It’s still early in the night, but I have a bad feeling about this. Something has to change for me not to assume Trump is going to win exactly the way he won in 2016 — he wins the electoral vote but loses the popular vote.
Unless there’s a coup, I’m going to tune out if that happens. As of tomorrow morning, I’m going to plunge head first into the novel. We have another four years of the Trump Era and there will be a built-in audience of angry liberals who will want to read it.
And I have to remind you that I have long believed that the Russians would never allow an asset as valuable as Trump to leave office. AND Trump rather randomly removed 1/3 of our troops from Germany. I know it’s still early, but that remains a significant fear for me right now.
What’s more the Trump Post Office gambit appears to be working as well — 300,000 votes aren’t going to be cast in swing states and the Post Office is lulzing a court order. They know they can ignore it with impunity because it matters is they help throw the election for the autocrat.
I don’t know if I’ll blog anymore tonight. I may be too depressed. If what I’ve been saying all along happens — autocrats never lose — the novel should begin to go very, very quickly as of tomorrow morning.
Someone on Twitter said you can’t impeach someone once they’re out of office. The only reason why I event brought this up was how often Republicans have tried to impeach various out-of-office Democrats over the years. So, I guess, should the Russians let Trump lose, the entire Trump Era will be value free other than a shit ton of young hack MAGA judges and a massive tax cut for plutocrats.
We have to be honest with ourselves. Even if the Russians mysteriously allow Trump to lose, even if Barr doesn’t help Trump stage a successful coup in the courts, Trump is going to escape justice.
If you thought we didn’t have the political will to do anything about Trump’s crimes, just wait until he’s out of office. Everyone could be so relieved that a civil war didn’t break out that Trump gets what he wants — the opportunity stay a free man AND be able to run again in 2024.
Of course, New York State keeps making rumblings about going after Trump once he’s no longer president, but I find that to be something of a liberal fever dream. And, really, it sets a very, very bad precedent.
And, yet, given what a Singularity of criminality Trump is, it’s possible that after Trump is out of office that we are faced with only one option: impeachment.
This is not the greatest precedent to set and it would only work if Republicans lost the Senate, but it would be a way to, at last, allow the laws of political gravity to snap back into place (in a sense.) The reason is — it’s almost value free. In real terms, if Trump was impeached and convicted after leaving office, all it would mean would be he would lose his pension and he couldn’t run for president again.
This is an extremely problematic thing to do for a number of reasons. Even though it would be almost entirely value free — and difficult to explain to the average person — if any of the dozen or so scandals Trump has managed to punt down the road in the courts blew up in a massive way after he left office there might be a serious consideration of impeaching him even out of office.
While this is just the type of liberal fever dream that Twitter liberals have wallowed in for the last four years, the biggest obstacle to such an idea may be a a matter of attention.
It just would suck up way too political energy and attention to do such a thing. And, from Nancy Pelosi’s point of view, probably rile the already polarized nation up even more.
The only reason why I even suggest this is there are some doozy scandals Trump has run the clock out on and at least one of them might be so shocking, so heinous that there finally is the political willpower to do something about it, even if Trump is out of office. I’m thinking about what Don McGahn might finally say at some point. Or the various cases connected to Trump’s many sexual assault allegations.
And, yet, we probably should just be happy we get rid of Trump, should that happen.
At the end of the American Civil War, Gen. Robert E. Lee was given the option of carrying on a guerilla war after Richmond fell. Thankfully, for all of us, he declined.
Well, it definitely seems as though we aren’t going to be so lucky with Trump should he lose. (I still think either the Russians or Barr will make all of this moot and Trump, like all autocrats, will “not lose.”) It’s possible that Trump’s ultimate legacy is he pressed the issue — he went out of his way to incite violence.
So, while under most normal circumstances, we would all be really tense but in the end we would look back and laugh at how hysterical we were, it’s very possible that Trump’s “final piviot” will be the destruction of the United States out of a combination of spite and self-preservation.
There are a number of ways this might happen. One, the most obvious, is he declares victory as early as possible, which is a signal to his supporters to fuck shit up. Or, after sulking a few days, his insanity and his criminality finally fuse in a rather dramatic fashion and he goes out in something of a blaze of glory. He actually becomes transactional in his efforts to destroy the country.
He could fire the head of the FBI and name Rudy specifically so people like Obama and Biden (and the entire “Deep State”) are frogwalked in a very public fashion. This, in itself, might be enough to cause a civil war. Or, put another way, Trump could lose in a landslide and start a civil war all on his own because he doesn’t want to go to prison.
It could get so bad that even Republicans begin to grow alarmed, and the whole Big Lie at the center of MAGA’s takeover of the Republican Party is exposed.
And, of course, if that doesn’t work, Trump flies AF1 to Moscow right before Jan. 20th and spills all our secrets to the Russians.
