#I worry Democrats won’t concede and other commentary

Some Democrats have not accepted President Donald Trump’s victory in 2016 and may not do so if he wins reelection.
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“I find myself truly worried about only one scenario” this November, reveals Shadi Hamid at The Atlantic: President Trump “will win re-election, and Democrats and others on the left will be unwilling, even unable, to accept the result.” Liberals, after all, “never really came to terms” with his 2016 win. A Joe Biden loss, after he was “the clear favorite all summer, would provoke mass disillusion with electoral politics as a means of change.” If “Democrats can’t beat a candidate as unpopular as Trump during a devastating pandemic and a massive economic contraction, then are they even capable of winning presidential elections anymore?” If Dems don’t “believe that they can win the next time around,” their ­“incentives to play the spoiler increase.”

Neocon: The Left May Make Me Vote for Trump

She didn’t vote for Donald Trump in 2016 — but, Danielle Pletka explains at The Washington Post, Democrats may force her to do so this year. She fears “Trump’s erratic, personality-driven decision-making” and “his delusion that he can manage rogue leaders.” But she fears “the leftward lurch of the Democratic Party even more.” Not only might Joe Biden be “a figurehead president” scripted by “his party’s hard-left ideologues,” but the Democratic-run Congress may “begin an assault on the institutions of government that preserve the nation’s small-‘d’ democracy,” including packing the Supreme Court. And “an entirely Democratic-run Washington” would accelerate the intolerant dominance of “Manhattan-San Francisco progressive mores.” In short, “Trump, for all his flaws, could be all that stands ­between our imperfect democracy and the tyranny of the woke left.”

Councilman: Liquor Authority’s Political Hit Job

Councilman Joe Borelli blasts Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio on Twitter for allegedly siccing the State Liquor Authority on a Staten Island family restaurant. Joyce’s Tavern “had never been visited” by the SLA, “not during COVID, not before, and had no violations.” On Thursday, Borelli held a book-signing on its outdoor patio, ­advertising it “from the same Twitter account I use to bash Cuomo and de Blasio on a daily basis.” Then: “What a coincidence,” the “very next night, the SLA goons come in for a surprise random ­inspection.” The restaurant was donating proceeds to the Tunnel to Towers Foundation, and the SLA noted a few “charitable patrons, their legs growing tired, sat in chairs in the indoor portion of the restaurant,” neither eating nor drinking. “Joyce’s will now likely face a $25,000 fine.” Asks Borelli: “How do we let a neighborhood business that was giving back to our 9/11 families and first responders just get fined out of business?”

Foreign desk: New Japanese PM’s Baggage

Perhaps nothing in the tenure of Japan’s new prime minister, Yoshihide Suga, will be “as interesting as how he got the job,” snarks Philip Patrick at The Spectator. His “cause was massively boosted” when party leader Toshihiro Nikai “decided that in a time of ‘emergency,’ the franchise should be limited to parliamentary members only, among whom Suga is popular.” Nikai will “likely be rewarded with keeping his job and very possibly retaining influence” over Suga. As to what to expect from the new PM, “we’re back to those deals again.” He has indicated he will carry on predecessor Shinzo Abe’s program, “a pledge that may have been part of the price of his accession.” But if he is “to make a mark,” he will need to prove he is “his own man.”

Election watch: Mail-In Jeopardizes Equal Vote

Universal mail-in voting this November risks “both the dilution of legitimate votes and the disenfranchisement of eligible voters,” worries C. Boyden Gray at The Hill. “Haphazardly lobbing a ballot to everyone on the voter rolls” could be a disaster, especially since more people moved because of the pandemic. “Whoever gets long-gone voters’ mis-mailed ballots might never return them — or worse, might cast them as fraudulent votes.” Only standard absentee-voting procedures with uniform deadlines and monitored drop-boxes safeguard the ballot as “the live ammunition of the consent of the governed.” Without them, judges or Congress may pick the next commander-in-chief.

— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board