If you can’t think of anything worse than the other side winning, imagine this
Far from it.
Rather, we write jointly because we would like to continue to disagree the way we have in the past, the way Americans generally have in the past. That is: within a political system in which winners of elections get to execute their policies for a prescribed period, so long as those policies conform to the law. Within a system in which winners of elections do not face the threat of societal and political paralysis as they attempt to govern.
Our system can accommodate even ill feeling, and it has. Our second president, John Adams, famously left Washington in 1801 before Thomas Jefferson was sworn in as the third. Closer to our own time, although Herbert Hoover attended Franklin D. Roosevelt’s inauguration in 1933, their mutual dislike had hardened so much that few if any words were spoken between the two men during the ceremonial ride to the Capitol.
The critical point is that Adams and Hoover accepted the outcome of the elections they lost. In Adams’s case, enmity turned to friendship: Adams and Jefferson later grew so close that as Adams lay on his deathbed on July 4, 1826, ignorant of Jefferson’s death on the very same day five hours earlier, he comforted himself with the words, “Thomas Jefferson survives.” By contrast, Hoover and Roosevelt never repaired their relationship. No matter. Good feeling between political adversaries isn’t necessary to permit our system to function; acceptance of results is.
The most devastating event in our history came from a refusal to accept the election results in 1860. Abraham Lincoln’s plaintive plea in his inaugural speech — “We are not enemies. … We must not be enemies.” — went unheeded; 11 states refused to accept Lincoln’s election and formed the Confederacy. The result was the Civil War. That the United States survived the enormous death toll — 750,000 lives lost — and the attendant destruction, and even prospered eventually, is no recommendation that we pursue this disastrous course.
We do not mean to suggest that the extreme rhetoric that characterizes today’s political divide risks the trauma and destruction that would result from another Civil War. However, neither do we wish to emulate those societies where political disputes are resolved outside the political process.
History and contemporary events demonstrate that whatever the region of the world, whatever the sophistication of the political system, a resolution of policy disputes by means outside accepted governing frameworks does long-term harm to societies and ultimately puts individual freedom at risk. Images of the refined culture of Germany’s Weimar Republic in the 1930s, which allowed political disputes to be resolved in the street, are fresh enough in memory to offer a cautionary tale.
Of course, the First Amendment guarantees people the right to demonstrate their views to their fellow citizens and to try to garner support for the changes they would like to see. But it assuredly does not give them the right to use those demonstrations to impose their will on fellow citizens. It does not give them the right to act out the view that if they cannot get the political outcome they want, their fellow citizens should not be able to lead peaceful lives.
This should not require saying, but we feel compelled to say it: nor should our political leaders stoke or condone violence.
It is not only violence that can undo us. Even before Election Day, disagreements about how to count votes have generated legal disputes, and of course those disputes have gone to the courts. But there is a difference between taking legal disputes to court when necessary and conducting a campaign of litigation that obstructs more than it resolves. We strongly agree that votes must be counted fairly and voices heard in a way that preserves peace and promotes confidence in our system.
Finally, there is the insidious danger posed by charges that have nothing to support them other than an accuser’s invitation to us to hallucinate evil. The widespread distrust of our institutions and processes that such rhetoric encourages can paralyze us just as surely as violence or the uncertainty generated by a torrent of litigation.
We end where we began. Don’t mistake the joint byline for our abandonment of past disputes, or even an intention to avoid future ones. Further, don’t mistake this column for a reaction to a known outcome.
Regardless of the results, if you can’t imagine anything worse right now than the other side prevailing in this election, try this: Imagine a country where elections don’t matter because those who do not prevail will not accept the result.
Read more:
