Tuesday, November 10, 2020
Three key transition questions
It's clear that Joe Biden won this election-- a conclusion reached by all of the major news outlets and analysts, including Fox News. It's time to think about the transition of power. Here are three key questions.
1) Will Congressional Republicans accept the result?
It's not really in question whether or not President Trump will accept the results of the election-- he won't. He seems convinced that the fact that he lost is, in itself, proof that the election was illegitimate. Right now, many Republicans in Congress are taking Trump's line. They have every right to litigate the results, but that does not seem to be getting them very far. In the end, the key question will be whether they accept the reality of the results as they become clearer. If they do accept that reality, even as Trump resists it, there will be a schism in the party.
2). Will Biden be able to get his people in place?
Already, Biden has begun creating a kind of shadow government (as happens with every transition), most prominently by naming a high-powered task force to address the pandemic. That is going to drive Trump bananas, since he doesn't want to lose the headlines-- and he may react by trying to stop Biden from this kind of (totally appropriate) action. I'm not sure he will be able to do much about it, though.
3) How will crises be addressed?
We already have an ongoing crisis-- the pandemic. If another arises (say, a foreign power or terrorists threaten national security), we are going to be in a terrible position. The nation's leader is self-obsessed and feckless, and the president-elect has no governmental power right now. This has happened before. In 1860, James Buchanan was the lame duck president when South Carolina and six other states seceded from the union. His inaction accelerated the coming of the civil war and assured that war would not be averted.
What am I missing?
