If you liked the insanity of 2020, you’re going to love what comes next! Imagine a Biden presidency with a Republican Senate keeping the republic from going off-the-walls-insane while Democrats do all they can to destroy the social order from inside the administration. Imagine a second term of Trump with Democrats absolutely convinced the president stole the election. Washington, D.C., may need those windows boarded up through the entirety of 2021.
America became a powderkeg in 2020, and the election has lit the fuse. Conservatives and liberals, Republicans and Democrats will be debating exactly what it means for years to come. Recriminations will come from far and wide. Democrats are at each other’s throats already. Republicans are starting to doubt Trump’s messaging on Democrats “stealing the election.” And it’s only been three days.
Trump seems determined to fight to the bitter end, and much of his base will side with him, emboldened by Big Tech censorship and the legacy media’s rote insistence that voter fraud is essentially impossible. When the legacy media and Big Tech teamed up to silence the Hunter Biden emails, they ramped up conservative distrust into overdrive. Conservatives don’t riot like antifa does, but we do get mighty angry and the effort to silence any questions about a potential Biden president’s legitimacy does not bode well for 2021.
On the other hand, if Trump wins after recounts — and especially if a Supreme Court battle features prominently in the effort — Democrats are likely to consider him an illegitimate president, even more than they did after 2016. Antifa will make the riots of the summer look like a day out at the park and Democrats will be filing articles of impeachment right and left.
Much as I prefer another four years of Trump, I’m growing to think that no matter who wins, America is in for a serious political reckoning. The 2022 and 2024 elections will begin almost immediately, and divided Democrats will convulse with rage, blaming the “moderates” and the radicals for their surprise losses.
The legacy media will paper over the gobsmacking polling errors and the extremely wrong predictions, not because America will forget but because its left-leaning readers will console themselves either with the Biden win or the idea that Trump stole the election.
This election result threw gasoline on the lit fire of American partisanship and polarization, and that blaze is only likely to intensify through the next year.
Tyler O’Neil is the author of Making Hate Pay: The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center. Follow him on Twitter at @Tyler2ONeil.
