“Insulection” (noun: also “inselection”, “inserection”)

See: “democratic collapse”, “suspended disbelief”, “heads I win, tails you lose”, “scullduggery”

Definition:

election in which one party announces in advance that it will only accept the result if they win and threatens and organizes insurrectionary violence to overturn the result, should they lose.

History: although “insulection” is a new word, it names an old set of practices. Precedents in the West can be found at least as far back as republican Rome. In modern times, it has a long history in failing democracies, notably in the global South. From 2015–16, the word assumed currency in the USA.

Explanation: the aim of insulection is to win at all costs, with no respect for previously-agreed democratic norms (see “heads I win, tails you lose”).

The logic of insulection is projective (see “projection”). The insurrectionary party accuses the election system, ostensibly neutral, of being “rigged”, and partisan, towards the opponents. This sows confusion amongst people who remain committed to democratic processes, many of whom will not have conceived of the possibility of being accused falsely of electoral fraud, tampering etc.

Such preemptive accusation also creates the appearance of a moral equivalence…