Dismissing norms

The clip below is from a new WSJ article covering a report from US election observers.

The report discusses the importance of having the right to contest election outcomes before stating that candidates need to “act responsibly by presenting and arguing legitimate claims before the courts, not unsubstantiated or harmful speculation in the public media.”

This sounds good, but I’m not getting the warm fuzzy others are. While it’s great to see observers state that the elections were clean, I don’t think the ‘outgoing’ administration cares much about that or that their allegations are being called baseless. I think they only really care about things like outcomes and power.

First as absurdity

While I was drafting this post, I ran across the following tweet, which points out the incoherent call from Errol Webber (a California Republican candidate for the House of Representatives) to audit the vote.

Here’s the state of that race as of 8 am ET, November 10, 2020.

Given that 91% of the votes have been tabulated, there are roughly another 28k to go. If all of those went to Webber, he’d be approaching 68k votes, which would still be less than 22% of the total. In the absence of evidence of massive voter fraud, this seems to be the sort of utter nonsense that’s becoming a feature of our political system.

Whether it ends in January or finds a way to hang on, the Trump administration’s willingness to violate long-standing norms has fostered serious challenges. A political system is not just a matter of rules and bodies. It is also the things we agree to and not to do. As we’re seeing, when such norms are lost, things get less predictable. Where it will lead us is anyone’s guess.

Check out my book, Pandemic Capitalism.