The Deafening Silence of Republican Leaders

When, however, is the sticking point. Former Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney predicts that Trump will concede gracefully if he loses, which ignores the fact that Trump has already lost, and that he has seldom, if ever, acted with any grace in his political career. All of this might just be academic, if not for the fact that a very important transition of power needs planning. While the Biden team is not waiting around, and has begun naming task forces and working to assemble a government, the formal process can’t begin until the head of the General Services Administration signs a letter to kick it off. The Trump-appointed head of the GSA, Emily Murphy, has so far refused to do this.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Mr. Trump, tear down this wall

The GSA cloaks this in bureaucratic language—“an ascertainment has not yet been made, and its Administrator will continue to abide by, and fulfill, all requirements under the law,” a spokesperson told The Washington Post—but what’s really going on here is that federal agencies are afraid to get out in front of the president.

That fear is probably not entirely unfounded. On Thursday, the former Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale tweeted, “If you want to win in 2024 as a Republican. I would probably start saying something. Just saying.” Even while vanquished, Trump may still retain the power to make life hell for those who break with him. Since he never really learned to master the power of government, that rhetorical bludgeon was his most powerful tool as president, and it’s not yet clear how much losing office will weaken his ability to wield it. Voters as a whole have rejected him (twice), but Republican voters have not, and if their attachment remains strong, Trump could sink incumbents in primaries in 2022 and 2024. Appointed officials who do not toe the Trump line might find themselves blacklisted from future Republican administrations.

One Republican refrain now is that the declaration of Biden’s victory is a media creation and not an official one, which is true. Real deadlines loom ahead: States will begin certifying election results, and on December 14 the Electoral College will meet. At some point, most of these people will have to bend to reality. Maybe not the president, though. If one lesson of the past four years is that it’s no fun to be a Republican on Trump’s bad side, another one is that anyone waiting for Trump to acknowledge reality could be waiting forever.

David A. Graham is a staff writer at The Atlantic.