Trump has no intention of allowing himself to lose. That is actually the point. Team Trump has made it clear that they will use and abuse every lever of power at their disposal to ‘not lose’ and by ‘not losing’ will try to legitimize their stay in the white house.
Let’s spend a few lines on a little dystopian election fanfic to set the stage and illustrate the point. Imagine a course of events leading up to the inauguration. For most of the vingettes, I’ll link an example of something similar from recent history that rhymes with the story:
Going in to election day, Joe Biden has widened his national lead incrementally and looks to be holding around +11 in the 538 poll tracker. As voting gets underway, exit polls paint a picture of a polling bias favoring republicans, with a popular vote margin on the order of an incredible +13. Biden looks on track to sweep more or less all of the ‘swing states’, even taking Texas, Ohio, and Georgia by narrow margins, looking at a 400+ EV landslide.
Plenty of states experience severe polling irregularities. As night falls and poll closing times start to pass, things start to take a turn for the surreal. In Pennsylvania, and Texas, a horror story starts to play out. Proud boys and other deplorables start to gather near urban polling places. They harass voters of color and eventually fights break out. Police arrive and eventually declare an ‘unlawful assembly’, disperse the crowds with tear gas, and disperse those waiting to vote and order the voting places closed. www.propublica.org/...
In Virginia and Wisonsin, absentee ballots returned in the weeks ahead of election day are markedly above benchmark numbers for a clear Biden win; more than enough to offset Trump’s advantage in in-person turnout. But when results are released, something is strange. The number of mail in ballots delivered by the post office in the days leading up to election day is down markedly. Due to a ‘Funding Emergency’ the US mail stops running in Wisconsin. Stories come out of workers furloughed and offices shut down in the days leading up to the election. In Virginia, stories arrive of absentee ballots arriving on election day as printing delays prevented ballots being sent out even close to on time. Just after deadlines pass, ballots start flooding in. A firestorm begins to brew in congress, the courts and the media. www.dailykos.com/…
As days drag on, thing get even stranger. In Ohio and Georgia, the respective secretaries of states do not certify the election results as expected, despite returns that show clear but narrow wins for Biden.
The plot thickens in Wisconsin. An emergency appeal to the state supreme court by the republican Party secures an order on a party line vote that blocks certification of electors. It appears that Wisconsin will sit out this election cycle rather than certify what is clearly a Biden victory. In razor-thin Virginia, some of the late ballots are opened and results leak out, showing a clear margin for Biden. Both states eventually stall out in the courts and certification of electors is blocked due to aggressive Republican litigation. en.wikipedia.org/...
Naturally, Florida is an unholy mess. Recounts, court battles, missing and stolen ballots, and evidence of outright fraud fly thick and fast. As the date for the electoral college vote approaches, the secretary of state certifies Biden’s electors. However, forum-shopping republicans manage to find a judge willing to order their electors certified. This results in not one but two electoral college votes from Florida, which causes all of the votes to be rejected as improper and not counted. en.wikipedia.org/...
Along with this issue, as the December date for the electoral college votes draws near, republicans are openly courting democratic electors to defect. Many find themselves doxxed and the subject of rightwing protests. In fact, one democratic elector appears on Maddow and describes meeting a Trump campaign aide accompanied by DOJ staffers, sending an ominous message. www.politico.com/...
Even the Electoral College vote is marred with irregularities. In Ohio and Georgia, the respective secretaries of state certify the entire slate of Republican candidates early in the morning, ignoring the election returns. With no mechanism under either state’s law to contest the results, the electoral votes are sent out for Trump. In Pennsylvania, armed militia groups descend on the voting location occupy the building. An extended armed standoff ensues. In their most brazen action yet, armed BORTAC agents use the pretext of an immigration action to raid the California building where the electoral votes are officially being transmitted. Neither California nor Pennsylvania have their EV’s counted. en.wikipedia.org/… sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/...
Aghast at the brazen behavior of Republicans in Ohio and Georgia, House Democrats refuse to accept their credentials and seat the Democratic opponents instead. Senate leadership shows no such integrity. When the time comes to count the Electoral votes, the result comes out to be a 205-205 tie. With the President and VP thrown to the house and senate respectively, the senate gleefully votes in Mike Pence, and Trump secures the endorsement of 26 states by a single vote.
In a narrative like this, under constitutional rules, Trump never lost the election. In fact, he would swagger up to the chief justice on election day fully expecting to be sworn in for another 4 years in office.
Granted, the odds of things going this far are quite remote, but there is an important question we need to be asking:
How much cheating is too much? At what point would a ‘technical win’ by Trump after abusing every option available no longer be meaningful?
It isn’t just enough to ‘not lose’. A president is only legitimate with a clean and fair win.
