With the rest of the world in turmoil, here in the U.S. we seem condemned to endlessly re-litigating the 2020 election, the one that’s been over for 17 months. Wouldn’t it be nice if — just once — we could put one of these unwinnable political debates to bed?

So, let’s make a deal: GOP, you promise to never again claim that Donald Trump won the 2020 election; and in return, Democrats, you promise to never again insist that the election was “fair and transparent.”

I doubt that either side will be comfortable with its part of the bargain, but if we walk through it I believe that we’ll find — as is so often the case — that the truth lies somewhere in the middle.

GOP first: the election’s outcome is set in stone. Joe Biden is the president of the United States. The umpire made the call, the dugouts are empty, the game is in the record books. The fat lady sang 15 months ago. Republicans can yell “we wuz robbed!” day and night — and perhaps you were — but it won’t change the outcome.

2020 was not our first tainted or contested election. But we have a system to come to timely closure in such circumstances. When the votes are tallied and the results certified, we move on. That’s how John Kennedy (1960), George W. Bush (2000), and now Joe Biden became our presidents of record.

And for you Democrats. You assert repeatedly that the 2020 election was “fair and transparent,” but surely it was not.

The astonishing enigma remains: how did a lackluster, uninspiring candidate — one who’d never gotten past first base in previous tries — cop more votes than any presidential candidate in history? Democrats explain that many of those Biden votes were actually votes against the reviled Donald Trump. But wait, in 2020 Trump got the second largest presidential vote count in American history. How did that happen?

Certainly, the heavy Democrat turnout was enhanced by sweeping changes to election practices — greatly expanded mail-in voting, bulk vote collection, acceptance of late votes, after-the-fact correction of flawed ballots — put in place and implemented on the ground through big-money Democrat contributions.

But the idea that the 2020 election was truly fair went up in smoke recently with the reemergence of the infamous Hunter Biden laptop. In recent weeks, both The New York Times and The Washington Post, traditional standard bearers for Democrat causes, both sheepishly acknowledged that the information they dismissed before the 2020 election was actually quite solid.

Much is still to play out, but it seems clear that (1) Biden’s son Hunter, and other members of the Biden family, have for years been selling Biden name influence around the world, including in China, netting millions of dollars, and (2) Joe Biden himself may well have benefitted financially from these schemes.

All that was known prior to the 2020 election, and it was information that surely should have been available to voters. But U.S. print, broadcast, and social media blocked it entirely. We have no way of knowing how much the well-orchestrated suppression of critical information influenced American voters’ choice; but it was undoubtedly a significant factor, and arguably the greatest cover up in U.S. political history.

And so now, 17 months later, our best answers to the key 2020 election questions are: Did Joe Biden get enough votes, in enough of the right places, to win? Probably. Have Republicans proved otherwise? No. Was the 2020 presidential election fair and transparent? Not on your life.

And there are other, still important takeaways from the chaotic 2020 election:

• There are good reasons for people to be skeptical about the outcome; most are simply thoughtful Americans — not Trump cultists, not conspiracy theorists, and certainly not insurrectionists.
  
• Our Democratic Republic system of government is founded on the premise of free, fair, and transparent elections. Without them, the system will fail. Let’s face it, we need to clean up our act.
  
• Improved accessibility to voting is a good thing, a positive lesson from 2020. But fair and transparent elections demand sensible security measures. It’s not helpful — and grossly inaccurate — for Biden to tar such measures as “Jim Crow 2.0.”
  
• In 2020, several social media corporations — unelected, politically active, wealthy beyond measure, and capable of reaching virtually every American voter — had an enormous impact on Americans’ choice for president. That back-room king-making won’t always favor Democrats. But who knows what entity will pick our next president?

Republicans, look forward not back — Biden is president and Trump is history. Democrats, please acknowledge that the 2020 election was a mess. And both sides, don’t allow election 2024 to follow that disastrous example.