Monday 16 November 2020

peaceful transition of power

Though there’s no strategy to Trump’s fractious and recalcitrant behaviour other than keeping all options on the table for himself and not committing to any one course of action until all are exhausted—except perhaps resigning at 11:00 on Wednesday, 20 January so his viceroy can take office and pre-emptively pardon Trump from federal prosecution (I remember it being suggested that President Obama do something similar to spoil all of Trump’s tacky 45 election merch) and Joe Biden will naturally be a quick study for taking high office, there are nonetheless negative and deadly consequences for postponing the changeover for Biden and Harris. The chaos can potentially derail efforts to redress the pandemic response not (just) through wilful undermining and sabotage but as inauguration day approaches, with the team already behind the curve, there is a time crunch and decision that perhaps need to be weighted and considered more carefully become rushed under pressure and studies that should be taken into account on downstream effects are perhaps not read. It’s impossible to reframe the past on hindsight and whilst there’s not a definitive connection, we only need to look back to the last contested election of 2000 where the delay of declaring the next president could have led gaps in intelligence gathering and security that yielded the 9/11 terror attacks—the character of America changed over one missed report. With pettiness and malice added to the mix, there seems to be catastrophic potential in the deadlines and breach from the regularly scheduled process.