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(This story was published on 5 November 2020 and is being republished in light of the presidential race being called in favour of Democrat Joe Biden on 7 November.)
Let’s assume Joe Biden narrowly wins the electoral college, and the Trump team lodges a series of court challenges to overturn results in Michigan and Pennsylvania, possibly elsewhere.
The cases may drag on for the rest of the year.
The cases will revolve around the acceptance of late ballots – that is, votes that arrive after last Tuesday, November 3, even if they are postmarked earlier. Each state has its own requirements for accepting mail-in votes, and the Trump lawyers will explore every possible objection.
There is a conservative majority on the US Supreme Court, but this does not guarantee Trump would win appeals. When the court last decided an election, after the “hanging chads” dispute that delivered Florida to George W. Bush in 2000, it divided on partisan lines.
But judges are conscious of their historical legacy and they will act cautiously. If Trump is appealing results in several states, it is unlikely all appeals will succeed.
So let’s assume that, after a month of disputed returns, Biden is able to muster the bare minimum of 270 electoral college votes and Congress ratifies his election in January. On 20 January 2021 he would become the 46th president of the United States.
At this point, we need speculative fiction rather than political science to predict what might happen next. If congressional Republicans adopt a policy of total resistance to the Biden presidency, he will struggle even to appoint a cabinet, as all positions need to be ratified by the Senate.
Biden’s central pitch was that he could heal divisions and bring Americans together again. It was his persona as a political veteran who had the capacity for empathy and working across party lines that persuaded the Democrats to rally behind him.
On ABC television, Leigh Sales expressed her amazement that in a country torn apart by a major epidemic, economic distress and racial discord, the incumbent president could remain seriously competitive. The Democrats had assumed the impressive increase in turnout would work in their favour and they won swings in some areas of the country, especially in suburbia.
In retrospect, the Democrats badly misjudged the mood of the country, thinking people would vote for a grandfather figure who promised safety. Against Trump, Biden seemed doddery and a relic of Washington politics, even though he is only four years older.
Trump appears an aberration to those of us who expect politicians to exhibit a certain degree of civility and a willingness to compromise. But the past decade has seen the rise of macho autocrats, men such as Duterte in the Philippines, Bolsonaro in Brazil, Orban in Hungary.
If we accept the United States is less exceptional than it likes to believe, it is not so surprising that so many might be drawn to Trump.
(This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same. This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article here)
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Published: 05 Nov 2020,01:39 PM IST