The DR takes no pleasure in being ahead of awful news that threatens the basic well being of US and world citizens. I’d rather be wrong, for example, that Covid fatalities in Florida and Texas are going to become shockingly prevalent and horrify us as medical capacity is overwhelmed. I pray that prediction is alarmist and the numbers lag behind my worst fears. It isn’t and they won’t.
On the subject of November’s election, it’s been startling how far the professional political and media class has lagged behind the basic reckoning Trump will not accept results that give him the boot. After all, in the final month of his 2016 campaign he talked of little else other than the “rigged” electoral process he was certain guaranteed his defeat. Honestly, was there any doubt he would refuse to concede then? If so, what did the candidate do or say (ever!) to support such optimism? And since day one of this Presidency, when Trump got his Administration rolling with fantastical claims that massive, multi-million voter fraud was why he decisively lost the popular vote, can one sentence, one tweet, one policy be identified conveying anything other than concession will never be an option Bunker Boy will consider?!
If the peaceful transference of political power in America rests too much on good faith observance of honorable traditions, the continued normalization of torrential Trump shamelessness clarifies delusion too often subverts clear-eyed recognition of existential dangers we’d just rather ignore until that’s no longer possible. Why make your back hurt any sooner than you have to? Yet and still, the days of spasm are now upon us. Better late than never.
Last month a bipartisan group of prominent government, academic, military and media figures met on-line to actually “game out” different scenarios revolving around the central notion Trump will not accept November’s verdict, come what may. What may isn’t pretty, according to all four simulations the participants saw through to their logical conclusions. Blood on the streets and a bleakly unsettled future were prominent characteristics each sample led to, with little in the way of optimism to be found. Hardly a surprise to those willing to ponder cold hard reality before others had the stomach for it, but depressing and instructive nonetheless.
The group, which goes by The Transition Integrity Project, approached its task primarily from the assumption the Constitution and laws it predicates (constants) are obviously going to be tested severely by a sitting President with little regard for either and his supporters (variables). Somewhere on a spectrum between the rule of law as determinative or just so much scribble on paper is where the nation will find itself after November 3. Rosa Brooks, a Georgetown law professor, former Defense Department official and co-founder of the project summed up our impending predicament nicely: “The law is essentially … it’s almost helpless against a president who’s willing to ignore it.” The critical question is who will support Trump’s criminal recklessness?
The historical context provided by the Decision/2000 deadlock is also not particularly hopeful. Fact is, had Al Gore been determined to push on and press his case, encouraging militancy from his base by framing the issue as a grievous crime against the people’s will, who knows where things could have gone. That he appreciated both how important faith in the electoral system is to our governance, and how fragile the 2000 outcome demonstrated it was, spared the nation turmoil nobody could guarantee would be resolved. Of course, Fox/AM made certain Gore vs. W Bush was just the beginning of a cold civil war it would actively incite 24/7, producing this point in time.
All of the scenarios the exercise employed took for granted the Trump campaign will use any and all levers at its disposal to challenge any outcome it doesn’t like. Wether the full GOP backs him tooth and nail, of course, had a big impact on the tumult suffered by the country during the pretend crises. The exercises punctuated how critical cooperation during Presidential transitions are to US governance; we will see this Christmas season. Sadly, the group’s consensus on this score was gloomy as well. Rachel Kleinfeld of the Carnegie Foundation noted the US has “norms in our transition, rather than laws,.” Trump’s disdain for such traditions, Kleinfeld warned, means this election “is something a democracy expert would worry about.”
In each of the group’s scenarios mail-in ballots were the go-to pretext discreditIng the process. It is worth noting all of the outcomes were close calls, with one a mixed result, Trump winning the electoral vote, but Biden dominating the popular count by more than five percent. No instance supposed Trump would stop at any point and accept his fate. The main takeaway? Trump doesn’t have to win. “He just has to create a plausible narrative that he didn’t lose,” says Nils Gilman of the Berggruen Institute, and a co-organizer of the exercise. Is there really anything more up Trump’s alley than reframing defeat as victory? It’s what he does.
And what of the most unpredictable and dangerous variable the group considered? How will the extreme corners of the wretched core respond when Trump and Fox/AM’s ceaseless warnings of a lib apocalypse appear to be nigh? Are radicalized, well-armed, organized militias prepared to step over the line and start burning down the house, perhaps with help from elements of governmental agencies like ICE or even various police departments now wedded to the notion only Trump secures their future viability? How does that genie get put back into the bottle?
When Proud Boys, Washington Three Percenters, Patriot Prayer and the like inject themselves into national protests sure to explode when Trump refuses to give way, the chaos will create fluidity beyond anyone’s ability to control. The group’s scenarios had Trump both pouring gas on the fires while trying to control things for his benefit, seizing on any opportunities calls for order afforded him to consolidate the power he already possesses, which one participant observed “is 9/10ths of the law.” In other words, it’s mine and you’re going to have to take it from me. The group came up with no good answers as to how that will happen without dire harm to the country.
It’s useful these days to remember that picnickers lined the first battlefields of the Civil War eager to witness the spectacle of armed conflict while noshing a chicken leg or some pie. Nobody imagined the carnage that lay ahead. We know our President will give not a second thought to the disaster his narcissistic recklessness could portend, but those who matter most now at least finally seem cognizant of the specter. But if the recent online get together of some of our best and brightest is any indicator, we’ll need a bigger umbrella for the storm heading our way. Batten down the hatches. BC