What happens if Trump "wins"?

[bae]

What will be the impacts if Trump somehow manages to "win" this election in a fashion that looks under-the-table?

(By leaning on election board officials to not certify votes, or by bringing state legislators to the White House and lobbying them to appoint a different set of electors than the election results call for, or by Giuliani's crack legal team pulling something extremely incredible off in the higher Courts, or ..."

[JaneV2.0]

I'm beginning to lose faith in our people and our system; it should be self-regulating, and it clearly isn't. If Trump manages to pull off this, his ultimate grift, I'll just be thankful I don't have a huge amount of time left, because I don't have the will or energy for a full out revolution.

[catherine]

I just broached the topic of politics for the first time since the election since it's a very sensitive topic in our household. I asked DH, with the disclaimer, "I don't want to get into a political argument, but...." and then asked him what he thought about Trump's behavior vis-a-vis the "transition"

Well, we agreed on one thing. DH did say "he's just being an a__h___" But, somewhat predictably, we did fall into a falling-out when it came to the election itself. His POV: a) Trump won more votes than anyone in the history of elections. I pointed out actually BIDEN won more votes than Trump, so that means BIDEN won more votes than anyone in history. DH had a hard time processing that--I don't think he realized that unlike Hilary and Gore, Trump also lost the popular vote as well as the electoral vote. And DH also felt that b) those mail-in ballots were just sent to anybody!! So it's entirely possible that .... (something bad happened to ALL the millions of votes or Trump but he couldn't articulate exactly what).

My point is, even reasonable people truly feel that their side won the election, even if that side is Trump, who, most people acknowledge, lost.

If Trump somehow wangled his way back into office, I don't know. Would there be riots? Who would mediate this mess? The Supreme Court?
I have a hard time getting inside Trump's head--I realize that as CEO of Trump, Inc, he never has to fire himself. Is that why it's so hard for him to acknowledge a dismissal? Did Fred screw him up that badly, as his niece has maintained in her book? Will the GOP finally grow a spine and put him back in the dugout?

All questions. No answers.

[bae]

My point is, even reasonable people truly feel that their side won the election, even if that side is Trump, who, most people acknowledge, lost.

It does seem that a significant number of Republicans believe Biden stole the election through all sorts of election fraud.

I'm not sure if I'd reckon that belief "reasonable".

[catherine]

It does seem that a significant number of Republicans believe Biden stole the election through all sorts of election fraud.

I'm not sure if I'd reckon that belief "reasonable".

But do you ascribe that unreasonable belief to any reasonable people? Yes, a ton of Republicans believe the election was stolen, and I have to believe that some of them, including my husband, are usually reasonable, but harbor an unreasonable belief that Trump was screwed out of the win.

[JaneV2.0]

A lot of them apparently don't know how mail-in balloting works; that ballots aren't just sent to everyone willy-nilly--that you have to be a registered voter to get a ballot application, that ballots must be signature-matched, etc. I agree that voting machines can be manipulated, but that kind of fraud can be watched for, and all our cyber-security people agree there were no signs of that. If he considers Rudy Giuliani (or Trump, for that matter) credible, I have nothing to say to him.

[Teacher Terry]

The few Republicans I know believe trump lost fairly.

[LDAHL]

I believe that in 2016 there were efforts to persuade electors to vote against their state’s results. Both by people wanting to stop Trump from taking office and Sanders supporters who felt Clinton sandbagged their guy. I think the legality to that approach varies by state.

[frugal-one]

To answer your original question.. the best that could happen is that someone shoots him. We don't need any more chaos and angst because of that assh...e. Democracy truly will be lost.

[Alan]

To answer your original question.. the best that could happen is that someone shoots him.

What an awful thing to say!