NC experts see hazards ahead as Trump claims a stolen election

Two Duke professors with experience in the administrations of both Republicans and Democrats say President Trump’s refusal to acknowledge Joe Biden’s election victory is causing short-term and long-term damage to the nation.

Peter Feaver, a former special adviser on the National Security Council staff in the George W. Bush administration, and Bruce Jentleson, who served on the presidential campaigns of Barack Obama in 2012 and Al Gore in 2000 and as a senior adviser to the U.S. State Department under Obama, discussed the standoff in a virtual seminar Wednesday headlined: “Navigating an unprecedented presidential transition.”

“Of course President Trump has legal recourse to challenge, to ask for recounts, to investigate reasonable allegations of misbehavior,” Feaver said. “But the messaging coming from the campaign, and particularly the president himself, is far more extreme than that. It’s reckless messaging and I think it does complicate America’s standing in the world.”

Asked how the impasse may affect ordinary Americans, Jentleson cited three concerns. First, it “will make it much harder to get a handle on the COVID surge.” Second, it will delay the arrival of economic relief for those who have lost jobs and business to the pandemic. Third, it could set the stage for civil unrest.

“The way the signals from the White House still leave the door open to serious civil/political violence. The Proud Boys and other groups like that. I worry a lot about that, and that affects the typical American family,” he said.

The two faculty members at Duke’s Sanford School of Public Policy were not concerned by Trump’s firing of Defense Secretary Mark Esper as a possible prelude to military involvement in the presidential transition. Feaver said the president is more likely settling scores than setting the stage for military support of his staying in office.

“The Constitution lays out a process for that and there’s no role for the military in that process. And I don’t foresee it coming to that,” he said. “There’s a role for courts. There’s a role for legislators. There is not a role for the U.S. military.”

Feaver said Trump’s unfounded claim of election fraud is undermining the nation’s ability to support democracy around the world. “The United States for decades has been preaching the gospel of democracy as free and fair elections and handing over power when you lose. And that’s been a point of emphasis in Democratic administrations and Republican administrations,” he said. “I do think this is complicating our ability to hold other states accountable when they have electoral monkey business.”

The blame for such losses goes beyond Trump, Jentleson said. “I think the person most responsible right now for this, next to President Trump, is Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Part of their strategy ... is positioning for 2024, who might inherit the Trump constituency, and even more positioning for the Georgia two Senate runoffs.” He added, “It is politics, but there’s a point at which it’s deeply irresponsible for Mitch McConnell to be doing what he’s doing in setting a tone for the other Republican senators.”

Feaver said Trump’s claims of widespread election fraud will disappear as other Republicans seek to become president in 2024.

“They’ll be trying to appeal to Trump voters, but they are not going to be imitating, I don’t think, Trump and Trump’s rhetoric,” he said. “They will have an incentive to modulate the rhetoric about election fraud because they will be trying to motivate people to show up and vote and it’s very hard to motivate people to show up and vote if you tell them their vote is meaningless, the whole system is rigged.”

He added, “So they will have those incentives, which I think will push back towards a healing process, at least that would be an optimistic take.”

This story was originally published November 11, 2020 at 4:28 PM.