(11-20-2020, 12:27 PM)Jinx999 Wrote: Trump's options are, as far as I can tell, now:
1) Concede with ill grace, claiming that he only lost because the Democrats were dirty cheaters.
2) Continue to make claims that he is going to win the legal battle any moment now.
3) Openly ask Republican dominated state governments to ignore the "obviously wrong" popular vote and appoint electors themselves.
4) Ask his supporters to "defend democracy" by force. I'd be much less worried about this if he didn't seem to believe that he genuinely has the support of the majority of the country, including the gun owners, police and military.
1) is the only sensible option, but he's not shown much signs that he will be sensible so far.
2) is a delaying action.
3) is a challenge to democracy. If the state governments go along with it, it would pretty much destroy America.
4) is still vanishingly unlikely, but it scares me that I cannot completely rule it out. I can't imagine the generally very honorable and professional US military going along with it, but it would still be a hell of a mess.
Let's have a little balance here:
1. Is certainly most plausible as the best way out in the case of a loss, I'll grant you that.
2. Kinda unfair to hold this against him, he's Donald Trump. Asking him to concede on something like this is getting angry he dares to breathe air.
3. Trump could ASK, yes, but the states have to decide that on their own. When the Founders wrote the Constitution, they had to extend a huge concession to the states to get them on board, and in exchange for accepting the supremacy of the federal government, they were given the final say HOW they chose electors, and the third option remains their right at any time. It would be a dick move if the people were decidedly against it, but entirely legal inside the representative democratic framework the states accepted.
4. You can rule this out. Remember, the Republican position is that the OTHER side is trying to pull a coup. If Option 4 happened, any illusion of having what Republicans consider the moral high ground disappears. Besides, from the regular military, while Trump is the Commander in Chief, even he cannot give them the order to incite unrest nor act inside the US without the consent of Congress. Foreign deployment and cases of clear emergency (like disaster relief) are some of the very few exceptions, but Trump cannot lawfully order the US Armed Forces to enforce a military junta out of sheer spite. As for civilian unrest, I cannot be as sure, but I seriously doubt all but the most extremeish fringe is going to consider that time to start Civil War 2.