I write this on Wednesday, November 11, 2020. The US election has been over a week. The clear majority of electoral and (the notional) popular vote has gone to the Democratic challenger. The incumbent, bucking tradition, has yet to concede the election. There are legitimate recourses to challenge the results of an uncertain election, which are currently being pursued by the incumbent. These legitimate recourses will fail, because the election was fairly conducted.

Rather than admit defeat, the incumbent appears to be staffing up the Defense Department with loyalists, to what purpose I will not speculate here. The supporters of the incumbent continue to make wild accusations and carry on as if the results of the election are in doubt. According to the states that ran them, they (modulo a mandatory recount in George) are not.

Republican senators are “indulging” (their word, not mine) the wild behavior of the president because they also believe he has lost the election. All have so far declined to publicly condemn the the darker implications of incumbent’s legal and administrative maneuvers, much to their shame.

The incumbent’s base is angry and being whipped into a froth with tales of a stolen election (which failed to retake the all important Senate). The Secretary of State has said he is planning for the second term of the incumbent’s presidency.

None of this normal, but that does not mean that it will not end with the installment of a new president, which appears to be the mostly likely case.

That half the country appears to so little value the democratic system of government is alarming and lachrymose. The challenge of the next administration is nothing short of proving the value of our system of government to these people.

My fears are in a civil war with my rational mind. We are in unknown and novel waters.