President Trump won’t go quietly. Even in this epoch of acrid political disagreement, most people probably agree he’d be undignified in defeat. But that’s a far cry from his refusing to leave, which is the fear his foes use to stoke a preelection conflagration.
The latest fuel came when a reporter asked the president if he’d commit now to a peaceful transfer of power. It was asked three times, once with the preamble “win, lose, or draw.” Trump, as so often, responded, “We’re going to have to see what happens,” and repeated legitimate concerns about fraud with millions of mail-in ballots. Then, he began to say there’d be a peaceful power transfer, but checked himself and instead said, “There won’t be a transfer, frankly; there’ll be a continuation …”
Cue outrage from Democrats and left-wing media, for whom it is axiomatic that Trump is a would-be tyrant. This seems a stretch. It is pretty clear Trump stopped mid-sentence because, like most pols, he did not want to muse publicly on the hypothesis that he might lose. And he cannot, of course, guarantee a sudden stop to left-wing violence (now raging in its fifth month) if he wins. He’s probably as sure as the rest of us that it will continue. Even Joe Biden suggests it.
Both campaigns have teams of hawkish lawyers to litigate anything that can plausibly be depicted as an irregularity in voting or the counting of an unprecedented volume of mailed ballots. Judges are even now changing the rules on the fly. Both sides are casting doubt on the integrity of the election, accusing the other of intending to steal it. Hillary Clinton advised Biden not to concede defeat “under any circumstances.” We are perhaps heading into a constitutional crisis lasting weeks, even months. We are back to the 2000 election, with the added delight of widespread rioting.
Who will decide who wins? Let’s hope it’s clear on Nov. 3, but that seems unlikely. Then what? Probably legal battles ending in the Supreme Court. Trump says he’d accept the court’s ruling if it came to that. But that won’t satisfy the Left because he is almost certainly about to place another textualist justice, whom his enemies (certainly) and he (perhaps) expect to take his side.
Thus, our cover story this week, “Trump Bets Big on the Court,” in which Jim Antle lays out the contours of the titanic battle that will rage up to and beyond the election, and could decide the direction of the country not just for the next four years, but for a generation.
Karol Markowicz steps back from the election and argues that it’s a dog-and-pony show taking place on the tip of an iceberg. The great danger beneath the surface is an unprecedented brand of Leftist social disorder that, if left unchecked, will wreck America.
In Life & Arts, Peter Tonguette says a nation turned its lonely eyes to Wonder Woman, J. Oliver Conroy pays homage to real-life Arctic warriors, and Tevi Troy recounts all of Yogi Berra’s presidents.
