No, Donald Trump can’t magically cancel the 2020 election

| 10:45 pm EDT March 16, 2020
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Maybe it’s just the paranoid times we’re in. But there’s an overwhelming panic across social media today that Donald Trump might somehow magically cancel the 2020 election and then just magically remain in office. Come on, let’s get real. Not only is that not going to happen, people are doing real harm by spreading fear over an imaginary scenario.

Donald Trump isn’t within a million miles of having the political muscle to cancel the November election. Politics is governed entirely by leverage, and not at all by magic wand. Trump has no remaining leverage whatsoever. His approval rating is in the toilet. He couldn’t be any more weak or crippled. He could no more magically cancel the election than magically make it rain tomorrow. It’s simply not a thing.

You only hand Donald Trump leverage when you run around frantically spouting those kinds of baseless doomsday fantasies. We have enough real problems to face, like the pandemic we’re currently fighting. By running around yelling insane gibberish about how we’re somehow not even going to have a 2020 election, you’re merely telling people not to bother putting in the work required to win the election. Please, for god’s sake, stop spreading that histrionic nonsense.