Benjamin Wittes writes:

And so it has come to this: The president of the United States is trying to overturn the results of a national election he unambiguously lost with a combination of petulant whining, spiteful and flailing executive action, and magic.

No, it’s not ultimately going to work, at least not if working is defined as allowing President Trump to maintain power in the face of expressed voter will.

But it is working better than I would have believed possible: in undermining confidence in American democratic processes, in damaging President-elect Joe Biden’s ability to govern in the short term, and in raising questions in the minds of the faithful as to whether Trump’s defeat was real.

The president’s gambit starts with his refusal to concede an election that is significantly less close than the one he won four years ago and which he declared a “landslide.” There exists no law or rule that compels a president to acknowledge the legitimacy of his defeat—or even the fact of it—except in the very limited sense that he has to vacate the office. The attempt to continue occupying the White House after noon on Jan. 20, after all, would certainly constitute trespassing and might even constitute sedition to the extent it was intended illegally to hold power. (“If two or more persons … conspire to overthrow … the Government of the United States … or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof, they shall each be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both.”)

So yes, the president is allowed to sulk. He is allowed to be the sorest of sore losers. He is allowed to once again display before the entire world the complete triumph of ego over patriotism, of self-interestedness over public-spiritedness, within his heart. There is, actually, nothing to do about it if he wants to play it this way; there is no way to stop him. And in and of itself, it’s not even a particularly grave problem. It is certainly sad that the United States has a president who so completely fails the basic tests of honor and decency. It would be lovely to see him just once rise to some occasion, any occasion. But it’s hardly a surprise that he can’t or he won’t or he doesn’t want to. He is, after all, Donald Trump.

The bigger problem than the president’s refusal to concede the race is the toleration of that refusal by the overwhelming majority of congressional Republicans. Yes, a few senators—Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Mitt Romney and Ben Sasse—have congratulated Biden, and a few others have said that Biden should have access to transition resources and intelligence briefings.

But the Republican leadership in both houses of Congress have played along with the president’s obstinate refusal to face reality, pretending that there are still important questions about the integrity of the vote to litigate and resolve. [Continue reading…]