This concludes phase one of the election

Joe Biden has been declared the winner of the US presidential election by several major news outlets. In a normal election year, with a ‘normal’ candidate, we’d be seeing a concession speech now. This is not a normal year, and we do not have a ‘normal’ candidate. Instead, we got this.

That Trump would not bow out gracefully seemed assured. But could he do anything to disrupt our system of governance? Was the system water-tight, or would it be possible for Trump to pervert it by getting people to step out of line?

That question was asked this past summer as Beltway insiders got together to run a war game around the upcoming election. Rosa Brooks, a Georgetown law professor, brought together a group that took on different roles related to the election. The Biden and Trump camps, the media, and others were represented by participants who tried to assume the interests of those groups and react appropriately to unfolding scenarios. The facilitators would set the stage, and then each team would take turns reacting. Team Trump’s actions would be responded to by the Biden team and so on.

They ran four different scenarios that included clear wins for Trump and Biden, a squeaker for Biden, and an ambiguous outcome. Brooks shared the outcome of those efforts, “In each of the games, things got worse than we expected faster than we expected. And the mood kind of shifted to a little bit shocked, and in all of the games, we kind of called them early.”

The whole episode is well worth a listen, but if you’re pressed for time, there’s a specific piece about the possibility where Trump could create a constitutional crisis that starts at 18:02. What they realized was that Trump might get a state to send two sets of electors to vote in the electoral college. (One set for Joe based on the state’s voting outcome. Another for Trump based on… well, let’s assume they’d come up with something about mail-in ballots.)

Given the state of the Supreme Court, anything they’re handed offers an opportunity to pervert democracy. I think it’s best not to let it get there. From the start, I’ve assumed either the military or the people would have to tamp down Trump’s hopes of stealing the election. Now, I think it’s down to the people as we need him to concede before the electoral college votes to avoid any such nonsense.

Right on queue, a crowd is building outside the Whitehouse. Here’s hoping it remains peaceful and grows continually. If so, the president should eventually come to accept that, given the opportunity to retain his services for another four years, the American electorate chose to look into the camera and say, “You’re fired.”

Update:

Every major network getting on board should help build the case for ending the nightmare.