It is November 2, and most pundits are discussing Biden’s looming victory, and citizens everywhere are beginning to feel that the long nightmare of Trump is finally coming to an end. What’s even better is that it looks as if the Senate and the House will both be solidly Democratic, and finally, at long last we can begin to undo some of the damage wrought over the last four years.
But the pandemic effect has resulted in GOP voters, dismissing the dangers of Covid-19, flocking to the polls in person, while more sensible independents and Democrats have primarily used mail-in voting. This results in Trump being ahead as the polls close on November 3rd, but no worries, because the mail-in ballots are already beginning to turn the tide, and Democrats begin to celebrate an overwhelming victory.
Then reality strikes.
It is early on November 4th, 2020, and the news has just announced that Trump has claimed victory in the election based on those early returns.
Barr has simultaneously announced that due to evidence of “massive voter fraud” he has ordered agents of the Justice Department to seize uncounted mail-in ballots to preserve “evidence” of that fraud. In truth there is massive voter fraud, but it takes place within the in-person voting machines where unseen and unseeable proprietary software flips Democratic votes to Republican votes.
McConnell is quick to congratulate Trump and praise Barr for protecting democracy from the forces of evil.
All will be blatant lies, of course, but that’s Trump’s GOP stock in trade, and as predictable as tomorrow’s sunrise.
Never mind that those actions are illegal and unconstitutional, that doesn’t bother Trump, McConnell, or Barr in the slightest.
The Democratic Party will go to court of course, but those courts are now packed with Trump loyalists, so good luck on that. Appeals will be made, but the Supreme Court, now heavily conservative with Trump’s latest appointment, selected for one quality only, personal loyalty to Trump, will declare that Trump’s claims are valid, and he has won the election.
This in turn will result in massive protests, voters pouring out into the streets in righteous outrage, only to be violently met with legions of tired, frustrated, and angry cops, worn out over a year of facing a public angry with them. Those pissed-off cops will be reinforced with further legions of unidentified agents from CBP, Homeland Security, ICE who will use the tactics already seen in Portland, snatching citizens off the street, but now charging them with sedition. All those cops and agents will believe that the citizens they face are traitors trying to steal the election, unable to accept that they lost fair and square.
Who will stop them in this scenario? The House? Them and what army? The military will be unable to step in, barred by law and custom, since things must play out in the courts and once decided there, are law. The only option the military will have is mutiny, highly unlikely.
Whether they arrest the leaders of the Democratic Party is up in the air, but that is the normal process in this sort of situation. Barr is already setting the stage for that, by equating protest with sedition.
Don’t think for a moment that somehow this won’t, this can’t happen here. That would be falling prey to the mythology of American exceptionalism.
I’ve studied history, a lot, and I have never seen a case in recorded history where sociopaths have ever willingly given up power once they have attained it, and never, ever, via an election.
And there is no doubt whatsoever that we are in fact dealing with sociopaths.
In the historic record, the only way to remove sociopaths from power has been through revolution.