Time magazine’s headline declares, “As Donald Trump Refuses to Concede, America Is Caught Between Crisis and Confusion.”
Are we? I’m not saying this current moment is great. The president is suggesting a vast conspiracy in the use of voting software, tweeting that “DOMINION DELETED 2.7 MILLION TRUMP VOTES NATIONWIDE. DATA ANALYSIS FINDS 221,000 PENNSYLVANIA VOTES SWITCHED FROM PRESIDENT TRUMP TO BIDEN. 941,000 TRUMP VOTES DELETED.”
Joe Biden cannot get his full PDB security briefings, although Senator James Lankford (R., Okla.) is pushing for the briefings to begin.
The General Services Administration has yet to approve providing the incoming Biden team with millions of dollars in funds, suites of federal offices, and temporary security clearances to handle classified information.
But Biden and his team are moving ahead with his transition as best as they can, naming a chief of staff in Ron Klain and a lot of people to “agency review teams,” and continuing to hold meetings that likely involve sorting through his options for cabinet posts. Biden said Tuesday at a news conference in Wilmington, Del., that his team could manage without the GSA resources, and he said he wasn’t planning to take legal action to try to force the Trump administration to identify him as the winner of the election.
If Biden doesn’t seem all that worried about the slow pace of the transition, it’s not clear why anyone else should be. Yes, it would be better if Trump stopped spinning conspiracy theories and hosted the traditional post-election White House meeting. But Biden’s spent plenty of time in the White House before; he doesn’t need a tour.
Five paragraphs in, the Time article notes that “none of Trump’s actions to date violate the laws that control certification of election victory and the transfer of executive authority.” When Trump and his team start violating the law, then it becomes a crisis.
Remember, the big swing states where the Trump campaign is contesting results certify their tallies between November 20 and December 1. The Electoral College meets December 14.
Trump’s echo of the old Diebold conspiracy theories is annoying and frustrating, but it’s not a crisis and it’s not really confusing, either. It’s par for the course with this guy.