“Not one of the many people who have failed to win the presidency, even in contests with narrow vote margins or legitimate concerns about the process, has challenged the results through to inauguration.”
– David Priess, Chief Operating Officer of the Lawfare Institute
Neither the Constitution nor federal law requires losing candidates to concede presidential elections. But, President Donald Trump has shown no indication of conceding the election. And, he's not getting much GOP pressure, either.
"Let's not have any lectures about how the president should immediately, cheerfully accept preliminary election results from the same characters who just spent four years refusing to accept the validity of the last election," Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said Monday.
(David Priess. “Trump won't concede the 2020 election to Biden. Here's why that matters.” NBC News. November 10, 2020.)
Trumpworld is keeping score on Republicans. Donald Trump Jr. decried the "total lack of action from virtually all of the '2024 GOP hopefuls' in backing up the president."
"They have a perfect platform to show that they're willing & able to fight but they will cower to the media mob instead," the younger Trump tweeted.
(Nick Niedwiadek. “Here's what Republicans have said so far about Trump's refusal to concede.” Politico. November 09, 2020.)
So, why is a concession important? Two reasons …
A concession begins a smooth transition of power across the executive branch, and
A concession makes it clear that losing candidates won't encourage their followers to seek to achieve through violence what they couldn't achieve at the polls.
Presidential historian Robert Dallek told the Los Angeles Times that these concession speeches “demonstrate a continuing commitment to peaceful transitions of power.” He added that they also send an important “signal to supporters that they need to join the defeated candidate in accepting the loss.”
“The whole campaign is a formalized warfare,” Paul Corcoran, a political theorist who studies U.S. presidential campaigns, told NPR. “The more I looked at the concession speech, the more I realized that (it serves) an important political function. There needs to be a ceremonial recognition of an end.” Its ultimate purpose, he added, isn’t about losing candidates accepting their fate but about bridging divides so that their supporters will accept it.
Here is the accepted formula for such a speech:
A call for unity,
A re-commitment to democracy, and
A vow to continue the fight for their own causes.
All of this logic has evaded the 45th president. He still insists he won, and to the man, his winning is everything. Autocrats will distort the system as far as necessary to stay in power. Jane Mayer, New Yorker chief Washington correspondent, says, “Usually, it means warping democracy before they get to where Trump is now. For an entrenched autocrat, an election is mere theater.”
(Jane Mayer. “Why Trump Can’t Afford to Lose.” The New Yorker. November 01, 2020.)
Trump told Fox News anchor Chris Wallace in July, “I’m not a good loser. I don’t like to lose.” Trump's refusal to concede is not about a fair election – it is about him winning, no matter the will of the country.
On election night, Trump contended he had won long before enough votes were totaled to declare victory. His remarks came as contests in battlegrounds across the nation remained too close to call, with tens of thousands of mail-in ballots left to be tallied.
Trump’s complaints continued into later Wednesday morning, when he tweeted that he was “leading, often solidly, in many key States, in almost all instances Democrat run & controlled.” But “one by one, they started to magically disappear as surprise ballot dumps were counted,” he wrote in a message that was flagged by Twitter for potentially sharing election-related misinformation
Trump has repeatedly vented outrage over the expansion of mail-in voting amid the coronavirus pandemic and warned of efforts to “steal” the race from him. He created the myth of victory in a Lost Cause of power, control and White nationalism.
A Trump On Trump
Mary Trump, the president's niece, described Donald's loss to Joe Biden as "poetic justice" and added that she was concerned about how the remainder of Trump's lame-duck presidency would play out (amid his long-shot legal challenges in various states where he was defeated).
Mary said, "Oh, he's in an uncontrollable rage, I would imagine,"
She continued: "This is what Donald’s going to do: he’s not going to concede, although who cares. What’s worse is he’s not going to engage in the normal activities that guarantee a peaceful transition. All he’s got now is breaking stuff, and he’s going to do that with a vengeance."
(Virginia Chamlee. “The President's Kids Support Him in Election Fight as Niece Mary Says He Won’t Concede. People. November 09, 2020
A simple belief had propelled Trump throughout his life: Human beings are weak. They can be cowed, corrupted, and crushed. Trump learned how to exploit human beings. It continues to do so … even in his last days in the White House.
“Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.”
– Proverbs 16:18
Trump's downfall? How ironic – he must now accept the will of the very majority he believes he had under his heal. The election proved the people have discovered that Trump believes, in relation to all things, if they are not about him, they are useless. History means nothing to him, and the future means even less.
Donald Trump is the loudest, brashest voice of self-proclaimed authority. That “voice” is not about truth, as much as power. A pathological liar with strong authoritarian tendencies, Trump, in defeat, is a great burden on democracy.
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