Trump's challenge to the results of the electoral process is his latest act of delegitimization of democracy. Months ago, he announced that he would accept the validity of the elections only if he was victorious. Such statements, articulated by the president of the United States, undermine the democratic system in his country and worldwide. As Susan B. Glasser wrote in The New Yorker, “Trump’s incessant questioning of the basic institutions of our government and electoral system has now produced his desired result, even if he may not be back for another four years: a superpower torn apart from within, no longer trusting of its own democracy.”
Since his electoral campaign in 2016, Trump has established ways of dealing towards political opponents (mockery and defamation) and towards the journalistic media (treated as biased political adversaries) that broke both with the norms of respect between adversaries and of freedom of expression.
His distortions of reality (such as talk about “success” against the pandemic the day US infections reached 11 million and 251,000 deaths) were cited by many political analysts as anecdotes or eccentricities. The result is that the very concept of fake news and "alternative realities" has almost become normal.
