Incompetence and hysteria are the American way

This election dysfunction is just modern America

Uncle Sam.
(Image credit: Illustrated | iStock, Wikimedia Commons)

A long night followed by a long morning. Champagne bottles popped, emptied, and despaired of. Action omnidirectional in Chinese currency markets, dubious offshore e-betting shops, conventionally traded stocks and bonds, cash office pools. Wild swings, inscrutable media coverage split across reverse-partisan lines. At the head of one party a senile careerist being fed warm milk emerges from his bunker and solemnly declares that his party has carried out "the most extensive and inclusive voter fraud operation in the history of American politics." Atop the other a would-be dictator who cannot even enjoy unfettered access to a communications platform available to hundreds of millions. Both declare victory, implicitly or otherwise.

Then a day of madness. A mad rush to explain 150,000 votes that appeared out of nowhere because a poll worker tagged on an extra zero. Pizza boxes on windows. The shuffling of papers. Cheers as observers loyal to the president are evicted from counting stations. Cheers. Men in cut-off shirts emblazoned with “BBQ BAR FREEDOM” screaming during press conferences. The president's main Ukrainian fixer asking why his opponent could not have voted 5,000 times. An entire state shocked to learn that the rest of the nation would be interested in learning its results. Incompetence and hysteria. The near certainty that all of this will end up in the courts, for weeks and months.

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Matthew Walther

Matthew Walther is a national correspondent at The Week. His work has also appeared in First Things, The Spectator of London, The Catholic Herald, National Review, and other publications. He is currently writing a biography of the Rev. Montague Summers. He is also a Robert Novak Journalism Fellow.