The peaceful transfer of power

Ayear from today, at noon, God and our more-fragile-than-we-ever-imagined system of government willing, a new presidential term begins. Either someone goes from president-elect to being president, or the incumbent president embarks on a second term. In the 232 years from the start of George Washington’s first term on April 30, 1789, to 2021, the peaceful transfer of power was never really in doubt, with the exception of the Civil War. That all changed when former President Donald Trump was decisively defeated for reelection in 2020, refused to accept his loss and shook the truckful of beer cans that was a riotous mob on the day Congress was set to formally certify states’ Electoral College results.

The cans exploded into the Capitol, ransacking the center of small-d democratic and small-r republican lawmaking, leaving lawmakers to flee in fear, killing police officers. This wasn’t just a disastrous defiling of the symbol of American democratic governance for all the world to see; it was a shiv in the side of the body politic and, we should all fear, the potential announcement of a new era in which peaceful transfers of power become relics of a naïve American past.

Whether the 2024 election results are decisive in state after state, as 2020’s were, or whether they are razor-thin and legitimately disputed as has happened from time to time, the resolution of disputes must not happen through rallies and mobs and public pressure campaigns.

We have rules on balloting and legal processes for recounts and courts where results can be challenged. We have the deeply imperfect Electoral College. Electors must echo the decision voters made, regardless of in what form legitimate votes are cast.

If it all breaks down, Congress has a role — but that role is carefully defined by law and must be exercised with great caution.

Jan. 6, 2021, exposed serious weaknesses in the process whereby the vice president, who could very well be a candidate himself (as Al Gore was in 2000 and 2001), formalizes the presidential election results. Some among the rabid horde that refused to accept the results called for the head of Mike Pence, who had the ceremonial role of certifying states’ Electoral College votes. Pence held firm and did his duty to the nation, its people and the Constitution. But the fissures were revealed nevertheless.

After staring over that precipice, Congress passed and President Biden signed the Electoral Count Reform Act, to clarify the role of the veep, raise the threshold for hearing congressional objections, ensure that there is one and only one conclusive slate of electors per state, and prescribe a speedy process for review of disputes by the courts.

And so, on paper, previous gaps and ambiguities in federal law and in the Constitution are now resolved. There’s little reason to believe Trump and his minions, who refuse to believe facts that undercut their worldviews, will respect even clear results or the clearly prescribed processes. But at least if and when they throw a tantrum, they can be treated like the children they are — and adults can go on to take the reins of power and govern the greatest and most powerful nation on Earth.

Pray that Trump isn’t the next president. Pray harder that whoever wins the election takes power peacefully a year from today.