These ideas (and the additional ideas of the subsequent piece --see below) have been forwarded — by a well-positioned and outstanding member of Congress — to the Biden circle with the thought that they may them to be useful.
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If I were advising Joe Biden on this eve of the Election, I would say:
“In the most likely scenario, you will become President-Elect and will immediately face what needs to be considered the first crisis of your Presidency. Your opponent will be attacking our constitutional order, and you will be the one and only person who can provide the leadership the nation will need.
“So you need to prepare yourself to play the needed leadership role. How well you play it will go a long way not only to making sure the Constitution is protected, and the will of the people respected. But will also go a long way to establishing your standing with the American people as the nation’s leader.
“And the role you need to prepare for can rightly be regarded as the ‘commander-in-chief’ – because what is likely coming is a battle.”
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The apparently likely scenario is that 1) Joe Biden will win a legitimate Election, and that 2) Donald Trump will take illegitimate actions to sabotage (with an intent to overturn) that Election.
It remains unclear how serious a threat Trump and his accomplices will be able to pose to the constitutionally legitimate election. As many observe, it will depend on
- how decisive Biden’s victory is; and will also depend on
- how willing others in the Republican world are to be accomplices to a President behaving in a manner never before seen from any previous loser in a Presidential election.
But it is widely expected – based on all the ways Trump has already tried to cheat – that Trump himself will be unrestrained in his efforts to avoid having to concede defeat.
If Trump’s attacks on the constitutional order are easily beaten back – e.g. in the wake of a landslide Biden victory – then Biden may not be compelled to involve himself in that battle.
If, however, in Trump’s determination to hold onto power, he is able to mount a truly serious assault on the legitimate Election, it will fall to President-Elect Biden to step forward to lead the nation against the lawless incumbent President.
(This will be the same battle “for the Soul of America” Biden has talked about, the same battle to preserve the democratic heritage our founders gave us against the force of corrupt and lawless authoritarianism.)
“Mr. Biden,” I’d say to him, “if the battle proves serious, you – as America’s legitimate President Elect -- will be the only person in a position to lead into battle that American majority that will have elected you.
“In this likely scenario, you would not get to play the normal role of President-Elect— i.e. the normal process of Presidential Transition. Unlike in every previous American election, where the winner has been able to retreat considerably from the public stage – between Election Day and Inauguration Day – to assemble his new Administration, you will have to assume the role of “commander-in-chief” in a battle that has been forced upon you.
“When the President himself is the threat to the Constitution, the nation will need someone else to play the leadership role to ‘protect and defend’ that Constitution ‘against enemies domestic and foreign.’ And you are the only one in a position to provide that leadership (fulfilling, in a way you’ve never had to before, that oath you’ve taken countless times – as a Senator, and as Vice-President.)
“So it is time now to prepare, to consider how that vital leadership role should best be played.
“Your playing that role the right way is important both
- to protect the Constitution, and
- to launch your leadership of the nation in a way that will strengthen you for all the other ways you will want to lead the nation when you’ve become President.
“Show the requisite strength, determination, good judgment, and character now, and the battle will fortify you for all that is to come.
(Fall short in any of those ways and, even if your victory ultimately prevails against Trump’s assault, your standing with the people will be diminished from what it could and should have been.)
“That’s why it’s important to think through how best to play that role.”
In a subsequent piece, I will offer my thoughts on that best way to play that role. A preliminary draft of that piece — “How Biden Should Play His Leadership Role in the Face of the Likely Lawlessness of the Incumbent” — can be seen now here.