Beware the post-election presidency
A bitter Trump could mean a much more damaging interregnum compared to the last four years.
On Thursday morning, Nov. 5, President Trump decisively ran out of luck. As the vote counting process went on, Mr. Trump’s early lead were later overtaken by Mr. Biden’s rising vote counts as polling stations began counting mail-in ballots. On Twitter, it led to him shouting for a stop to ballot-counting. By Saturday afternoon on Nov. 8, after losing the lead in Pennsylvania for two days, media networks called the race for a new Biden presidency beginning in 2021.
This year’s election had been remarkable as the ongoing pandemic forced voters to either cast their ballots over mail or risk catching infections in polling stations. Meanwhile, Mr. Trump had suggested for months that mail-in ballots may lead to rampant fraud, against a mountain of evidence proving exactly the opposite. With the Biden campaign telling voters to vote by mail, it led to another partisan division as Democrats became more likely to take advantage of mail-in ballots and Republicans preferring to vote directly.
Stretching over five long days — for the vote counters, an unbelievably exhausting period— the election featured both candidates trudging on a state-by-state level as Mr. Biden slowly overturned Mr. Trump’s leads on very narrow margins. In many states, mail ballots are counted after in-site polling stations close on election day; due to this, an early Republican lead later shifted blue and culminated in an epic showdown in seven battleground states: Arizona, Nevada, Georgia, North Carolina, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. Six of these were later handed to Biden by very narrow margins.
With the election at an end, Americans must now face an embarrassed President Trump on the verge of conceding his prized post. If Mr. Trump’s behavior during vote counting is of any indication, this interregnum period may be the most turbulent in his administration. It might not even take long for that to take effect: already, Mr. Trump’s comments on possible electoral fraud prompted supporters demanding to either stop or continue vote counting in several states and added fuel to conspiracy theories spearheaded by QAnon, the infamous extremist ideology held by millions.
Rather than conceding — which has historically been a presidential tradition — Trump opted to continue this narrative despite overwhelming objections even by those within the Republican party. At present, the president has released a statement claiming that the election is ‘far from over’, stating that his campaign plans to pursue legal battles to challenge the election results. Several attempts have been filed during the election, notably in Michigan, Georgia, and Pennsylvania, though federal judges struck down these lawsuits due to lack of evidence. However, as many states have yet to establish their total vote counts, legal battles contesting the election results the Trump campaign’s may try pursuing legal battles to further entrench the claim of a rigged election.
Admittedly, Mr. Biden’s victory had been a very narrow one, with pundits drawing comparisons to Bush v. Gore in 2000 as a baseline to predict the election outcome. At the time, the Florida Supreme Court’s order that ballots be recounted compelled the Bush Campaign to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to stay the decision. All five conservative justices — spearheaded by Justice Antonin Scalia — granted the stay, citing ‘irreparable harm’ over the legitimacy of a Bush presidency. Any court battles related to the election results will certainly draw inspiration from that ruling.
However, by taking the unprecedented steps of claiming electoral fraud and refusal to concede, Trump has suddenly thrown American democracy into untested waters. How its democratic institutions react to such a move may determine how the nation navigates similar situations in the near future, in particular to avoid devastation caused by high degrees of political partisanship.
Aside from Mr. Trump, we also have to consider how extremists will react to the election results. Self-appointed militia groups such as Proud Boys — who had planned to conduct poll-watching activities some saw as voter intimidation tactics, though they never materialized en masse— may continue to become relevant in national politics for years to come. Their being given a national platform to share their beliefs makes it hard to imagine that they will suddenly back down to obscurity.
The QAnon movement will also remain a fixture in alt-right politics for the foreseeable future. As of this moment, they remain fixated on their mind-bending plan that Mr. Trump’s defeat is one part of a redemption arc that would eventually see the ‘demise of the demonic pedophile liberals’ (slash Democrats). While they will eventually realize the ‘plan’ had failed, the group still represents a wide swath of Americans that may become fertile ground for another, more outstanding, conspiracy theory in the future. Furthermore, there has been no indication of how House Republicans will behave towards any fringe ideas likely being brought to Congress by their new colleague, Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), a Q adherent.
All of this points out that, even with his presidency coming to an end, Mr. Trump still has considerable influence over large swaths of America that him being bitter may very well lead to even more conflicts after the election. Additionally, the president has made it clear that he has no plans to back down any time soon. Knowing how deeply partisan the American populace is right now, this blatant attempt at electoral interference will surely impact the political culture of the nation.
This is the true test of the government’s checks-and-balances function — to try to wall off any possible damages the president might do in the weeks leading to the inauguration. Noting that the nation has surpassed 100,000 new coronavirus cases a day, the next mass protests or riots may very well further burden the economy and, ultimately, society. It is also possible that President Trump becomes too exhausted to continue fighting against the tide and decide to slowly retire into obscurity. In the meantime, it is best to consider the circumstances following this year’s historic election week may have repercussions lasting beyond his presidency.
