Can Donald Trump steal the election?
Newsweek’s Tim Wirth has concocted a terrifying scenario where Donald Trump steals the election in November — and Wirth believes Trump can pull it off. The first part of the plan is already being done. Trump and the Republicans are sowing the seeds of doubt (without evidence, naturally) that the election is being rigged by the Chinese government through propaganda and mail-in voting. Also, Republican governors have spent the last three years purging an unprecedented number of names from the voter registration rolls.
So what happens if Trump loses anyway? Trump’s plan will be easier to pull off if Biden wins by a “decent but not overwhelming” margin in the swing states of Arizona, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. At that point Trump plans to declare that the vote was rigged.
Trump will blame mail-in ballots and the Chinese government as the interfering culprits right on course. It will be Trump’s “I told you so” moment. At that point Bill Barr will unilaterally launch an investigation into 2020 “election hacking” by those swing states.
At that point the clock is running, and the Electoral College will have a Constitutionally mandated destiny with a December 14th deadline in which to appoint their electors. The plan is that Barr will drag his feet with his investigation so long that the Republican legislators in those key swing states will refuse to ratify their electors until the investigation is concluded.
This in turn will lead to a Constitutional crisis where the Democrats will challenge the investigation all the way to the Supreme Court. The SCOTUS will decide for the Democrats and force the Electoral College to meet without the swing states. This will result in neither candidate having the requisite 270 Electoral College votes and throw the election to the House of Representatives.
That would be great news if elections are decided in the House by a straight vote. But they’re not. They’re decided by State delegations. In the House Republicans have 26 delegations and the Democrats have 23, and we’ve already seen that Republicans under such conditions will vote for Trump.
Is this scenario possible? Yes it is, but it is not likely. But in a life and death situation “not likely” isn’t good enough. So how can we prevent this plausible eventuality? Hillary Clinton said it best early on. We must whip Donald Trump so decisively that there cannot be any sane doubt that he’s lost, then, once in power, make absolutely certain, by legislation, Constitutional Amendment and by decree, that no creature as malign and evil as Donald John Trump can ever darken the doorstep of our great republic again.
Michael Cohen long ago warned us that the transition in 2020 would not be easy. Hillary Clinton has warned us every step of the way that Donald Trump would be a disaster as president and we must win by a landslide. In short, we are warned. Let’s heed our warnings and beat the son of a bitch so badly that he won’t know what hit him. And, as ever, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, comrades and friends, stay safe.
Robert Harrington is an American expat living in Britain. He is a portrait painter.