Here's an Advanced Course in Ratf*cking to Collapse Representative Democracy (C. Pierce)

[Nevilledog]

Link to tweet

https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a34125879/republican-tactics-to-invalidate-presidential-election/

I missed the fact that veteran national security journo Barton Gellman had jumped from The Washington Post to The Atlantic last spring. Gellman's first long piece at his new gig has dropped and it is the stuff of midnight Real Chili nightmares. It is a comprehensive survey of the many ways that El Caudillo del Mar-A-Lago can—and likely will―try to ratfck his way past getting beat in the November election. It turns out that, if you're willing to break the country irretrievably, there are many ways you can do it, and this president* is better than even money to try them all.

Close students of election law and procedure are warning that conditions are ripe for a constitutional crisis that would leave the nation without an authoritative result. We have no fail-safe against that calamity. Thus the blinking red lights... The worst case, however, is not that Trump rejects the election outcome. The worst case is that he uses his power to prevent a decisive outcome against him. If Trump sheds all restraint, and if his Republican allies play the parts he assigns them, he could obstruct the emergence of a legally unambiguous victory for Biden in the Electoral College and then in Congress. He could prevent the formation of consensus about whether there is any outcome at all. He could seize on that un­certainty to hold on to power.

“We are not prepared for this at all,” Julian Zelizer, a Prince­ton professor of history and public affairs, told me. “We talk about it, some worry about it, and we imagine what it would be. But few people have actual answers to what happens if the machinery of democracy is used to prevent a legitimate resolution to the election.”

And how's your morning been, anyway?

Gellman's premise, with which I completely agree, is that this president* simply will not concede under any circumstance, landslide or no. The basis for this presumption is sound. The president* is a cheat and a liar and, also, staying in the White House is his best route to staying out of prison, which is a motivation that makes him unique among his predecessors. Gellman concentrates on what he calls the Interregnum—the 79-day period between the election and the inauguration of the next president. There, he says, is where all the dark mischief comes into play.

*snip*

[superpatriotman]

1. Cue the pollyannas

+1

[Thekaspervote]

3. Your point?

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

2. Trump's and Pence's terms automatically expire per the Constitution

on January 20. Then what happens?

[2naSalit]

4. +1

[TheRealNorth]

5. A lot

Trump could order Barr to arrest Biden and Harris, saying they are traitors and are in rebellion for not recognizing his win.

And that is just off the top of my head. I am sure they can think of ways to make the Fascism less obvious.