What Is Trump Accomplishing Right Now?

What Is Trump Accomplishing Right Now?

The president’s refusal to accept defeat won’t affect the outcome of the election. But it may do immense harm.

November 9, 2020, 9:55 PM GMT+9

It’s over, guys.

It’s over, guys. Photographer: Chris McGrath/Getty Images

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Let’s talk about the damage President Donald Trump is doing by failing to concede an election that he lost. To be clear: He lost. There’s no realistic chance that the outcome will change, and no serious analyst thinks that Trump’s lawsuits have any chance of succeeding. So this is purely, at this point, about waiting for the president to accept reality.

First: He’s threatening to derail the transition. Norm Ornstein has a good item on the potential ways that Trump could make things difficult over the next 10 weeks, but for now the biggest practical question is when the General Services Administration will officially turn President-elect Joe Biden’s transition team into the quasi-governmental organization that, by law, it becomes once the winner has been declared. This usually happens quickly; so far, GSA Administrator Emily Murphy hasn’t filed the necessary paperwork.

Second: He’s harming his own party. As long as Trump doesn’t concede his obvious defeat, high-profile Republicans are torn between loyalty to the president and loyalty to the nation. Former President George W. Bush and at least two senators, Mitt Romney and Lisa Murkowski, are among those who’ve congratulated Biden. But others are still holding off, presumably because they don’t want to be criticized for failing to go along with Trump’s pointless charade. I agree with Rick Hasen that this will likely resolve itself soon enough, with more and more Republicans accepting reality, and Trump eventually going quietly — whether he actually concedes defeat or not. In the meantime, though, Trump is creating fractures within his party for no good reason.

Third: He’s harming the nation. Trump’s fictional accusations of fraud, just like the similar claims he made after winning in 2016, are undermining faith in the democratic process and in legitimate electoral institutions. It’s hard to measure the effects, but it seems likely at this point that some part of the country will always falsely believe that Biden stole the presidency. Remember: If there was evidence for any of this, the Trump campaign would be spelling it out clearly. Instead, we get wild accusations from Trump and an unimpressive group of hangers-on, accusations that aren’t backed up by the nuisance lawsuits that the campaign is bringing to court.

This is all completely unnecessary. If Trump simply said that he owed it to his voters to fight hard as long as any possibility of a reversal still existed, the damage would be minimal and he would still be protecting his rights. John Kerry made the nation wait an extra 12 hours or so in 2004, and no one held it against him. Losing campaigns in any remotely close race are able to send out teams of experts and lawyers to make sure nothing was overlooked. And they can do so even after the candidate has conceded, given that such statements don’t actually carry any legal weight. Indeed, President Richard Nixon still receives occasional praise for handling the close 1960 presidential election in exactly this way: He conceded, and then continued to fight it out in court. I’m not sure how much of that praise is really warranted, but it sure beats what Trump is doing.

To contact the author of this story:

Jonathan Bernstein at jbernstein62@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story:

Timothy Lavin at tlavin1@bloomberg.net