[I]t’s almost as if Donald Trump studied Al Gore’s behavior in 2000 and decided to do the opposite after he lost to Joe Biden in 2020. (And Trump did lose — by seven million votes in the popular vote and 303 to 232 in the Electoral College.)

Like Gore, Trump went to court in the aftermath of the election, but instead of eminences like David Boies and Laurence Tribe, who represented the vice president, Trump trotted out crackpots . . .

But the most important difference between Gore and Trump involves violence. At the infamous rally on the Ellipse on January 6, Giuliani called for “trial by combat,” and Trump told the throng, “We’re going to the Capitol. And we fight. We fight like hell. And if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.”

Since then, more than 1,500 of Trump’s fighters have been arrested. Two weeks later, Joe Biden took office, but Trump (unlike Gore) failed to attend the victor’s inauguration and persisted in the lie that the election had been stolen from him.

Instead of the oblivion that Trump deserved, his belligerence won him continuing political relevance and, ultimately, the presidency once more. On the first day of Trump’s return to the White House, there were pardons for those criminals who answered his summons to violence at the Capitol.

In all, the diverging fates of Gore and Trump offer grim lessons about the country they both sought to lead. Violence pays. Lying works. Grace is for suckers. “This is America,” Gore said in his concession speech. “Just as we fight hard when the stakes are high, we close ranks and come together when the contest is done.” No, alas; look who’s president now. THIS is America.

—Jeffrey Toobin