My favorite part of election night was the concession speeches — particularly in races that may have been close enough to justify a recount.
Seriously.
In a nation as fractured as this one, there may be no electoral skill as important as losing with grace. Yet when the electoral margin is small, we’ve been conditioned to expect candidates to drag us through second, third, even fourth counts of the votes, weeks of litigation, and a grim refusal to give ground. The refusal to admit defeat has plagued the nation since the Founding, but in recent years it’s grown worse. In our highly polarized era, resentment over a candidate’s defeat in a close election can feed a cynical resentment that, as we’ve seen, flares easily into violence.
