The Peaceful Transition of Power: The Next Political Norm to Crumble?

In this era of crumbling norms, there’s one long-standing political norm we haven’t talked much about — the peaceful transition of power. I think the chances are low that this norm will erode in the coming years, but I also think the likelihood is greater than zero. I’m 50 years old. Never in my life, before this point, did I ever even entertain the possibility that the US would fail to have a peaceful transfer of power after an election. I don’t think that’s a sign of my naivete, I think it’s a sign of how quickly the GOP’s complicity with Trump has eroded that party’s commitment to basic, democratic norms.

The nation’s first test of this norm came with Washington’s retirement. Many wondered whether the popular General would relinquish power voluntarily. World history would suggest it was not likely. Remember, there were no Presidential term limits in the original Constitution. As Gary Wills argues in this classic book on Washington, one of GW’s virtues as a leader was his willingness to step down from power voluntarily, to retire from the public arena (like Cincinnatus) and return to private life.

Fast forward to the present. How likely do you think Donald Trump is to accept an involuntary removal from power, either through losing an election or removal from office via impeachment? [The latter is a highly unlikely event, IMHO, just to be clear.]

I don’t know the answer to that question, but his past track record is not encouraging. When is the last time you heard Trump gracefully acknowledge defeat in anything? What have we seen in his character that would suggest he’d resist the temptation to use the substantial powers at his disposal to try to remain in power?

Remember all of Trump’s talk in October 2016 about the election being rigged? We’ll never know if he would have followed through, but that talk was laying the groundwork for challenging the outcome of the election if he had lost. Meanwhile, Trump surrogates like Roger Stone and InfoWars are already prepping folks to expect that the 2018 or 2020 elections will be “stolen.” Just imagine the outraged FoxNews reports about voter fraud should Democratic turnout spike. Might Trump support calls to nullify a blue wave election?

I have little doubt that Trump will be a sore, resentful loser should the midterms turn out badly for him. I also am sure he will test the waters to see if people will buy the line that voter fraud (remember his claims of “3 million illegal votes?”) renders the results suspect.

This is where the role of GOP leaders becomes important. Just as Washington’s willingness to step down from power was essential to the peaceful transition of power, so is a party’s willingness to put country over party when they lose elections. Given the recent behavior of GOP leaders — like the 7 who celebrated July 4 in Moscow this year, or the people like Jordan and Nunes and Goodlatte and Gowdy, eager to undermine the FBI and CIA in order to protect Trump from investigation — it appears as if the GOP’s “country over party” muscles have atrophied a bit.

Even more worrisome, many GOP leaders have adopted the habit of referring to their critics in the press and political opponents as “enemies of the people.” Much of this is rhetorical hyperbole, sure, but it’s still a powerful and potentially volatile charge. For when you think of your party as equivalent to the country (what Sarah Palin called “the pro-America parts of America”), then there’s no such thing as putting country over party. If you believe that YOUR party is the only “real” party, and that the other party is comprised of “enemies of the people,” then your obvious duty, in case of the other party taking power, is to prevent, by any means necessary, the ascendancy of those “enemies of the people.”

If you spend just a few minutes watching NRA-TV or any other extremist, pro-2nd Amendment media outlet, you’ll see why such talk is pretty frightening. Alex Jones frequently invokes a “second American Revolution.” There are right wing militias drilling at this very moment.

This is all frightening, but I’m not all THAT worried. Right wing militias have been around for decades. They’ve done much harm (think McVeigh), but violent nullification of a national election is another order of magnitude altogether. And bitter partisan fighting (including apocalyptic rhetoric) has marked several elections — google “election of 1800” or watch the ads from 1964 or ’72. The nation has passed through many highly-charged political moments without failing to transfer power peacefully.

That said, we know that one of Putin’s primary geo-political goals is to undermine the standing of liberal democracies around the world, primarily through disinformation campaigns that raise doubts about the legitimacy of elections. We now know Russia staged such an attack on our 2016 election, and will likely do so again. We also know that the head of the GOP and a good number of its members of Congress seem singularly unconcerned about this.

So if we can’t trust Trump to be Cincinnatus, and we can’t trust the GOP to put country over party, how do we think they’d respond should either the 2018 or 2020 election sweep them out of power? I still think the “peaceful transfer of power” norm will hold. Recent performance, however, would suggest that we have some reason to be concerned.