What if Trump loses, and refuses to go?
Here’s a scary election scenario from Tim Wirth, the former Democratic Senator from Colorado.
Trump loses the election to Biden, as now seems likely, in both popular votes and electoral votes. That’s despite his best efforts to steal the election through voter suppression, purging voting roles, limiting polling places in cities, and suppressing mail-in voting. This anti-democratic effort is already being waged by Republicans, who have “removed…17 million names…from the voter rolls.”
Trump immediately claims that the vote was “rigged,” especially in swing states he won last time. (He’s already planting the poisonous seeds for such a claim.) He will blame mail-in ballots and “Chinese election interference,” and will invoke “emergency powers” for his Department of Justice—under his stooge, Bill Barr—to investigate “election hacking.” If no evidence of such “hacking” exists, it can always be fabricated.
There will be tremendous social upheaval, but Trump will gain precious time for him to stall, until Dec. 14, when by law the States must choose their Electoral College representatives. But in states whose legislatures are controlled by Republicans—Arizona, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, and probably others—Trump supporters will refuse to certify their electors until after the phony “Justice Department investigation” is finished, which obviously could take a very long time.
Democrats rightfully will challenge this banana republic coup to the U.S. Supreme Court. The Court “will rule against Republicans,” Wirth believes, but will assert that the Electoral College has to meet anyway, even if it’s without the swing states. In that case, neither candidate will receive enough electoral votes (270) to win, which will throw the election into the House of Representatives.
While it’s true that Democrats far outnumber Republicans in the House, under the rules, each state gets a single vote in a contested Presidential election. And since, at the present time, there are 26 States controlled by Republicans and only 23 controlled by Democrats, the Republicans will elect Trump, even though he lost the popular vote and the electoral vote.
That sounds completely plausible. It would be the darkest stain on Congress in U.S. history, but Republicans wouldn’t care about that, as long as they get to keep Trump. Now, you have to ask yourself, what would the American people do after such a rape? Would they submit? Not likely. There would be widespread civil unrest, with clashes in the streets from coast to coast.
There’s one remaining piece: the U.S. military. Says Wirth: “The recent resistance of our military establishment is an encouraging sign and necessary component of the ‘people’s firewall'”. Trump hopes and believes he’s got the professional military on his side (he obviously has the gun owners and private militias), and of course he is commander-in-chief. But the “recent resistance of our military establishment” Wirth refers to—with admirals and generals standing up to him in high-visibility cases, such as Trump’s disastrous rout of peaceful protesters in Lafayette Park—suggests that, if and when push comes to shove, the Pentagon will not necessarily follow Trump’s orders blindly. And, of course, in civil wars, it is always the military that has the final say.
How this scenario plays out—if it comes to that–is, of course, beyond anyone’s guess. But we have to get ready for a bumpy ride. Because we know this for sure: If Trump loses the election yet manages to steal it anyway, we’re going to have to take our country back by any means necessary.
