This week, Jonathan Tobin, editor in chief of JNS.org and a popular conservative columnist, debates Spencer Klavan, assistant editor of the Claremont Review of Books and The American Mind on whether the time has come for President Trump to concede the 2020 election. We hope you enjoy the exchange.
Josh Hammer is Newsweek opinion editor, a syndicated columnist and a research fellow with the Edmund Burke Foundation.
It’s not a question of being a good loser. And President Donald Trump and his supporters are entitled to sore feelings about the way Democrats, the mainstream media, social media oligarchs and the nation’s political and intelligence establishment have all treated him for the last four years, as they did their best to undermine and sabotage his presidency.
Shortly before Election Day, the Transition Integrity Project—a coalition comprising “some of the most accomplished Republicans, Democrats, civil servants, media experts, pollsters and strategists around,” in the words of one co-founder—conducted “war games” to predict the coming results. In three of the four simulations, Biden won, and Trump’s reaction led to violent chaos. “Partisans, including Trump, may try to deploy law enforcement, National Guard troops and, potentially, active-duty military personnel to ‘restore order’ in a manner that primarily benefits one party,” wrote Georgetown Law Professor Rosa Brooks in The Washington Post.