On a strictly political level, it seems as though Biden is in a very good position to have something of a landslide tomorrow. And, yet, there is my lingering fear that Trump didn’t remove 1/3 of our troops from Germany for no reason. He may have done it for the specific reason that he wants government sponsored Russian hackers to change votes in his favor.
I’m not optimistic.
If this doesn’t happen, then I will be completely flabbergasted. It will be inexplicable. Everything about both Trump’s native personality and his relationship to the Russians would indicate he didn’t just randomly decide to pull such a dick move on the Germans so close to the election.
One thing to remember is two things are careening towards each other — a political landslide for Biden and TrumpBarr’s total unwillingness to leave power without extracting a pound flesh. That’s a recipe for The Big Ugly because if Trump loses the Mandate of Heaven in a self-evident fashion and, yet, weirdly wins a second term, it’s very likely things are going to get bumpy pretty quick.
And that, in itself, may be the point. It may be that Trump really would rather destroy the United States than leave office — something I’ve been ranting about since he was elected.
What’s more, even if Trump is demonstrably trounced on Election Night, it’s very possible that’s just the beginning. TrumpBarr may go to ridiculous lengths to fight any Biden victory, even if they lose in a landslide. That, in turn, will, well, cause a massive shitshow, the likes of which we’ve not seen since 1860.
Among the things I fear are, massive violence that happens after Trump declares victory even though it’s self-evident he’s going to lose. TrumpBarr fucking with the certification of Electors — no matter what — so state legislatures name MAGA Electors instead of Biden Electors.
And, speaking of Electors, what House Trump wants is make things so muddled that SCOTUS rules that the MAGA legislatures of a significant number of battle ground states can name the Electors, no matter what. Or, put another way, Electors and their selection is the absolute weakness link in the Constitution. It’s easy to imagine a scenario where TrumpBarr win through violence and general ratfucking.
That, too, is a situation where there might be a civil war or revolution — The Big Ugly. So, in a sense, it’s possible that Election Night will be just the beginning of a very long, very painful episode in American political history that involves far more deaths than any of us could possibly imagine right now.
Or not.
What’s more, if, after a month or so Trump miraculously loses in the courts, we will then enter the “salt the earth on the way out” phase of things. Trump will pardon hundreds of his cronies — including Jared’s dad — and maybe even himself!
And, in the end, after he’s destroyed as much of the government as possible and ruined the Executive branch for a generation, Trump could very well leave the country around, say, January 10th and land in Moscow. He then quits and spends all his time with Russian hookers and telling Putin all of our secrets.
Right now, it seems as though Trump and Trump alone has not only his own fate, but the fate of the United States, in his hands. Since he’s a deranged moron, obviously he doesn’t give a shit about the United States. As such, here’s a scenario.
At the earliest possible moment, Trump announces he’s won. At the same time, the MAGA-Qanon base begins to firebomb strategic polling locations across the country.
JFK Jr pops out of the top of Trump’s head and we all live in peace and harmony for a 1,000 years under the benevolent rule of Q. I may have made that last part up.
Anyway, the point is — there are ways whereby Trump “doesn’t lose” because there’s not a free and fair election. The question, of course, is, will it just be seen as extreme version of the 2000 situation, or something much, much darker. I honestly don’t know.
Sue This prong involves suing everything that moves the instant they can. The Trump Campaign is already doing this, but they will go into overdrive the moment the polls close on Election Night. They know SCOTUS is their failsafe, no matter what, so there you go — they will win.
Violence This prong will be something of a suckerpunch. Between now and Election Night MAGA-Qanon will amp up the violence and disruptions to the point that a lot of people who might otherwise vote, won’t. Trump wins there, too.
Barr This would be Barr somehow giving Trump’s sketchy coup activities just enough of a legal justification that conservatives-who-aren’t-MAGA will have some sort of talking point to make themselves feel better.
All of this is going to happen very, very quickly now. If they’re successful, Trump could “win” and it’ll just be an extreme version of 2000. If they aren’t as successful as they think they otherwise could be, then, well, we have a civil war or revolution.
I have been so busy thinking about how valuable Trump is to the Russians that I totally missed something — maybe they have come to believe that Trump is such a craven idiot that he will be more destructive if he actually loses. In that case, they don’t have to fuck with votes — even though they might still do it.
They just sit back and watch Trump be, well, Trump.
He stages a coup and either way the Russians get what they want. Either he is successful and America is nothing more than autocratic Trumplandia or he fails and we have to go through The Big Ugly.
The one thing we have to be clear about, though, Barr is likely going to give Trump a thin veneer of legality for any coup he may attempt.
I can’t believe any of this is real. I hope I’m wrong. I really do. I don’t want this. I only keep coming up with worse case scenarios to make myself feel better.
