The President is a Collective Action Problem

 We are now ten days past the election and counting. We are sixty-eight days from the presidential inauguration and fifty-three days from the runoff election in Georgia that will determine control of the Senate. The president, though he has no legal case for challenging the presidential election results, insists that he is the winner and that the election was rigged. The recount in Georgia is a formality and is unlikely to change the outcome. The president has failed so far to provide support for Biden's transition, although this support would not hinder the president's mostly failing and unserious court battles.

What the president hopes to achieve is the subject of rumor and speculation, and what the Republican Party hopes to achieve other than surviving this president and keeping the Senate is also unclear. Some Republican influencers and elected officials support the president's project, some oppose, and some are trying to be non-committal. The Vice President accepted with grim humor the role that is assigned to him in this farce, and Senate Leader McConnell decided that corporate media was an easier target than the president. The official website of the Republican Party is projecting the GOP's own dysfunction on the Democratic Party, which is handling its mixed success as well as might be expected, while the president's most colorful self-proclaimed legal representative (see the president's statement) is on Twitter embracing conspiracy theorists, anticipating the "failure" of American institutions, and proposing a new political party.

The fact of the matter is that the Republican Party faces a dilemma with this unserious president. On the one hand, he has brought new voters to the Republican ticket in 2016 and 2020 from groups that the party needs in order to succeed. On the other, the president is less popular with voters than Republicans down-ballot and, crucially, than his Democratic opponent. The president's choice to play chicken with an American presidential election is not in the interests of the party or the nation, although it is popular with some Republican or Republican-leaning voters. The credible threat that Republicans considering opposing the president face is that he will play chicken with them, too.

In the case of someone in the president's position, extreme care will be needed in attempting to influence him to change his behavior. Sticks alone will not do. Carrots will also be needed. The value of allowing or requiring him to face consequences for his actions after he leaves office must be weighed against the additional harm he may be willing to do while in office with that threat hanging over him. Blunt words, while proportionate to his actions, may not achieve needed results.

The Republican Party should consult its own interests and the national interest and put a stop to the president's attacks on American institutions and fellow-Republicans. It must actively bring to bear the necessary positive and negative incentives to induce the president to accept the election result sooner rather than later. And it must above all not allow Trump to become president again in 2024. His age and condition alone may prevent that, but the Republican Party must not take chances.