With his options actually reduced to ruling the country or serving time, Trump has become more dangerous to American democracy than ever. The loss of the Presidency means he loses the protection that shields a sitting president from being charged, put on trial, and eventually condemned, hence for this self-serving kleptocrat it has turned too risky to rely only on a few thousand votes in a few swing states to get a majority of the Electoral College despite having lost the national vote, as it happened in 2016.
The stakes are higher, these are desperate times that trigger his ever-lasting pulsions to take desperate measures, which are in plain sight. Just join the dots of the words and actions, both of him and his enablers, and a plan emerges to legally steal the Presidency. These are the likely steps he will use to grab it:
To sow suspicion about the fairness of the election itself to undermine public confidence, which Trump has unrelently done since he announced his candidacy more than five years ago.
To create mayhem on election day sending his armed Storm Troopers of White supremacists to frighten both non-Whites everywhere and all residents in Democratic-leaning districts from going out to vote, provoking fights and widespread violence to deter voters from reaching the polling stations. Then Trump sends armed federal agents to “restore order” and take the uncounted ballots away.
Trump declares himself winner ahead on election night, based on in-person provisional results before most of the mail-in and early ballots, which favor Democrats, are counted, blaming them as innacurate, rigged, forged, fraudulent.
An army of Trumpist lawyers launch scores of lawsuits to halt counting and challenge ballots, especially mail-in ballots which Trump has discredited and driven his supporters away while starving the postal service of funds. There are plenty of technicalities that offer plenty of opportunities to sue, drag the counting, and ultimately halt it before it is finished.
Meanwhile, Trump’s Storm Troopers prevent canvassers to do their job, and Trumpist state and federal officials open investigations about the irregularities they themselves trump up: deadlines, signature matching, voter intent — you name it.
Republican-controlled legislatures assign their electoral votes to Trump, allege the election has failed because so many votes are yet uncounted, and disqualify all vote-counting after Election Day as illegitimate.
The Constitution grants them the power to appoint the electors “in such manner as the Legislature thereof may direct.” Neither statewide vote is required nor the legislatures are obliged to assign their electors respecting the people’s votes —
In Bush v. Gore the Supreme Court ruled that states can take back the power to appoint electors at any time. Where there are Democratic governors, they veto the Republican legislatures’ appointments, and appoint their own slate of electors instead: the ones who have won the popular vote. Congress receives two different lists of appointees from such states.
Struggles erupt in the streets, violence spreads, Trump deploys troops and even declares a national emergency — his Reichstag Fire opportunity to grab unfettered, total power hollowing out checks and balances.
Congress has the power to decide which of the two scores of appointees sent by the disputed states is entitled to vote in the Electoral College but it is unclear what happens if the House and the Senate diverge.
If Congress dismiss both scores, it is also unclear whether the winner is who has gotten the majority of the remaining electors, or whether he needs the majority of the electors that should have been appointed, including the number of those who have been discarded by Congress.
If that is case, none of the candidates would get the majority, and the Constitution empowers the House of Representatives to appoint the President, but “in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by states, the representation from each state having one vote,” says the Twelfth Amendment.
Nowadays, Trump’s party has the upper hand in the Senate, and also in the House of Representatives if the representation of each state has one vote. The elections may have changed that, but it is unclear whether those decisions may be legally taken by the outgoing lawgivers by delaying the formal appointment of the newly elected.
Every decision taken by the states’ legislatures and governors, the House, and the Senate, can be disputed before the Supreme Court. It only takes five Justices to issue the apposite rulings to benefit Trump, who has appointed three of them. Three more Justices were appointed by previous Republican presidents — The utmost jeopardy to the reputation of the Justices as politically impartial and solely committed to the Constitution, neither to the transient President nor to the temporary ruling party.
A nightmare scenario indeed that may only be avoided if the first results of the electoral night deny Trump any chance to unleash it.
Otherwise, the utmost fear of the Founding Fathers will come true, and America will sink into autocracy: a Banana Republic where the wings of the American Eagle will be one by one clipped to feather the nests of the politically protected plutocrats. Sic Transit Gloria Mundi.
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