So what happens when Donald Trump refuses to leave office? The nightmare scenario could occur



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Polls currently show that all major Democratic presidential candidates are ahead of Donald Trump, and even if Democrats should take nothing for granted – Trump will lead a campaign so nasty that he will probably Shame on 2016 – there is at least a reason to hope that Americans will be numerous and that Trump will be completely beaten in 2020. This victory would be both exciting and a huge relief, a moment when we all start collectively. to believe that the national nightmare ends.

But as soon as that happens, if that happens, the next nightmare will begin. It may take a few minutes, hours, days or even weeks, but between the polling day of November 2020 and the day of the inauguration in January 2021, it's a safe bet that Trump will declare that the election was a "false news" and refuses to leave the whites. House.

This possibility has remained in the "If" column since his first election, largely because Trump is a final narcissist, his inability to admit his own mediocrity has earned him a place on the Forbes 400 list and masquerading as his own publicist. a pathetic effort to generate tabloid coverage of his personal life. Now the prospect that Trump will simply declare the election void and refuse to yield power to the 2020 winner will be better understood in the "when" column.

Last weekend was not good, as Trump announced that he would refuse to accept the results of any lost election. After internal polls sponsored by the Trump campaign were leaked, showing that the president was trailing badly in several battlefield states, Trump angrily called the polling stations "falsify" and transfer polling stations working for him. He also suggested on Twitter that it was possible "people demand that I stay longer"More than two terms, using his joke-joke strategy to suggest that he's not surrounded by laws or the Constitution when it comes to retaining power."

One of the main topics of discussion for Democrats who are reluctant to initiate an impeachment investigation is that Trump must be removed from the polls, not by indictment. The argument is that Trump can not be removed from office by indictment, because the Republicans, who control the Senate, will refuse to condemn him, no matter the overwhelming evidence. Unfortunately, this argument has merit. With rare exceptions like Michigan's Justin Amash, Republicans have shown that there is no crime-like level of crime that Trump could show that they are unwilling to accept, in the to the extent that it allows them to retain power.

But it is also for this reason that Republicans will accept the danger if, and when, Trump refuses to leave office after an electoral defeat. And why not? They have not yet traced a visible line when it is cheating or breaking the law. On the contrary, Republicans have already flouted the law in order to keep control of the government, even though a majority of Americans have clearly rejected them at the polls. Until now, there seems to be no limit to what Republicans will allow, as long as it strengthens their power.

Think of what Republicans were doing even before Trump arrived. Gerrymandering and the crackdown on voters predated his candidacy, taking off seriously after the Republican-controlled Supreme Court overturned the voting rights law. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell also categorically refused to hold a hearing for Barack Obama's Supreme Court candidate, Merrick Garland, breaking all standards and traditions in order to keep the seat open so that he would not have to go to court. a republican president can replace him. This trend clearly dates back to the decision in the Bush v. 2000, in the Bush v. Canada case. Gore, in which the conservative majority of the Supreme Court entrusted George W. Bush with the presidency instead of allowing a fair and complete count of votes in Florida.

Under Trump, Republicans have only become more daring. Robert Mueller's report documented Trump's extensive efforts to associate with a Russian criminal plot to interfere in the 2016 election, as well as his vast concealment of this plot. Instead of doing anything, the Republicans have constantly pretended Trump, either by lying on the content of the Mueller report, or by establishing false equivalences with the legal and transparent choices made by the 2016 Hillary Clinton campaign.

McConnell's response to the Russian criminal conspiracy to undermine the last election was in fact to reject any effort to prevent such plots in the future. Congressional bills have been written to strengthen electoral security and McConnell is simply refusing to bring them for a vote. In his interview with George Stephanopoulos of ABC News last week, Trump made it clear that he was planning to cheat in 2020 in the same way that he had cheated in 2016. The answer McConnell's was basically the following: "Bring him".

Again, Republicans are so complicit in Trump's crime that it's simply a factual finding to note that there is no chance that the Senate will vote in favor of Trump's conviction. in a trial by indictment, no matter how serious his crimes may be. (A two-thirds majority, or 67 votes, is required, which would require all Democrats and independents aligned, as well as at least 20 Republicans.) If they refuse to return him for a crime, why then would they throw him just because he lost an election?

As the saying goes, the behavior of the past is the best predictor of future behavior. On this basis, we must assume that Trump and the Republicans will not be surrounded by law or custom in maintaining power that they have not won. It would be foolhardy for the Democrats to base their hopes on the possibility that Trump, after all this time, would suddenly become the kind of man who would admit to having lost an election – or that the Republicans would finally decide that there is "going too much "when it is a question of taking power in defiance of the democratic will.

How can we deal with it when Trump simply declares the election null and void and the Republicans back his play? The time to plan this is now. Being caught unawares and trying to catch up will simply make it easier for Trump to believe that his hold on the White House is unshakable, just as he and the Republicans have accepted that it is normal and acceptable for the Senate to refuse to condemn him, whatever happens.

Unless the Democrats act quickly and forcefully when Trump refuses to leave the White House – and they have to plan "when", "not" if "- the Republicans will be able to make Trump feel forever inevitable and even almost normal, as they have already done, with their other successful efforts to eviscerate American democracy.

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