In December of last year and January of this year (among others), I worried about what I called “The Coming Constitutional Crisis of 2024.” In particular, in January I wrote:
“If [Harris] spends the whole campaign talking about Trump being a threat to democracy, what happens if Trump wins the election? … If Trump is a clear winner and yet [Harris] has spent the whole campaign saying Trump is a threat to democracy, what will [Harris] do? More importantly, what will [Harris]’s supporters do? Will they have protest marches, and more, all over the country? Will more state and local prosecutors charge him with new crimes? Will the media constantly tell us that Trump’s presidency is illegitimate and talk about how dangerous he is to democracy, even though he won?”
Fortunately, it appears I got that wrong. Vice President Harris and President Biden have both accepted former President Trump’s victory. Of course, it helps that former President Trump’s victory was virtually a landslide, at least by current-day standards. Last time President Biden won Georgia by less than 12,000 votes, Arizona by less than 11,000 votes, and Pennsylvania by less than 20,000 votes. This time former President Trump won1 Georgia by more than 115,000 votes, Arizona by more than 150,000 votes, and Pennsylvania by more than 135,000 votes. That would have been hard to challenge.
But we will see what happens next. Will state and local prosecutors still try to charge President Trump? Will the mainstream media still print only what its readers want to read and broadcast only what its viewers want to watch; i.e., that Trump is illegitimate, as twice-impeached and a convicted felon, and a danger to democracy? We will see, but at least Donald Trump’s 2024-style landslide should get us relatively safely to January 20, 2025 (I hope).
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1 All of these numbers are so of the time I posted this.
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