The cries of "not my president" in some instances reflected a belief that the lection had been stolen, especially since Clinton received over 3 million more votes than did Trump. In most cases "not my president" indicated the understanding that Trump did not see himself as the president of all the people. Starting with his hate-filled campaign, with a brief pause for about 20 minutes the day after the lection, and continuing throughout 4 years of rage tweeting and irrational invective, Trump made it clear that he represented only those who gave him unwavering loyalty and adulation.
Now, after four years of unrelenting hammering away at any trust in anything or anyone other than Trump, after furious undermining of all of our institutions with a cult-like following that made up close to half of the electorate, is it at all surprising that Trump turned his attention on the whole election system? We are now at the point, even though it looks like we will finally be able to have a transition to the new presidency, where a significant percentage of Americans believe that Trump "rightfully" won the election, that it was "rigged" against him, by an amazingly efficient cabal of Democrats.
One of the most insidious acts of undermining trust has been Trump's attacks on the media, which he continuously characterized as fake news and regularly tarred as the enemy of the people. Why was this action so destabilizing? Because in a democracy a free press is a necessary information counterbalance to the government. How many examples are there about the government hiding or lying about actions that make them look bad? No one, no party, is immune to prevarication. So how do we hold the government accountable, hold their feet to the fire? By the existence of an independent set of entities who have the resources to root out the truth. How do we guarantee that any media outlet is presenting us with the truth? We don't. But the fact that there is still competition among major media outlets, and that their continued existence and solvency is based on their reputation for accuracy, helps to keep their reporting accurate. What most people have a hard time understanding though, is the difference between news and commentary.
You would be hard pressed to find many inaccuracies in any of the mainstream media's reporting. Many people would disagree with this, mostly people who don't like what is being reported. Take the New York Times series on Trump's finances. Trump has said it's "fake news", and his supporters follow suit, but there's one simple, easy way to debunk the Times' reporting on Trump's taxes, and that's for Trump to authorize the release of his tax returns. So much of the accusations of "fake news" and media bias rests on someone saying "nuh-unh" without providing any countering facts. A grey area is the use of anonymous sources. Like it or not, some credible sources of information may not want to make their identities known, for various reasons. And an anonymous source generally isn't anonymous to the reporter who is receiving the information. A news story isn't published based on a call from a public pay phone or a burner cell phone without knowing where the information is coming from. A lot of discussion at a media outlet precedes using anonymously provided information, and the newspaper or television network has determined that the source is credible and trustworthy and is staking their reputation on the reputation of their source for veracity.
Commentary, opinion, punditry...none of that is news, it's what a person or an organization thinks about the news. If the president sends troops into yet another country, that's news. If a talking head holds forth on why it's a good thing or a bad thing, or even speculates on the possible consequences, that's opinion. If a newspaper publishes an analysis of why people support a particular candidate, that's opinion. A large amount of what people point to when they talk about "the news", or "the media" is the opinion side. The dry facts are too boring for most people, so they gravitate to the color commentators on their favorite platform and deride the prognosticators that they disagree with.
So now we have arrived at a place where the way elections have been decided throughout modern times, i.e. by counting the votes and everyone agreeing that the candidate with the most votes in each state received that state's electoral votes (partial exception in Nebraska and Maine) and the candidate with the most electoral votes became president, has been upended. Administrative steps like canvassing boards and state certification of results and even the actual casting of votes by the electors has long been considered a mere formality. States reported their vote totals and most of the time each state showed enough of a margin for one candidate or another that the media felt confident in reporting who won. This year, due to the large number of mailed-in ballots, some states were still counting for a few days after Election Day. But once the counting was complete, or at least until one candidate was mathematically assured of victory, everyone just accepted the result. Even the election in 2000, with it's recount in Florida, only happened because Bush's lead was less than 2000 votes and a recount narrowed that to around 500 votes. The other 49 states plus the District of Columbia saw no such upheaval. 2020 is completely different.
In 2017, President Trump, stung by receiving three million fewer votes than Secretary Clinton, despite winning in the Electoral College, cast about for ways to make his victory "legitimate". He baselessly claimed that millions of undocumented immigrants had cast votes. He created a commission to investigate election fraud. The commission folded within a year without finding any systemic election fraud. Even as the pandemic caused many states to look for ways to make absentee, mail-in or early voting easier, and Republicans looked for ways to stymie those efforts, no actual open doors for fraud were identified. Sure, Trump and his enablers repeatedly claimed that mail-in voting would be more fraud-prone that in-person, Election Day voting, but no evidence to support this was every presented. Republicans took every opportunity to make casting, collecting and counting mail-in ballots more difficult, realizing that it was Democratic voters who were taking precautions against Covid infection more seriously and therefore more likely to vote by mail.
In the months leading up to the 2020 election Trump worked overtime to undermine confidence in the system. He often said that the only way that he could lose was if the election was rigged against him. He asserted that vote counting should stop on Election Night and a winner declared, knowing full well that in some states the mail-in ballots would be counted after the day-of ballots, meaning that an Election Night lead for him in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin or Georgia could very likely melt away as mail-in votes came in. This is exactly what happened. He was ahead in all of those states on Election Night, but fell behind in all of them as all of the votes came in. He prematurely claimed victory on Election Night. He called for voting to stop in the states where he was ahead but losing ground. He called for voting to continue in states where he was behind but had a chance of winning. Three weeks later he hasn't conceded, although he has allowed the transition to begin.
Around three dozen lawsuits have been filed by the Trump campaign in various jurisdictions (but always in areas or states that he lost). Except one, which was allowed to proceed on procedural grounds, all of them have been dismissed for lack of evidence. In some suits, a relative handful of ballots are being challenged, in some, like in Pennsylvania, they are attempting to have all seven million mail-in ballots thrown out because they claim the Pennsylvania mail-in system is unconstitutional! Interestingly, while Trump screams FRAUD, and that there is an organized cabal perpetrating a theft of a whole election, the lawsuits are not suggesting fraud, but mostly technical issues and supposed irregularities. But his supporters believe the tweets and are convinced that Trump won (sometimes they say "in a landslide") and that Biden stole the election. They believe that "the media" has declared Biden the winner in an election that has yet to be decided.
Trump enablers among Republicans elected officials are acting like this refusal to accept the results of an election is normal, that fighting tooth and nail to invalidate as many votes as it takes to reverse the results is normal, that expecting an election to be decided in the courts is normal, that state officials who are for all intents and purposes rubber stamps are now acting as if they have investigatory authority. None of this is normal. None of this is acceptable. One of the hallmarks of our system of government has been a peaceful transfer of power from one administration to another, even when the outgoing and incoming where bitterly opposed. There is little chance if any that Trump will barricade himself in the White House and refuse to leave in January, but he has done lasting damage to the institution of the presidency by his actions. Millions of people will never believe that President Biden was legitimately elected. That does not bode well for the future.
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