What Happens — When Trump “Wins”?

by Eric G. Weiner

America has had its fair share of unscrupulous politicians, in fact one might be hard put to find the few that truly retain clear principles. Politicians, like lawyers, are often distrusted for a reason. They too often view their jobs as fighting for those who pay their way — these days, that means the very wealthy, and the powerful corporations. This has gotten worse as campaign contribution limits have been ruled out of existence — oh, and who ruled them out? Those same politicians (and their backers) who benefit from the result.

Not surprisingly a great many politicians are, or were, corporate lawyers. (Out of all the 44 U.S. presidents, 26, or more than half, have been lawyers.) .

However the United States has never had to contend with what we have now with Donald Trump and his merry crew. No one, not the founding fathers, nor the creators of the Supreme Court, nor the architects of “checks and balances” ever anticipated such a blatent, coordinated, well-funded and well thought-out, takeover of the United States of America. For the first time a United States President has predicted, (without evidence), the election will likely be fraudulent (if he doesn’t win that is), has actively worked to undermine the fairness of that same election, and has refused to confirm that he will hand over power peacefully if he loses. And we seem too stunned and disbelieving to do anything about it. Here is a taste of what is coming:

Roger Stone, convicted felon, friend and advisor to Donald Trump, last month, after being pardoned by Trump, declared that if Trump loses the election he should assume absolute power, declare martial law, and arrest Tim Cook of Apple, Mark Zuckerberg, the Clintons, and anyone else “who threatens the interests of the United States”.

The following day Michael Caputo, the Trump appointed head of communications at the Department of Health and Human Services, announced that democratic leftists and anarchists were preparing armed attacks on Trump supporters and that they therefore should arm themselves and “stock up on ammunition”. This despite the reality that between 1994 and 2020, white supremacists and other rightwing extremists in the U.S. carried out attacks that left 329 people dead. In the same period, a single attack staged by an anti-fascist resulted in one killing (himself).

Two days later Trump’s attorney general William Barr told Federal judges they should charge people who protested in the Black Lives Matter demonstrations with “Sedition.” Things are moving fast.

Yesterday (Oct 8) Mike Lee, Republican senator from Utah tweeted in support of Trump and Pence: “Government is the official use of coercive force –nothing more and nothing less.” And then added: “Democracy isn’t the objective; liberty, peace, and prospefity (sic) are. We want the human condition to flourish. Rank democracy can thwart that,” he wrote.

And just last night Trump tweeted, complaining that his Attorney General William Barr, who has proved himself a craven stooge, was not craven enough because he has not yet indicted Biden and Obama.

The writing is on the wall. Trump has been discrediting mail-in balloting for months and talking up the “Democratic election fraud” for an equally long time. This is a systematic preparation for calling the election invalid if he does not win. Only those who buy his bullshit and still think the virus a hoax will want to vote in person. Meanwhile he and his team and supporters have done, and are doing, everything possible to subvert the election process and create an electoral fraud. They have removed polling places from democratic and minority ridings. Introduced onerous “witness programs” to discourage mail-in ballots, have tried to limit the census, deliberately defunded and crippled the U.S. postal service, called for right wing extremists to “stand by” and “keep watch at the polling stations”, and on, and on, and on.

One of the great devices that has been used by unscrupulous American politicians at least since Lyndon Johnson’s infamous rise to power in Texas decades ago, is to accuse your opposition of exactly what you are doing. Trump has done this incessantly. “They are corrupt”. They are “fraudulent”. They “don’t care about the rule of law”. “They are rude”. “They are liars and enemies of the people” “They manufacture fake news.” etc, etc.

So either Trump wins the election, which is likely, despite, again, being behind in the polls, due to even greater and more obvious tampering with this election. Not too mention having his favorite thugs “patrol the polls” and intimidate voters. (Donald Trump Jr. has already called for his core to turn out to form “an army of able-bodied men and women for Trump’s election security operation”).

But if he happens to lose the election, he will just call it proof of the fraud he so brilliantly predicted — “an attempted take-over by the democratic/leftist/anarchists”. (just yesterday he called Kamala Harris “a communist” and a “monster”.

If he loses he can legally do any number of things to prove himself the rightful victor. He can take “the fraud” to the Supreme Court where his overwhelming majority will judge the election outcome invalid and declare him the winner. Or he will ask the state legislatures to designate special electors (the Republicans hold the majority of these legislatures) and they will decide the outcome of the election. This is entirely legal if there is a contested election. Either way he wins. And there is not a single thing anyone, or any institution, can do about it.

What follows from there?

I suspect he will follow precedents the United States has used in every other country it has decided subvert over time. The chickens have now come home to roost domestically.

He will declare a national emergency “due to this plot to undermine the very fabric of our great country.” He will immediately have various newspapers and media outlets shut down because they have obviously been supporters and underwriters of this seditious movement. He will have the leaders and abetters of this “terrible plot against America” arrested. This might include anyone who ever dared criticize him or even voted against him. And he will declare martial law and strict curfews until the crisis period is over and America is “truly safe once again”. He will also request and receive authorization for extraordinary executive powers to match the extraordinary times.

Not very likely? Lets just wait and see.

Unless Trump is arrested right now for subverting the election and democracy itself, it will be too late to do anything at all 25 days from now.