fast forward to November 4, 2020
In an interview on November 4, 2020 with Brian Williams of MSNBC, Michael Beschloss talked about the inappropriate use of the White House East Room for Trump’s partisan political event while votes were still being counted in US states after the close of polls on November 3, 2020:
Michael Beschloss: The White House East Room is sacred. That’s where FDR lay in state in 1945. John Kennedy did in 1963. It was designed to some extent by George Washington for grand state occasions. Washington would be horrified to see it used for a partisan political event last night like the spectacle we saw.
Especially, Brian, can you believe it? All those people without masks jammed into that room? How many people are going to get sick or possibly worse as a result of Donald Trump’s selfish decision to hold the event there rather than where it should have been, in some hotel ballroom? It didn’t need to be his.
Brian Williams: The authority the president seems to be claiming in things like his twitter feed is to declare an end to voting, to declare different states in his category even though the American people have a funny way of determining that for themselves.
Michael Beschloss: In 1964 at the Republican convention, Nelson Rockefeller said to hecklers, “It’s still a free country ladies and gentlemen.” And, if we are a free country, the president doesn’t get to declare when the voting is stopped or who is declared president on election night even if the votes have not come in.
The sign of health in a democracy is that the votes are counted fully, fairly and accurately however long it takes. Often times in American history, as you know it’s taken a long time. In the future if we do more and more early voting which we probably will, we just have to get accustomed to the fact that we’re not going to have instant gratification on election night and a decision that sounds as if its popped out of a toaster.”