I am old enough to remember quite a few political transitions. Most have shown what American politics can be. The first election to which I truly paid attention was the 1980 contest between President Jimmy Carter and former California Governor Ronald Reagan. While I was rooting for Reagan, it was hard not to admire Carter’s magnanimity in defeat:

I promised you 4 years ago that I would never lie to you. So, I can’t stand here tonight and say it doesn’t hurt.

The people of the United States have made their choice, and, of course, I accept that decision but, I have to admit, not with the same enthusiasm that I accepted the decision 4 years ago. I have a deep appreciation of the system, however, that lets people make the free choice about who will lead them for the next 4 years.

About an hour ago I called Governor Reagan in California, and I told him that I congratulated him for a fine victory. I look forward to working closely with him during the next few weeks. We’ll have a very fine transition period. I told him I wanted the best one in history. And I then sent him this telegram, and I’ll read it to you. “It’s now apparent that the American people have chosen you as the next President. I congratulate you and pledge to you our fullest support and cooperation in bringing about an orderly transition of government in the weeks ahead. My best wishes are with you and your family as you undertake the responsibilities that lie before you.” And I signed it Jimmy Carter.

His running mate, Walter Mondale, was faced with the indignity, in his role as President of the Senate, of having to announce the vote count. While I strangely cannot find a video or even a transcript, he handled it with admirable grace and good humor.

No sitting President would lose a re-election bid for another twelve years, when George H.W. Bush would lose to Bill Clinton in a contest where no love was lost between the candidates. Like Carter, Bush handled it as well as imaginable:

Well, here’s the way I see it. Here’s the way we see it and the country should see it — that the people have spoken and we respect the majesty of the democratic system. I just called Governor Clinton over in Little Rock and offered my congratulations. He did run a strong campaign. I wish him well in the White House.

And I want the country to know that our entire Administration will work closely with his team to insure the smooth transition of power. There is important work to be done, and America must always come first. So we will get behind this new President and wish him — wish him well.

And to all who voted for us, voted for me, here, especially here, but all across the country, thank you for your support. And we have fought the good fight and we’ve kept the faith and I believe I have uphold — held the honor of the Presidency of the United States.

Now I ask that we stand behind our new President and regardless of our differences, all Americans shamed — the — shared the same purpose: To make this, the world’s greatest nation, more safe and more secure and to guarantee every American a shot at the American dream.

And, while not exactly the same thing, Al Gore was similarly gracious in conceding the 2000 contest, despite winning the popular vote and an incredibly controversial Supreme Court intervention.

Just moments ago, I spoke with George W. Bush and congratulated him on becoming the 43rd president of the United States. And I promised him that I wouldn’t call him back this time. I offered to meet with him as soon as possible so that we can start to heal the divisions of the campaign and the contest through which we’ve just passed.

Almost a century and a half ago, Senator Stephen Douglas told Abraham Lincoln, who had just defeated him for the presidency, “Partisan feeling must yield to patriotism. I’m with you, Mr. President, and God bless you.” Well, in that same spirit, I say to President-elect Bush that what remains of partisan rancor must now be put aside, and may God bless his stewardship of this country. Neither he nor I anticipated this long and difficult road. Certainly neither of us wanted it to happen. Yet it came, and now it has ended, resolved, as it must be resolved, through the honored institutions of our democracy.

Over the library of one of our great law schools is inscribed the motto, “Not under man but under God and law.” That’s the ruling principle of American freedom, the source of our democratic liberties. I’ve tried to make it my guide throughout this contest, as it has guided America’s deliberations of all the complex issues of the past five weeks.

Now the U.S. Supreme Court has spoken. Let there be no doubt, while Istrongly disagree with the court’s decision, I accept it. I accept the finality of this outcome which will be ratified next Monday in the Electoral College. And tonight, for the sake of our unity as a people and the strength of our democracy, I offer my concession. I also accept my responsibility, which I will discharge unconditionally, to honor the new President-elect and do everything possible to help him bring Americans together in fulfillment of the great vision that our Declaration of Independence defines and that our Constitution affirms and defends.

And this is to say nothing of the less dramatic transitions that occur when two-term presidents yield to the Constitutional requirement to step down and hand power to the winner of the next election. Grace is easier in those situations, but we take it for granted.

Bush was the last President to fail to win re-election until 2020. As some may recall, that transition went somewhat less smoothly.

Writing for Lawfare (“Elections as a Source of Violence“), Georgetown’s Daniel Byman reminds us it was not the first time.

America’s past is replete with election-related violence that drove its citizens farther apart, and the good news is that much of this appears to have stayed in the past. The bad news is that some trends are running in the wrong direction, with an increase in election-related threats, a more poisonous information sphere, and a nastier partisan environment.

U.S. history offers many examples of political competition turning deadly. In 1830s Missouri, fears that the growing community from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints would vote as a bloc and dominate politics led to attempts to curtail their settlement and eventually a mini-war, with dozens dying. In 1838, Missouri Gov. Lilburn Boggs even issued the “Extermination Order” as militia forces drove Mormons out to nearby states. Seeking safety, the community eventually fled to the Utah territory. In Louisville, Baltimore, and other cities in the 1850s, newspapers whipped up anti-Catholic fears. Dozens died as anti-Catholic mobs seized polling places to prevent Catholics from voting.

After the passage of the 15th Amendment, which granted Black American men the right to vote, violence was an immediate response. During Reconstruction, white supremacist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan, which historian Allen Trelease called “a terrorist arm of the Democratic Party,” killed thousands of Black Southerners in an attempt to intimidate the community as a whole and remove its leaders. Before the 1876 election in Mississippi, Democrats openly vowed to “carry the election peaceably if we can, forcibly if we must.” In state after state in the South, counties that had once produced Republican majorities saw few or no votes for Republicans, as intimidation forced Black voters to stay home.

