Originally Posted by
mewninn
Yeah this is kind of handwavey. How do you enforce a Trump "win" where Biden is up by 8-10 points? He can't tweet and rally his way through this. To enforce that kind of "win", you will need a mass deployment of the military, don't try to pretend otherwise.
I'd agree with the risk if Biden was 2+ in polls, but there's far too much risk associated with these games now. Only his very psychotic and deranged inner circle would make a play for what you describe. Most of the people he would actually need (the joint chiefs, deep state, law enforcement) will just quietly slink away while he rants.
*dons Mussolini hat*
you fuck with the election as hard as you can and secure yet another minority-electoral-college-win.
if he cannot win outright that way, and its increasingly likely he cant, a contested result, ideally one that is fought over hard and dirty is the preferred outcome. he doesn't need the military, or the militias in the street, if the outcome is both sides view themselves as the winners he's in a contest of wills with the Democratic elite who have about as much spine as a wet toilet roll. it's a reasonable gamble that, given the choice between disintegrating the system, and backing down, they will back down in order to maintain the system. consider the stakes of either side, Trump is a obvious narcissist, he doesn't give two shits as long as he wins while the democrats very much do care. that means that, as long as he's got the legitimacy to pull it off, he's going to be willing to go further than they are.
the apparatus of state is beholden to the winner, absent a winner short term, it simply "checks out" and tries to be a neutral party barring any overt attempt at seizing power. the armed forces want precisely nothing to do with this clusterfuck unless it gets entirely out of hand, the "state machinery" such as law enforcement just keeps ticking away in the background doing its thing, of course when it comes to law enforcement specifically, they lean heavy authoritarian and will, generally speaking, rally to Trump as the sitting president. this in practice means that the protesting we've seen so far would be a the warm-up for the main event.
the Limbo period, where neither side backs down and accepts defeat is the most challenging one to navigate, but its important to note that riots, burning police precincts (for president!) and so forth would very much work in his favour as it adds pressure on the democrats to "compromise a solution" since they've taken a hard "riots aren't legitimate!" stance. throughout he's going to, probably ineffectually, demand intervention, his base is going to see it as him looking out for their interests, and the other side are going to decry it as the acts of a would-be dictator. suburban America is, predictably, going to shit their breeches over actual violent protesting and riots and lean hard authoritarian this being the only demographic that matters electorally, they're also the only ones that matter when it comes to the perceived public support, so Democratic support is likely to be declining as it goes on. the main risk is that either it blows up in his face and becomes a full on armed insurrection with a disintegrating and splintered military, or the military steps in and deflates the pressure cooker early. neither being good outcomes in terms of future political stability.
The arbiter of this shitshow, is of course the courts but the US has the politicized court system, that is likely to be leaning in Trump's favour, that adds spice to the mix but the recent bollocks over the court nomination has eroded its credibility significantly especially if they manage to seat Barrett. the outcome, and the enforcement of said outcome falls to the state, ultimately to the extend that the insurrection act is dragged out and used if required.
of course, if the gap is too big to argue that the DEMONcrats stole the election, the whole thing fizzles and he's likely to spend his remaining life in jail.
another, exceedingly unlikely possibility the Democrats shock the world by getting together with the "deep state" and stage a outright counter-coup in response to his attempted fuckery, it's the reasonable, rational response so i do not expect it to happen.
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks