Trump’s bid to stop vote counts will make this election even harder for America to heal from

Editorial: The conspiracy theories and the festering sense of injustice felt by many of his supporters may last longer than the litigation

The recourse to the lawyers is standard Trump practice, and sometimes served him well in business. On this occasion it looks desperate (Getty)

It might be more useful, for the courts and the people, if Donald Trump’s guerrilla legal squads could identify who precisely is behind the supposed conspiracy to “steal” the presidential election. Mr Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudi Giuliani, claims it is “the Democrats”, which is at least more specific than the president’s “they” or the Trump campaign’s “the left”. If Mr Trump really wants his various inconsistent suits to end up at the Supreme Court he will have to do better than that.  

Some other questions also arise. Where is the evidence of anyone “dumping” thousands of votes anywhere? The more obvious reason why the voting tallies fluctuate is because of the size of mail-in and absentee ballots, and in which order they are counted. In some places, such as Ohio, they were counted earlier than in other states, such as Pennsylvania. The counting rooms are full of media and party observers. There are cameras in the room. The officials are working their hardest, and they are not so very different people to the ones who totted up Mr Trump’s victory in 2016. There has not been a single claim of illegal or forged ballots. It is, as the president might say, a hoax. He will look especially foolish if late-counted ballots, maybe from military personnel abroad, finally tip the balance his way in a swing state. Presumably, the lawsuits will be quietly dropped. 

The recourse to the lawyers is standard Trump practice, and sometimes served him well in business. On this occasion it looks desperate. One of the worst insults in the Trump lexicon is “loser”, or, more usually “losers!”, and he has already said, at his rallies “can you imagine losing to this guy?” referring to Joe Biden. Naturally, coming second to “Sleepy Joe” holds an even greater horror. Given the failure to stop the counts, soon Mr Trump will likely have little left to rely on other than, ironically enough, fabricating fraud.

All that said, the Trump campaign has every right to test the law and to request recounts where there is a genuinely tight contest. That is what happened in 2000, in the George W Bush/Al Gore contest, and was considered when Richard Nixon suspected irregularities in Chicago when Jack Kennedy beat him narrowly in 1960. America can cope with tight elections and survive them. It can also usually manage a peaceful transfer of power when an incumbent president loses. President George HW Bush’s speech of concession to Bill Clinton in 1992 was the model of democratic behaviour: no one expects a self-confessed sore loser such as President Trump to follow suit, alas.  

Even if a clear, if narrow, electoral winner emerges, the litigation will drag on. What will endure for still longer will be the conspiracy theories and the festering sense of injustice felt by many Trump supporters. It will take a long time to heal.