A nightmare scenario

People are finally paying attention to the rise of authoritarianism here in the US. They are right to be concerned.

Scholars have seen worrisome signs. President Trump has dismissed nonpartisan career officials and replaced them with loyalists. He has fired independent inspectors general. He has denied Congress’s right and duty to investigate members of the Executive Branch. He has used the Department of Homeland Security and other law enforcement officers of the Executive Branch as a private army. He has packed the courts. He has used the government to advance the interests of himself and his family, some of whom he has installed into government positions. He has solicited help from foreign governments to get reelected. And he and his allies are trying to undermine our election by preemptively saying the Democrats are committing fraud. They are also slowing down mail service when voters need to be able to mail in their ballots.

Democracy is a fragile concept. Our democratic governance is not set in stone. Yes, we have laws and the Constitution, but many acts of governing are based on informal rules or norms and the goodwill of reasonable people. This election cycle will test that good will in terms of a central democratic tenet – the peaceful transition of power. The question looms: will President Trump accept the results of the 2020 election? Right now there is plenty of evidence that he may not.

President Trump trails Vice President Biden by about 8 points according to the website FiveThirtyEight average of polls. He trails by more than five points in Michigan and Wisconsin, two States central to his 2016 victory. He also trails in Florida and Pennsylvania, although he is within the margin of error in those states. In response, the President is not trying to expand his base. Instead, he is discrediting the 2020 election, dividing the country, and telling voters that mail-in voting will result in voter fraud. In other words the election will be rigged and therefore illegitimate.

Several months ago the Transition Integrity Project set out to build a series of war games to play out the November election. They recruited accomplished Republicans and Democrats, media experts, pollsters, and strategists. Each was assigned to “Team Trump” or “Team Biden” and asked to “game out” a range of transition and election strategies.

Four scenarios were presented: 1) a narrow Biden win, 2) a big Biden win, 3) a Trump win in the Electoral College accompanied by a popular vote loss and, 4) an uncertain election outcome. With the exception of #2, the exercises resulted in catastrophe with violence in the streets and a Constitutional crisis. Team Trump’s tactics were ruthless and often unconstitutional. They repeated unsubstantiated

claims of mail-in ballot fraud and barely disguised their call for violence against Biden supporters. They also intimidated mid-western states to authorize rival Electoral College electors even when voters had selected Biden.

Team Biden also encouraged supporters to take to the streets, but they urged protesters to be peaceful. However, desperate Democrats, stunned by another election where the winner loses the popular vote, also urged states to send alternative slates of electors to Congress for the Presidential vote. They even floated the idea of a California secessionist movement unless Republicans would agree to statehood for Puerto Rico and Washington, DC.

Neither the Legislative nor the Judicial branch was effective in resolving the crisis. The Legislative Branch was gridlocked as Democrats and Republicans could not agree on how to proceed. Both parties appealed to the courts, but the judicial system avoided rendering decisions that seemed political rather than judicial in nature. Also, there was no guarantee that either side would even accept a ruling from the Supreme Court.

Team Trump denied the legitimacy of the election from the start. Under their strategy the President had to be forcefully ejected from the White House on January 20th. Before that ejection the President pardoned himself and family members and burned incriminating documents.

Is this nightmare scenario we can expect? Not necessarily. There are preventive measures we can implement. State and Federal officials should commit to protecting the integrity of the electoral process by developing detailed and accurate information about voting, including mail-in voting. States should establish in advance, on a bipartisan basis, standards for adjudicating competing claims about how to allocate electoral votes.

The military and law enforcement officers should prepare for the possibility that politicians will seek to use their powers against their opponents. To avoid being put in that position, law enforcement and military leaders should decide in advance what they will and will not do.

We need to do everything in our power to avoid this nightmare scenario. This is where ordinary people can play a crucial role. Massive, non-violent demonstrations to save our democracy and the rule of law could have an enormous influence. These demonstrations would need to be nonpartisan and may be our best hope of retaining our democratic system.

For over 200 years our country has experienced a peaceful transition of power. That is what separates us from totalitarian regimes. In 1858, Abraham Lincoln spoke near the beginning of the civil war, and noted that Americans who disagreed on almost everything else could still agree to defend their country. We just may need to do that to save our democracy.

R. Tom Deloe is a Cumberland Township resident.