In the years that followed, violence flared up again and again in response to perceived Black political gains. In North Carolina, Republicans, supported heavily by Black voters, and Populists, supported largely by poorer white farmers, formed a Fusionist alliance that won control of the legislature in 1894 and the governorship in 1896. The once-dominant Democratic Party leaders played up racial fears in the 1898 election, mobilizing the Red Shirts (a Klan-like violent organization) as well as newspapers and public speakers (to reach those who were not literate) throughout the state. In addition to suppressing the Black vote and convincing poor whites to vote against their economic interests, a mob in Wilmington burned down the office of the Daily Record, the leading Black newspaper, and then rampaged through other parts of the city, killing dozens. In the days that followed, mob leaders forced Fusionist elected officials who were not up for reelection in 1898 to resign at gunpoint and expelled Fusionist leaders from the city.

When local communities took up arms, other authorities often joined in or stood by. In Missouri, local militia forces drove the Mormons out. In response to pleas for help from the Wilmington community during the 1898 coup, President McKinley, although a Republican, claimed that he lacked the legal authority to respond without an invitation from state leaders, whom the mob cowed into passivity.

Local perpetrators not only escaped justice but even prospered. Leaders of the 1898 coup in Wilmington went on to become leading politicians, including a future governor, U.S. congressmen, and a U.S. senator.

In addition to prejudice, rumor and deliberate disinformation often drove violence. In 1830s Missouri, anti-Mormon leaders warned that Mormons were arming Native American tribes, while Protestant leaders claimed that Catholic priests had kidnapped and “outraged” young girls. Anti-Catholic hysteria would include claims that the Pope and other foreign powers were using Catholics to undermine U.S. democracy: “We might as well send ballot boxes to foreign countries and let them vote there,” noted one Protestant politician. After World War I, newspapers in Florida and other states ran stories claiming that Black soldiers had sex with white women in France and would now expect the same in the United States after returning home. This mobilized white voters and raised fears of Black sexual violence, helping set the stage for violence in cities like Tulsa and small towns like Ocoee, Florida.

Those examples, thankfully, are all from a very long time ago. And, 2020 notwithstanding, we have come a long way:

Although violence and discrimination remain painfully common in the United States, no longer do white mobs rampage through minority neighborhoods, killing dozens with impunity and expelling others. Police protect citizens against mobs, and prosecutors are far more likely to obtain convictions for any violence when it does occur. Today’s media environment, though degraded by the rise of fact-free influencers on social media, is far better than its 19th-century counterpart.

Perhaps most encouragingly, there is greater mainstream tolerance for communities that once seemed alien. The eventual election of Catholic presidents and the nomination of a Mormon presidential candidate illustrate how groups once considered existential threats came to be treated as legitimate participants in, even leaders of, American democracy. Racism proved, and still proves, harder to combat, but there is positive news here too, ranging from the growth in the number of Black, Asian, and Hispanic American elected officials to changing popular attitudes. Racial intermarriage, once illegal and probably the biggest bogeymen used by white supremacists to whip up hatred, went from being accepted by only 4 percent of Americans in 1958 to 94 percent in 2021.

Alas,

Yet in some areas, the United States is moving backward. Although the Jan. 6, 2021, Trump-inspired violence and shootings such as the killing of conservative firebrand Charlie Kirk understandably weigh heavily on people’s minds, election violence has been relatively rare in recent elections. However, work by the Brennan Center for Justice and others indicates that many local election officials face threats—as do many U.S. elected officials. Even if these threats amount to little more than empty posturing on social media, it makes individuals less willing to help run elections and may scare away many quality candidates from seeking elected office.

More broadly, there is a sense that support for political violence has increased as America has become more divided along partisan lines. This is a complex polling issue, and actual support is probably far lower than some of the more alarmist (and often poorly designed) polls suggest. (Indeed, one expert noted the 2016 poll that found half of young Americans would rather a meteor strike Earth than have Trump win the presidency as an example of why pollsters need to be careful not to take the expression of extreme sentiments too literally in polling.) But even mere perceptions can be a big problem, as many Americans who believe political violence is up also believe that only the other side of the political spectrum is responsible. This misperception fosters a climate of fear and provides a potential justification for “defensive” violence or a government crackdown.

Part of the reason for this misperception is the decline in the broader information environment. Social media, because it bypasses traditional gatekeepers, often produces or repeats alarmist reports. Political figures like President Trump have stoked these sentiments, claiming there is “widespread voter fraud” that delegitimates election results. False claims of electoral fraud are particularly dangerous because they encourage Americans to see defeat not as a normal part of democracy, but as an injustice that must be resisted. Similarly, the pardoning of Jan. 6 rioters, including those convicted of attacking Capitol Police, sends a message that political violence pays or at least that it won’t be punished.

There’s a little too much bothsiderism in there for my tastes, but his overall point is indisputable. And his conclusion, which may have been a banal statement of the obvious not so long ago, is worth highlighting:

The lesson of America’s violent electoral history is that democracy depends not just on the ability to win elections but also on the willingness to lose them. As Americans go to the polls on Tuesday, they—and especially the candidates they support—must remember that the proper response to the risk of losing is to try again in the future, perhaps by changing candidates or modifying platforms or in other cases simply waiting for public sentiment to change. Indeed, the right to vote is only part of why American democracy is strong: Just as important is the willingness to lose without resorting to violence.

I am not all that worried about violence today or even between now and the swearing-in of the next Congress in January. There’s little precedent for that in the midterms. I do fear, though, that the end of the Trump era will not automatically reboot us to the halcyon days of Gore.