It’s deep to see very real indications that all your dark scenarios may be coming true. I think the thing that a lot of people missed about the massive clusterfuck we may be about to enter is the role of Trump himself to force the issue. It seems like there’s been a lot of “Oh, that would never happen” going on.
Welp.
So, as I can discern, here’s TrumpBarr’s gameplan. Even if it’s extremely obvious that Biden is going to win outright, the moment Trump has any good news he declares victory.
Then, in one fell swoop, American politics is suspended and we enter Coup Dynamics. We enter The Big Ugly. What I mean by that is, Trump uses a combination of MAGA-Qanon violence and Barr legal skullduggery to “not lose” the election.
So, weirdly enough, we would have a similar situation as to what happened in Belarus where the autocrat “won” by 98% of the vote by everyone knew that was a lie and took to the streets. The unnerving issue is we’re careening towards a massive 9/11 level suckerpunch.
The thinking on the part of TrumpBarr is they use any violence — even if it’s from their own supporters — to use the Insurrection Act to seize “total control.” They shut down voting and use SCOTUS to give themselves a thin veneer of legality so the conservative-but-not-MAGA part of the electorate will simply shrug and go back to enjoying their tax breaks and young, hack MAGA judges.
At this point, their thinking is through sheer force of will they can “not lose” the election just like Bush did in 2000.
For me, the issue is American self-perception. Americans have never in our 240-odd history gone through an actual coup. So it will be interesting to see how such an unprecedented event hits the American psyche.
Americans are so God-awful complacent — and so absolutely polarized — that even if it’s self-evident to 60% of the electorate that coup is taking place, 40% of the electorate will say, “but Trump is legally president.”
So that might be the outcome — nothing more than an extreme version of 2000. Instead of the center-Left thinking in vague terms the election was stolen, they will think THE ELECTION WAS STOLEN VIA COUP. Meanwhile, the center-Right will simply shrug and tell us we have Trump Derangement Syndrome.
In that case, it would be a draw and, by definition, a victory for TrumpBarr. I guess they key takeaway is do not think in terms of traditional politics. TrumpBarr is going to fight dirty. We have to be prepared.
Biden wins handily on Election Night, but not all votes are counted.
Trump sues Wednesday morning to throw out all mail-in votes and wins because, lulz, SCOTUS is full of MAGA hack nows.
Within moments of the SCOTUS decision, enraged New Yorkers attack Trump Tower and FOX News’ HQ
This allows Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act to take “total control.”
Unprecedented political violence begins to erupt, to the point that Blue people in Red states and Red people in Blue states don’t feel safe anymore — domestic political refugees begin to bounce around the country.
There’s a secession crisis as California openly debates leaving the Union. This is where things grow hard to predict — does the state attempt to leave or does it stay and fight?
The entire country begins to implode as even individuals within the U.S. Military begin to take sides.
Two rival governments are established. One in NYC and one in Montgomery, Alabama. (The DC area has completely imploded into civil war.)
Virginia and Florida completely implode as intra-state regional differences are hardened and exaggerated as both Blue and Red grow ever more radicalized.
I have no idea what the endgame for this would be.
I’m still not prepared to believe the Russians would allow Trump to lose. It makes no sense. Why allow such a valuable asset to be forced out of power? Why not hack into our election systems then “accidentally on purpose” get found out. A civil war breaks out when Republicans lulz this and win at SCOTUS. The Russians get the destruction of their main geopolitical foe.
But, let’s daydream. Let’s play pretend.
Politico recently did an article on Trump being a possible “flight risk.” I haven’t read the article — just saw the headline — so maybe they covered this already, but let’s mull where Trump might go.
There are two obvious places — Moscow and Pyongyang.
The reason Trump might leave the country is simple: he doesn’t want to go to prison. Now, of course, given how Trump and Senate Republicans have turned 1/3 of the Federal bench into a MAGA cheering squad, it’s easy to imagine a situation where SCOTUS not only validates Trump pardoning himself, but somehow pulls some bullshit explanation for why he can’t be indicted for state crimes, either.
That definitely seems a lot more likely than Trump leaving the country in a rather astonishing — and historic — fashion before January 20th.
But if Trump did do something so bonkers, flying to Moscow on AF1 then quitting right before January 20th definitely seems the most obvious. He would have the biggest country in the world to play with and he could spill all the state secrets he liked directly to the Russians.
I wouldn’t completely dismiss the DPRK, however. I say this because Trump definitely seems to have a personal affinity for “Little Rocket Man” and it would make a lot of sense for him to at least begin his post-presidential career hanging out with Kim Jung Un for a few months before flying to Moscow.
The only reason why I doubt Trump would do such a thing — even if he is a deranged moron — is even he knows because of SCOTUS he could beat any state rap and staying in the country would allow him to fuck with future elections and become the political Singularity of the Republican Party.
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