Michigan and The Meaning of Trump’s Post-Election Gambit

President Trump won’t be able to change the results of the election. But Michigan shows how he is destabilizing American democracy.

November 17, 2020 might go down as a date when American democracy was put to an extreme test. It was the day a county in Michigan was close to not certifying the results of the 2020 presidential election.

The county is Wayne County in my home state of Michigan. Wayne County is home to the city of Detroit, the state’s largest city and a city that is 83% African American.

Two GOP canvassers decided to not certify the results. Had they not change their minds it would have invalidated over 800,000 votes, a good chunk of those votes were made by African Americans. Without the votes from the state’s largest county, it would have flipped the results with Trump in the leads with over 175,000 votes. He was trying to win Michigan by saying that hundreds of thousands of votes, in a county that is 40% African American and whose county seat is 83% African American.

The Trump campaign has made a targeted campaign to challenge the votes in urban areas in swing states, which in many cases are Democratic and contain high concentrations of people of color. In Las Vegas and…