Before millions of ballots had even been processed, President Donald Trump declared victory on election night, in a public address to his supporters. “We were getting ready to win this election,” spoke Trump, “and frankly we did win this election.”

With cases of COVID-19 skyrocketing across the nation, a large percentage of voters took to voting via mail-in-ballots, which delayed the results, as predicted. As a consequence, votes from swing or battleground states came in at a slower pace.

On Saturday, Nov. 7, though, news sources such as the Associated Press, the New York Times, Fox News, CNN, etc. were able to declare former Vice President Joe Biden and his running mate Kamala Harris as the President and Vice President-Elect, with a Democratic win in the state of Pennsylvania.

Prior to Biden winning the presidency, Trump and his campaign managers had already declared victory in the electoral process.

When news channels and tech companies, such as FOX and Twitter, shut down the president’s claims as false––he and his administration called for the counting of ballots to end.

“We want all voting to stop. We don’t want them to find any ballots at 4 o’clock in the morning and add them to the list,” Trump said in the aforementioned public address.

Many predicted that if the election results leaned in Biden’s favor; or, more incriminatingly, showed that he had won, that President Trump would do exactly this–– claim fraud, and they were right.

So, what does this mean for our democracy?

It means what most us have known all along, that Trump has never and is not willing to play by the rules of the Constitution. In fact, he promotes the very opposite. He is a direct abridgement to our democracy. He sees his presidency as a means for awarding people their liberty, though his policies and actions continue to contradict that. Now, he’s encroaching on the democratic freedom to vote and the freedom for those votes to be counted in a presidential election.

The Washington Post commented on this hypocrisy in an article, writing that “Trump has shown once again he cares not about the Constitution or the stability and well-being of the country or anything like that … And so, he cries ‘fraud’ when there is no evidence whatsoever of any such thing.”

Then again, this is Trump we’re talking about. Most of what he says is not taken seriously. So, do his claims have any real bearings on the results of this election?

The short answer–– it’s complicated.

Trump cannot legally operate on the basis that he won this election without the votes to support it. However, the president is actively perpetuating skepticism in his supporters. Now, with the outcome in favor of Biden, many of Trump’s supporters are refusing to accept the results, claiming that come January 2021, the president will be re-inaugurated.

“Trump has given his followers license to see anything other than a Trump victory as a stolen election,” wrote the Washington Post.

Though some are able to see recognize the absurdity of the president’s claims, millions of his supporters are losing their faith in the democratic process. This action from the president doesn’t surprise me, but it is disheartening to see it realized, just as so many predicted it would be.

It makes me wonder about those who voted for his re-election, those who repeatedly justify his behavior by saying claiming that he isn’t serious. When or where the line will be drawn for them? When will he be taken seriously? If his refusal to condemn white supremacy on the debate stage wasn’t enough to convince the people of his apathetic character, the so-called voter fraud of this election likely won’t either.

And it’s not right.