Timothy Egan: American democracy survives its brush with death

President Donald Trump walks away after speaking at the White House, Thursday, Nov. 5, 2020, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)




“Stop the count.” Of all the violations of things that we hold precious in this country, this tweet by President Donald Trump on Thursday, demanding that millions of voters be disenfranchised so he can steal an election, is the one that will live in infamy.

But let’s find some light in the darkness. Trump’s electoral ambulance chasing, the inchoate chants of supporters to simultaneously stop the count and count the vote (depending on the state) will change nothing.

Joe Biden is winning the popular vote by close to a 3-point margin. That’s no small thing. John F. Kennedy won by less than 1 percentage point. Ronald Reagan rode into the White House in 1980 with just over 50% of the total vote. Bill Clinton became president with 43% of the vote in a race with three major candidates.

A President-elect Biden would mean the first African American vice president in Kamala Harris. The first woman veep, as well. History, noted.


It would mean that the pipeline of partisan, retrograde federal judges would be shut off, for now. Ditto the Supreme Court, should Biden get a pick.

It would mean science and truth would be guiding principles at the highest level of government — this coming just as we enter a long dark season of COVID-19 deaths because science and truth were ignored.


Looking at the bigger picture, Democrats were done in by extreme voices that Trump was able to link to their party. Defunding the police will never be popular outside a few lefty precincts. The whiff of socialism helped kill Democrats in Florida.


In battered Portland, Oregon, where violent clashes between protesters and law enforcement have brought terror to the streets, a candidate who embraced antifa lost to the more moderate mayor, Ted Wheeler.


But let’s look to better days ahead and begin repairing our broken democracy. A presidential candidate could win the popular vote by nearly 5 million votes, but depending on where those votes are cast, he or she could still lose in the archaic Electoral College, the fortress for the tyranny of the minority. Only once in the last 30 years have Republicans won the popular vote.


Thus, California, where nearly 1 in 8 Americans live, with 53 members in the House, would have the same power as Wyoming, a state with a lone representative in the House and a declining population.



Ah, the will of people. Who knows what the hell that is. Yes, it’s karmic justice that three of the states pivotal in electing Trump — Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan — now look like three that will fire him. And for that slim majority, and the rest of us, may mourning in America soon turn to morning in America.

Timothy Egan

Timothy Egan, winner of the National Book Award for “The Worst Hard Time,” is a Seattle-based opinion writer for The New York Times.

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