US democracy is on the ballot in November

When all the counting and choosing Electoral College voters arising from a US Presidential Election is over – the process I explored in last week’s article – the House of Representatives and the Senate meet in joint session on the following January 6th. There, the votes are read out and formally certified by the two houses sitting together.

The meeting is presided over by the outgoing Vice-President of the United States, acting in their capacity as President of the Senate. Regardless of party, regardless of result, that is their constitutional duty. They sit in the chair at the meeting, take note of the outcome, and read out the winner, and that’s about it. It is meant to be conducted with great dignity, and even with a certain solemnity.

Before 2021, and certainly in the modern era, such a vote had always been a ceremonial event, the confirmation that power has been passed in a democratic fashion from one Presidential term to another. It is supposed to happen that way even after a bruising contest. In simple terms, it is the moment after a game when both sides acknowledge the winner, shake hands and say 'well played and we will see you the next time'. It confirms that, for now, the fight is over and at least for a while, that we are all on the same team again.

Richard Nixon, a Republican Vice-President, performed that duty in 1961, having himself just been beaten by John Kennedy in a highly-contested election of the previous November. Al Gore, a Democratic Vice-President, did it in 2001, having himself just been beaten by George Bush in an even more highly contested and controversial election the previous November. That election ended up in the Supreme Court, and after it ruled, Gore accepted the result. Whether Kamala Harris wins or loses this time, she will be in the chair to do it.

It was this process of certification in the Congress that Trump and his supporters threw into absolute chaos back in January 2021. His supporters attacked and rioted in the Capitol Building, and they threatened to physically assault the Vice-President, Mike Pence, for his role in performing his constitutional duty. The mob ranged around the place, attacking police and looking for members of Congress to assault.

The equivalent for us would be a mob attacking Leinster House and threatening the Ceann Comhairle for not preventing the election of a Taoiseach. Because of Pence’s refusal to do anything but his constitutional duty, he has been attacked and threatened ever since.

When you look at the absolute numbers from the election in November 2020, it seems incredible that anyone could have believed that Trump had actually won. Joe Biden got just over 81 million votes, Trump just over 74 million. These are massive numbers in what is, of course, a massive country, but clearly Trump had seven million fewer votes, which is a lot of people by any standard, many more than live in our state, and not much fewer than the total number who live on this island. You’d think that anyone who lost by that much would take their beating. Some chance.

He was emboldened to embark on his campaign of lies and refusal to accept the result because of the way the Electoral College works, as shown last week. With a few thousand votes either way in a few swing states, Trump could have won – and he jumped on that and constantly claimed that those few thousand votes for Joe Biden were fraudulent.

From the day after the presidential election, there was one baseless claim of fraud after another. In state after state where Trump lost by anything close to a relatively small margin, teams of lawyers and Republican local representatives tried every trick in the book to overturn the result. Thanks at least in part to some very honourable local Republicans, those attempts were resisted.

Not a single one of those claims survives anywhere but in the land of conspiracy theory. Court after court – regardless of who sat on the bench – threw them out. And yet many Americans still believe them.

Regardless of belief, facts won out at the time, and so Biden didn’t just win a massive majority in the popular vote, he also won reasonably comfortably in the Electoral College. The lawful and democratic result stood.

But since 2021, Trump supporters have not stood still. They have been getting ready and preparing plans to overturn any 2024 results they don’t like. If Trump wins comfortably, there will be no need for such plans to be put into effect. But if he doesn’t, you can expect all sorts of efforts at a local level to swap Electoral College voters for Trump supporters in places he loses, and you can expect legal battles all the way to the United States Supreme Court to prevent Electoral College members lawfully voting for the person entitled to their votes.

The Supreme Court, operating now to a fierce Republican ideology, is seen by many as safe ground for whatever legal fantasy Trump supporters can drum up. All this will be driven on by a PR and social media offensive alleging ‘electoral fraud’ in any state where Trump doesn’t win. And let us be frank and clear, in American politics, when people say there was ‘electoral fraud’, what they mean is that too many black people voted for their liking. ‘Voter fraud’ is a racist dogwhistle of the highest order. Anyone letting it out of their lips knows exactly what they are doing. In this election cycle, wild claims about ‘illegal aliens’ voting in November have been flooding social media.

And it will not stop there. Back in 2021, 147 Republicans in the House of Representatives voted against certifying the election of President Biden. They stood up on January 6th and raised objection after objection to the certification of the votes that would confirm his victory. Some of those 147 voted against certifying because they were afraid of Mr Trump’s supporters. advancing all kinds of spurious, disgraceful arguments, knowing full well they were nonsense. Others, it would appear, did it out of an utterly deluded conviction reminiscent of members of a cult.

Nancy Pelosi, the then Democratic Speaker, stood her ground and batted them all back. The joint session of Congress certified the results. This time, the Speaker of the House of Representatives is Mike Johnson of Louisiana. Johnson got elected because the Republican Party had gotten itself into absolute knots over the job of Speaker, and because of his only major distinction as a member of Congress before now. What was that? Leading those efforts back in 2021 to challenge the legal election of President Biden.

Mike Johnson will still be Speaker on January 6th next, regardless of what happens in the November elections. And you can see that this is the really worrying bit. For what happens if in the next election, the Republicans actually succeed in preventing the certification of a Democratic victory? If that happened, it would be the biggest constitutional crisis in the United States since the Civil War, without exception. It would be a constitutional coup d’état, no less than the overthrowing of the constitutional democratic order. There is no overstating how important this all is. The election in November will not decide these matters. It will only start the process. The survival of American democracy is on the ballot.