It is time for Donald Trump to concede

The Electoral College has confirmed that Joe Biden has won the Presidential election, yet Trump is continuing his fight. He is risking the legacy and achievements of his Presidency, argues Donald Forbes. 

It's not clear right now what Donald Trump is still fighting for. Is it a second term which has been a lost cause for weeks? Or is it to restore integrity to a flawed electoral system that makes a mockery of American democracy? Sadly, it's not the latter.

"Nothing in his life became him like the leaving of it" is the epitaph Shakespeare bestowed on the traitorous but redeemed Thane of Cawdor at his execution.

Trump is alive and well but his presidency is dead and nothing could become the man more than its tawdry end. The egomania and narcissism to which his supporters, many of them reluctant, closed their eyes for four years are exposed and undeniable. No Shakespearean apotheosis in this sad mess.

The firing of Attorney General William Barr was the end of a road for me. It wended from disbelief in 2016 in Trump's fitness for the White House, to admiration for his accomplishments in office, back to disbelief amid the wreckage of a defeat which he has made ignominious.

Barr was dismissed for being an honest public servant who did his duty to the American people by refusing to subordinate his office to the electoral needs of Donald Trump. He stood with the law which so many American politicians traduce in pursuit of their ambitions.

There is now talk – which may be false since who can believe a word that comes out of Washington nowadays – that Trump may not attend Joe Biden's inauguration. It's believable because of who he is – a flawed man so self-obsessed that he is incapable of understanding why duty and convention necessarily transcend mere individuals.

A man can be forgiven for his flaws but not for indulging them in the way that Donald Trump has done at the expense of the dignity of the presidency of the United States. It's an American legend that any child can grow up to become president, But when they do, they leave their old self behind.

The Donald Trump who sat in the Oval Office was still a deal-cutting property developer from New York and a television reality show host in a world that he governed by instinct rather than expertise.

No one doubted Trump's right to challenge the election result. What has grated is the way he did it with huckstering lawyers like Rudy Giuliani and Sydney Powell making outrageous allegations, none of which have been proved.

Every court they went to, including ones presided over by Republican-appointed judges, rejected the president's appeals.

When Biden declared victory, Trump had an opportunity to concede gracefully as Richard Nixon did in 1960 and Al Gore did in 2000. Instead, he persisted with claims that he can't prove and diminish his credibility. That was the crucial moment he missed.

Every day since, he has become a little smaller in stature while the world has moved on towards the future.

Trump can truthfully claim to be a wronged man. The Obama administration criminally conspired to prevent his election and the Democratic party shrank from no political dirty trick to shackle his government and destroy his reputation. They were aided by a shamelessly partisan media.

He deserves lasting credit for great achievements which hopefully will be given due recognition when today's passions have been forgotten. Biden would be foolish to to undo them simply because they were Trump's work. 

Foremost among these is the unblocking of the Middle East peace process between Israel and the Arab states which has eluded every previous American president and is something truly historic.

Making America Great Again was not the anachronistic, redneck ambition that globalist liberals in Europe as well as in the United States sneered at. It was a means to assert what the West means and of building a bulwark against Chinese expansionism.

Trump created a conservative majority on the supreme court – vitiating the unpredictability of John Robert's vote – for which conservatives including never-Trumpers will be grateful during their battles with liberals for years to come. He unleashed American economic potential.

But, these achievements have been obscured and worse, fragilized, by his fatal inability to accept the fates with dignity at the very moment when he most needed to – the moment when they turned against him.

In the end, against all expectations at his election, Trump did great things but he failed to be a great man.