by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
For a variety of reasons, I believe that right now, Trump is still in the “abstract fear” phase of his efforts to brazenly steal the election. He knows that he’s assembled a dozen different things that in conjunction will help him steal the election in such a way that Twitter liberals will squabble amongst themselves for a decade as to which one, specifically, did the trick.
So, in a vague sense, Trump simply wants to win. He really doesn’t care how it happens, as long as he wins and is sworn in on Jan 20th, 2021. He’s willing to burn everything — EVERYTHING — to the ground to accomplish this goal. Though it’s unlikely he’s actually articulated to himself yet, he’s even willing to have blood run in the streets.
But as has been mentioned on Twitter by others, it definitely seems as though his basic fail safe at the moment is to announce his victory Election Night (no matter where things stand) then denounce anything after that as fraudulent. Remember, as I understand it, election results have to be certified a number of times before the Electors vote. It seems pretty obvious that if the half-dozen different things Trump is doing to steal the election don’t work by the Election, that he will pressure Red State legislatures to not certify election results, or if they do, do so in his favor. (I think Pence, acting as the president of the Senate also has to certify the votes near the end of the process.)
Anyway, all Trump wants to do is win, so fuck you. Even if everyone, EVERYONE knows that what is happening is wrong, Trump won’t care. All he cares is staying in power and so Twitter liberals can rant all they want to on Twitter, in the end, Trump gets sworn in and people start getting pushed out of windows as part of Trump’s stolen second term.
The absolute fall back position Trump vaguely has in his mind at this point is to sow such doubt in the public’s mind as to the nature of Biden’s victory –should it somehow happen despite Trump’s skulduggery — that Republicans can make the case that the entire Biden Administration is illegitimate. This is something people like me think about the Trump Administration and, as such, MAGA is going to absolutely believe this no matter what.
How this absolute belief in the “illegitimacy” of the Biden Administration on the part of MAGA expresses itself is a huge question. It’s very likely that the first 100 days of any Biden Administration would be simply struggling to keep the country together. There could be rolling political violence across the country as MAGA people of all stripes freak the fuck out that The Dear Leader has been “overthrown” by Godless Communist progressive liberals.
There are a number of scenarios where things grow so dire that there is some sort of “Unity Government” formed out of desperation, maybe negotiated by the U.S. Military. The aim of this would be to simply punt the near-civil war the country was at because of Trump’s thuggish behavior for about two years until they’re another election.
I could see a scenario where there’s a huge conference where it’s decided that Electors might vote for Biden as POTUS and Pence (or whomever) as Veep and the cabinet would be made up of both Democrats and Republicans. This would not work, of course, because Republicans want to murder Democrats in cold blood by this point.
But we might try.
The point is, Trump wants, at the very least, MAGA to not see the Biden Administration as legitimate so the Republican Party can run on that in two years. Things could grow extremely surreal if Republicans win the House and then name Trump as Speaker of the House so Trump would be in the line of succession.
Don’t laugh. This could really happen.
