Stand not upon the order of your going

[edelsont]

Maybe I should say a bit about why I've been sounding so forking cheerful lately, with regard to November's election.  On August 11, I said, "I expect that everything will turn out okay."  And on August 18, I described my mood as "confident."

What do I mean by "turn out okay"?  And why am I so sunny about it?

To begin with, I expect that Joe Biden will win the election.  I make no claim to be 100% sure about this, but I do consider it to be more likely than not.  (If you disagree, let's not argue about it; I'm just stating my opinion.)

But there are those who really, really don't want Trump to remain president after January 20 … and who will tell you that, even if you assume that Biden wins, there are still things to worry about.  This is sometimes expressed by the question, "What if Trump refuses to leave office?"

I don't deny that there is something to worry about here, but I do claim that the sheer amount of worrying going on, including my own, is sometimes not entirely rational.  And I think that part of the reason why this happens is that we are not precise in the way we ask our questions.  In particular, "What if Trump refuses to leave office?" is actually, when you look deeper, a nonsense question.

In other words, for an incumbent president who loses his bid for re-election, there is, strictly speaking, no such thing as "refusing to leave."  That's because "leaving office" is not an action which the incumbent, in that situation, performs.  Once the votes, including the electoral votes, have been counted, his "leaving" the office becomes automatic.  After noon on January 20, he will not longer be president.

You could say that he doesn't "leave office"; the office leaves him.