Democrats should understand that this 2020 presidential election is extraordinary in that it requires that they win two battles.
They need to fight the usual battle to get the votes at the ballot box and in the Electoral College.
Winning that one is usually enough, and the present polling suggests that the Democrats are poised to win a free and fair election. Come Election Day, it seems highly probable that a substantial majority of Americans will want Trump out of the White House and the powers of the presidency transferred to a decent, competent, caring man, Joe Biden.
Trump’s utter botch of the pandemic has him sinking in the polls, and all evidence is that Trump will not change course but rather insist on doubling down on an approach the great majority of Americans disapprove of. (Death and Depression evidently were a bridge too far for a lot of Americans who seemed untroubled by the criminality, corruption, and assault on the Constitution we’ve been witnessing for three and a half years.)
But there’s strong reason to believe that winning the usual battle will not be enough.
In addition to winning a free and fair election, this year -- in an unprecedented way – the Democrats also must battle to assure that there will be the usual mostly “free and fair”American election, in which the will of the people is expressed and the results are respected.
It’s obvious what’s different about this election:
- Never have we had a President who seems less willing to accept defeat, and less respectful of the American tradition.
- Never had we had a President who has shown so clearly that he’s willing to cross any line he thinks he can get away with.
- Never have we had a President signal as Trump already has been doing for several months, that he’s laying the foundation for stealing this election or for denouncing the election as illegitimate if he loses.
(Trump’s niece has told us that Trump has practiced “Cheating as a Way of Life.” We’ve seen plenty enough to believe her.)
This second battle -- to protect the integrity of the election -- should be joined with all appropriate force without delay.
Democrats should be anticipating all the ways Trump might cheat and taking all possible steps prevent Trump’s succeeding.
These possible steps include
- organizing and preparing to block any moves to distort or corrupt or overturn the election (or use it to launch an insurrection—remember, Trump has shown no limit to how far he’ll go if he thinks he can get away with it.); and
- messaging the public to make the people more resistant to Trump’s lies and seductions.
At the heart of the messaging should be this: everything that Trump says or does that points toward cheating should be presented under the explicit banner of “concern about Trump’s cheating and lying in the election.” The campaign should continually put the relevant pieces together under that rubric, so that people will be prepared to see Trump’s actions and hear Trump’s accusations as those of a cheater and a liar.
Paint the general picture by putting together such pieces as
- Voter suppression
- Refusal to support sensible plans to protect voters during a dangerous pandemic
- Deception about voter non-existent voter fraud, and about voting-by-mail
- Failure to protect the election against Russian meddling on his behalf
- Whatever else he might come up with.
Every such move should be pounced upon, to punish Trump’s attacks on the integrity of our election by exposing them.
(E.g. when Trump recently refused to say that he’s accept the outcome if he loses, that was way outside the norms of American democracy, Democrats should loudly point out how Trump is preparing to cheat. People can be reminded about the accusations of “rigging” he trotted out – completely unfounded -- the last time he thought he’d lose, in 2016. “Don’t believe his lies!”)
Deter Trump from attacking the election, by making it clear that he would not get away with it.
Block Trump from sabotaging the election in every way he tries. And
Punish Trump for every form of cheating and lying, to subvert the election, by exposing him as a cheater and a liar whom the American people must reject.
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Postscript:
After I wrote this piece yesterday, I heard a political observer I respect – MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell – talk about the issue of whether Trump would “accept” the results of the election if he lost as if Trump’s acceptance or rejection were irrelevant, as if it can simply be taken for granted that the matter will be out of his hands. Speaker Pelosi spoke with similar confidence about the strength of the American system for the transfer of power rendering the attitudes and actions of the defeated incumbent irrelevant: “It has nothing to do with if the certain occupant of the White House doesn't feel like moving and has to be fumigated out of there because the presidency is the presidency,” Pelosi said.
I hope that they are right. I might even be willing to bet that they are right. But I think it would be folly to assume that they are right.
Just look at all the ways that Trump – with his sociopathic lawlessness – has already defeated the forces of “the rule of law.” E.g. escaping from the Mueller investigation, which exposed “multiple felonies.” And being “acquitted” in his Impeachment trial, despite the grave “high crimes” that had been well proven.
Proceeding with any degree of complacency that winning just the usual battle, with no need to win also the unprecedented battle seems to me a dangerous course to take in view of all the things of an unprecedented nature that have already come to pass with this President.
When we consider
- all the unthinkable things that Trump and his unprincipled chief law enforcement officer – AG Barr – have already conspired to do; and consider also
- what we have just seen with Trump’s dispatching a force of storm troopers to Portland, Oregon, purely in pursuit of Trump’s own quest for political advantage;
I think it prudent to prepare for the worst, even while hoping for the best.