Interregnum
It is often said that the most dangerous time in any country is that time in between one governing reign and another. The same is said of wars, that the times just before and just after the formal cessation of hostilities is actually the time when there is more risk afoot for the general population. Things and, indeed, people get lost in the transition, things fall between the cracks (does that really make sense or do things fall into the cracks?), mind the gap and all of that. The most significant interregnum in our system occurs in between presidential administrations. Usually that happens only every eight years, but as in the 2020/2021 handover from Trump to Biden, it can as frequent as every four years. Between Election Day 2024 (November 5th) and Installation Day (January 20th) we have a period of 75 days to manage.
We are all well aware how difficult that transition period can be as we witnessed in the violence of January 6th and the attack on the U.S. Capital by the MAGA Republican crowds. Assuming that we have a reasonable amount of clarity as to the outcome of the election on the evening of Election Day or the following morning, we have the several weeks of certification which must occur in each state and then be accepted by Congress. We’ve also seen how disrupted that process can get in the face of flagrant attempts to impede the peaceful transfer of power.
I think it is important for us all to think a bit about what the scenario for this next interregnum will look like regardless of who is declared the winner of the election. It goes without saying that there will be significant contestation probably in both directions and that will be especially so if the results are close, which is the most likely scenario. While most of us are generally of the opinion that Biden knows how to be an appropriate good loser if he is on the short end of the stick (God forbid!), it is not just the scenario of Trump losing in a close race and seeing a repeat of January 6th play out again that is troubling. I think it is fair to say that there are more, and not less, election deniers in Congress than there were in 2020 and we do have that whole numbing process that we have all gone through expecting the worst from everyone on the political spectrum.
I heard something the other night that greatly troubled me and that was that a MAGA-controlled House of Representatives and a MAGA Speaker of the House could very well derail the attempt to properly and clearly certify the election as it has been since the founding of the Republic. One might argue that in that moment, the members of Congress that have found it necessary to be beholding to and cower in front of Donald Trump might finally feel that they are free of that albatross, but that didn’t happen for long in 2021 and it may not happen again quite so easily. There are glimmers of hope such as the rejection of the Marjorie Taylor Greene motion to vacate the speakership, an overwhelming bipartisan vote that took place just today and seems to mark a potential first step in the rejection of what we can call the MAGA chaos we have lived with in that body of Congress for most of two years.
In the same way that Republicans this time control the House, at least Democrats this time control the Senate and Biden is already seated as President versus needing to be seated through the ratification and swearing in process. But the other very big issue we are confronted with and should expect to hear a lot more about are the three court cases, two of which are Federal, which will be on some form of pause waiting for the election results. We all know that Trump has pushed for these delays in the hope and expectation that winning and retaking the White House would allow him to absolve himself of these woes by having his Department of Justice quash the two cases and then bringing whatever force was needed through the Republican controlled Georgia state legislature to quash the Fulton County case. But once the election results are in and during the interregnum of 75 days, what exactly can and should happen to those cases? I have yet to hear that issue addressed on MSNBC, probably because no one on the liberal side can fathom a Trump win. But I truly wonder if in that eventuality it wouldn’t be more necessary than ever that the cases we allowed to proceed at pace so that we as a country could determine if a man who might be multiply convicted felon at both the state and federal level should be allowed to be installed in the office.
I am convinced that some people who reflect the view that the electorate and not the judicial process should decide Trump’s fate, might join the liberal left in saying that a proper adjudication is still appropriate and could be had by using the 75 day interregnum on an expedited basis. Both the January 6th case and the documents case are serious enough and go directly to executive abuse of power and dereliction of duty that a real threat of leaving such a question open about someone destined to occupy the office for four years in an extremely turbulent time in geopolitical terms is very troubling…even to Republicans with some semblance of sense. Perhaps like knocking down MTG on her motion to vacate and spawn more Congressional chaos, the Republican caucus that has survived Trump’s withering glare pre-election, might get a backbone and realize that they, their constituents and the country would be better off without Trump. We all know that will happen eventually, the question is when will they make their move back into the light.
And of course while Democrats may not support any attempts to hold power illegally like Trump and Republicans tried to do in late 2020 and early 2021, they may not be above throwing a monkey wrench into the situation by forcing the judicial process while they are in command of the DOJ in an attempt to at least unseat Trump, even if another Republican (presumably whomever Trump chooses as his running mate) is left to ascend to the presidency. Think of it as saying that the transfer of power and electoral integrity must be upheld, but so must the rule of law and Trump has been a flagrant abuser of that rule of law and must be disqualified through some means.
I am certain that more people will find such arguments too hard to agree to as possibilities, but I ask the rhetorical question about what will the level-headed people among us do with the prospect of Trump and his boldly stated 2025 plan and stated vendettas looming on the horizon and the potential end of democracy in the balance? We are living in unprecedented times and old norms and rules have been so shredded by that point that I think there is a great deal of openness to many options for a world literally gone mad.
I was among those in late 2016 who said that it was a Chicken Little reaction to say that the sky was falling because he was elected. Eight years later and fully apprised of what Trump did do, what he continues to do and what he says very clearly that he will do, I believe that many of us faced with another potential Trump term will see the sky as falling and that dramatic and unprecedented steps, hopefully more within the confines of the Constitution and rule of law than not, will be justified in service of our democracy and some semblance of sanity. So, gird your loins for the interregnum ride of our lives.