even my voice was strong, then

 

     I love the Tina Turner documentary titled The Girl From Nutbush, now on You Tube.  It sets my interest ablaze.

     Both Ike and Tina Turner have this distinctive speaking style -- they talk kind of fast, and enthusiastic with punchy, staccato emphasis.

     In the film, when Tina describes the beginning of her singing career in a St. Louis nightclub, she tells the interviewer about audience reaction to her performance.  She's speaking quickly, very articulate, but in one spot the words get turned around -- it's so cute, she says, rapidly and shyly, "...because even my voice was strong, then."

     What she meant was, "my voice was strong, even then."  Or -- "even back then, my voice was strong."

     You totally know what she means.  "Even my voice was strong then."  That phrase has always stuck with me.

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some headlines from today's New York Times

In Lockdown, an 86-Year-Old Blogger Finds an Audience and a New Purpose

China Gives Unproven Covid-19 Vaccines to Thousands, With Risks Unknown

The Virus Sent Droves to a Small Town.  Suddenly, It's Not So Small.

Trump Announces Barrett as Supreme Court Nominee, Describing Her as Heir to Scalia

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"The Election That Could Break America"

written by Barton Gellman

The Atlantic

(continued)

..."I would like to promise and pledge...that I will totally accept the results of this great and historic presidential election....

IF

I

WIN!"

------------- The question is not strictly hypothetical.  Trump's respect for the ballot box has already been tested.  In 2016, with the presidency in hand, having won the Electoral College, Trump baldly rejected the certified tallies that showed he had lost the popular vote by a margin of 2,868,692.  He claimed, baselessly but not coincidentally, that at least 3 million undocumented immigrants had cast fraudulent votes for Hillary Clinton.

All of which is to say that there is no version of the Interregnum in which Trump congratulates Biden on his victory.  He has told us so.  "The only way they can take this election away from us is if this is a rigged election," Trump said at the Republican National Convention on August 24.  

     Unless he wins a bona fide victory in the Electoral College, Trump's refusal to concede -- his mere denial of defeat--will have cascading effects.

The ritual that marks an election's end took its contemporary form in 1896.  On the Thursday evening after polls closed that year, unwelcome news reached the Democratic presidential nominee, William Jennings Bryan.  A dispatch from Senator James K. Jones, the chair of the Democratic National Committee, informed him that "sufficient was known to make my defeat certain," Bryan recalled in a memoir.

He composed a telegram to his Republican opponent, William McKinley.  "Senator Jones has just informed me that the returns indicate your election, and I hasten to extend my congratulations," Bryan wrote.  "We have submitted the issue to the American people and their will is law."

     After Bryan, concession became a civic duty, performed by telegram or telephone call and then by public speech.  Al Smith brought the concession speech to radio in 1928, and it migrated to television soon afterward.

Like other rituals, concessions developed a liturgy.  The defeated candidate comes out first.  He thanks supporters, declares that their cause will live on, and acknowledges that the other side has prevailed.  The victor begins his own remarks by honoring the surrender.

     Concessions employ a form of words that linguists call performative speech.  The words do not describe or announce an act; the words themselves are the act.  "The concession speech, then, is not merely a report of an election result or an admission of defeat," the political scientist Paul E. Corcoran has written.  "It is a constitutive enactment of the new president's authority."

In actual war, not the political kind, concession is optional.  The winning side may take by force what the losing side refuses to surrender.  If the weaker party will not sue for peace, its ramparts may be breached, its headquarters razed, and its leaders taken captive or put to death.  There are places in the world where political combat still ends that way, but not here.  The loser's concession is therefore hard to replace.

Consider the 2000 election, which may appear at first glance to demonstrate otherwise.  Al Gore conceded to George W. Bush on Election Night, then withdrew his concession and fought a recount battle in Florida until the Supreme Court shut it down.  It is commonly said that the Court's 5-4 ruling decided the contest, but that's not quite right.

The Court handed down its ruling in Bush v. Gore on December 12, six days before the Electoral College would convene and weeks before Congress would certify the results.  Even with canvassing halted in Florida, Gore had the constitutional means to fight on, and some advisers urged him to do so.  If he had brought the dispute to Congress, he would have held high ground as the Senate's presiding officer.

     Not until Gore addressed the nation on December 13, the day after the Court's decision, did the contest truly end.  Speaking as a man with unexpended ammunition, Gore laid down his arms.  "I accept the finality of this outcome, which will be ratified next Monday in the Electoral College," he said.  "And tonight, for the sake of our unity as a people and the strength of our democracy, I offer my concession."

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