Washington Post editorial board celebrates Biden victory over Donald Trump

On Saturday, the Washington Post editorial board celebrated President-elect Joe Biden's victory — and declared that "our democracy has proved its resilience."

"Though the election did not result in the ringing repudiation that Mr. Trump deserved, voters still rejected him, the first time in 28 years that a president has been turned out after a single term," wrote the board. "Mr. Biden and his running mate, California Sen. Kamala D. Harris, built a broad coalition of traditional Democratic voters and independents disgusted with Mr. Trump. They won the highest number of votes of any presidential ticket in history and will end with an impressive margin of victory and and strong showings in states in every region of the country."

"Mr. Biden’s victory — and Mr. Trump’s defeat — is a testament to the resilience of American democracy," wrote the board. "In other countries, at other times, bullies like Mr. Trump have succeeded in becoming strongmen by promising security from dangerous outsiders, demonizing cultural elites and sowing enough confusion and apathy that people failed to resist the slide into illiberalism. Mr. Trump tried all of these tactics. But Americans resisted ... Citizens in unprecedented numbers stood in line for hours to vote, starting weeks before Election Day. State officials adhered to their responsibilities to ensure that people could cast ballots. Withstanding Mr. Trump’s spiteful and mendacious attacks on their integrity, they ensured that those votes would be counted."

"Even with reform, voters will sometimes get it wrong," concluded the board. "But our democracy survived crises that came before, and we may just have weathered another, hopefully gaining some hard-won wisdom in the process. Amoral opportunists come and go. The nation’s founding principles live on another day, thanks to a generation of voters who did their part to preserve the Republic."

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