The Damage Will Last
“The guardrails of our system actually worked,” the political analyst Amy Walter marveled on Monday evening, capturing how many reacted to the Trump administration initiating a formal transition of power to the Biden administration. American democracy had survived its weeks-long brush with disaster, despite President Donald Trump’s baseless fraud claims, surreal press conferences, and shaky legal challenges. All of this brought relief (“excellent news for American democracy”), triumphalism (“we saved ourselves and America”), ample use of the past tense (“Never forget how dangerous and abnormal this all was”), and ridicule of the Trumpian sideshow (“rage tweeting” and “comical lawsuits”).
This isn’t over, folks. While the decision to begin the transition process does amount to an implicit concession by the president, Trump hasn’t yet explicitly acknowledged his loss—and there are indications he might never do so. As I write, in fact, the president is continuing to insist that the “2020 Election Hoax” will “go down as the most corrupt election in American political history,” that he will continue to press this case, and that he “will never concede to fake ballots & ‘Dominion.’”
[Adam Serwer: The crisis of American democray is not over]
Trump’s attack on the election wasn’t and isn’t a sideshow. As far as American democracy is concerned, this is the main show. A democracy at grave risk one
