Why the High Dudgeon in Biden’s Victory Speech?

For a politician who has won the largest popular vote in American history and says it is time “to unite, to heal,” President-elect Biden struck us, in his remarks on his electoral college victory, as a bit off. It isn’t the throat clearing and coughing that bothers us. It is the former vice president’s suggestion, en passant, that his is the only camp animated by an attachment to democracy. That strikes us as a bit churlish.After all, there were two sides in the drama we’ve been witnessing. One side, Mr. Biden’s, says it won the election. The other side, Mr. Trump’s, feared the election was rigged or unfairly conducted. It proffered anecdotal evidence here and there, complained of patterns in the late votes, and asked courts to look at them. In the event, the courts — dozens of judges in our decentralized system — found the evidence lacking.Upon which, Mr. Biden says “democracy prevailed.” Yet what is so all-fired anti-democratic about asking a court to look at election results? Imagine, for the sake of argument, that one of those courts had concluded that, yes, in some state or county there was enough evidence to warrant enjoining certification of the result. Would that mean democracy didn’t prevail? Or would it mean that the court protected democracy?Which side was more solicitous of democracy? The side that belittled concerns the contest was cooked? Or the side that took its concerns to court? It’s hard to think of a slice of apple pie more American than taking a controversy to court and abiding by the result. Or, as Mr. Biden himself conceded, “In America, when questions are raised about the legitimacy of any election, those questions are resolved through the legal processes.”And what has happened? At least so far, no significant violence has erupted, no mobs set stores on fire. The outgoing attorney general has resigned to spend Christmas with his family. The First Lady of America has gone to Florida to inspect schools for the First Teenager. The First Son-in-Law, after helping advance peace in the Middle East, and First Daughter are buying a homesite in the Sunshine State.Some of this began even before the Electoral College formally voted. The delegates did vote on the appointed day, and publicly announced the tally. It looks like there were no faithless electors. Nor any reason to think that, when the vote is submitted to Congress on the appointed day (January 6), the tally won’t be accepted. It would take both houses of Congress to reject the vote of even one delegate.So why the expressions of high dudgeon by the president-elect over the legal challenges that failed in court? It is a moment to remember that four years ago the Democrats were up to their eyeballs in their effort to hole the incoming Trump campaign below the waterline. The Steele dossier, not yet public, was being circulated around Washington. The Deep State was being primed to leak.Mr. Biden is saying that he intends to be president of all Americans, even Republicans. We wish him success on that head. We’d like to think his ambition is animated in part by the fact that the President he just defeated did garner the second biggest popular vote in our history. That’s no small thing, either, and it’s an electorate about which one doesn’t want to be even a bit off. The next president, after all, will need all the help he can get.

Why the High Dudgeon in Biden’s Victory Speech?

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