What If Trump Loses In 2020 And Refuses To Accept The Results Or Leave Office?

PoliTalker said:
"(CNN)President Donald Trump's critics are increasingly focused on the question of which Democrat will challenge him for the presidency in 2020. It's an important question, but another one might be even more important: Regardless of who runs in 2020, if Trump loses, will he leave the Oval Office peacefully?

Let's start with why we need to ask this question: Trump is increasingly proving himself to be a President eager to overstep his authority. Just last week, Trump displayed his willingness to invoke unprecedented presidential power to declare a national emergency utterly without justification. This week has brought a startling report from the New York Times that, for the past two years, Trump has tried to undermine the investigations by Special Counsel Robert Mueller and other parts of the Justice Department in order to, in the words of the Times, "make the president's many legal problems go away." In light of these overreaching assertions of his own authority, it's at least plausible that Trump might attempt to cling to power in ways previously unimaginable by an American president.

Thankfully, there are four steps that key actors across the American system of governance can take to get ahead of this possibility.

Remember, when Trump was merely a private citizen running for President in 2016, he became the first presidential candidate in recent memory to refuse to commit that he'd honor the results of the election if he lost. Now, he occupies the Oval Office. He's the commander in chief of the most powerful military on Earth. If he even hints at contesting the election result in 2020, as he suggested he might in 2016, he'd be doing so not as an outsider but as a leader with the vast resources of the US government potentially at his disposal.
Trump's unrelenting assaults on the media and intelligence community, augmented by his baseless insistence on widespread voter fraud, have laid the groundwork for him to contest the election results in worrisome ways by undermining two institutions Americans would count on to validate those results.

As the 2018 midterms approached, Trump appeared to preview exactly such behavior. He tweeted that he was "very concerned that Russia will be fighting very hard to have an impact on the upcoming Election" and "pushing very hard for the Democrats." Without pointing to even a shred of analysis from the intelligence community, media reports or any other sources, Trump seemed to dangle the notion that, if the elections went too badly for the Republicans, he might allege foreign interference with the vote tally to cast doubt on the validity of the results.
In 2020, with his reelection on the line, the stakes for Trump himself are, of course, wildly bigger.
All told, there's real reason to worry here. So, what can be done now to avoid a potential constitutional crisis and ensure that the 2020 election results -- whatever they might be -- are respected and that any transfer of power occurs peacefully?
While many of us worry that President Trump has fallen woefully short in addressing foreign election interference through social media that can change American voters' minds, there's nonetheless an obvious imperative to respect the actual vote tally unless the intelligence community indicates that malicious actors have directly altered it (which would be unprecedented). Thankfully, there are four key sets of governmental actors across the United States that can commit now to certain steps that would help to isolate President Trump should he refuse to hand over power peacefully.

First is ... " (click the link to read more)

What if Trump refuses to accept defeat in 2020?
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Just cut off his supply of hamburgers, he’ll leave on his own. New President can occupy Mar a lago
 
Hello Cypress,

Cypress said:
I give it a probability of zero percent that Donald Trump will hunker down in the white house after - AGAIN - losing the popular vote and this time hypothetically losing the EC in 2020.

I think the overwhelming preponderance of evidence is that Donald Trump is a coward, who is full of bluster, but always quick to fold in the end.

I still marvel at the claim he made that he would keep the government shut down for years if the Democrats didn't cave on giving him his border wall.

There is no threat Donald Trump can make that should be believed.

Donald Trump is one in a long line of weak cowards who are quick to puff themselves up, but just as quick to fold.
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I hope you're right and I'm wrong. I mean, if he did that, it could get real messy. This whole thing has a few months to unfold between election day and inauguration day. What if we had streams of nationalists and the Bundy rangers in there mixed with the bikers and evangelists? And they all went to DC to 'protect' Trump from 'the deep state?' It's a trifecta of propaganda. It's an angry mob 'like you've never seen,' to coin a phrase from the forked tongue one. These people no longer respect the FBI. They never did respect the government. They hate the government. If they're afraid they are going to lose Trump, lose their 2nd Amendment rights, get taxed more, open borders, economic crash, drive a sissy electric car that doesn't go vroom, and legalized abortion (or baby murder, they call it). They see white male dominance slipping away and it terrifies them.

I would love to be wrong about this one. I'll take that. That would be the best case.
 
Of course he will accept the results.

But, first, he will resign and have Pence pardon him of federal and try to pardon him for state crimes.

That will be fun.
 
Hello Crocodile,

Crocodile said:
He'll leave the white house and just make more excuses his puppets will believe. He'll continue making more division even after he leaves. He will try to give society the shame of his loss rather than carry it himself.
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I wish I was willing to trust him even THAT much.
 
TTQ64 said:
Not to mention I never heard anyone say Clinton or Bush wasn't going to leave office.

He's FOS!
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They honored the system. Trump does not. Even Nixon supplied the information the impeachment committee demanded Trump will not. They all honored subpoenas, Trump does not. Clinton testified under oath. Trump will not.
Trump has said he thinks he should have more than 2 terms. No other president has said that since terms were limited.
 
Hello Nordberg,

Nordberg said:
He is crazy, but i do not know if he is that nuts. He does need to win for the statute of limitations breaks. The presidency is his "hole in the wall" spot.
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He likes to challenge things in court. This is the way he operates: If you can't win in court, keep dragging it out until you wear down the other side. Never give in. So now we have to wonder if he will try to get some kind of injunction challenging the process for validation of the election to buy more time and get the inauguration delayed. He's relentless.

He already would not accept decisions that his people had to turn over his taxes, and testify before Congress. Why would he accept election results he doesn't like? He's probably already got lawyers working on it.
 
Hello ThatOwlWoman,

ThatOwlWoman said:
No, I never heard or read anyone claiming that either Clinton or Bush would refuse to leave; only know it was said many times by RWers about "King Obama." There were also rumors that Obama would issue an executive order allowing him to stay President. :rolleyes:
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Yeah. I remember that. But none of those Presidents were extremists. Trump is.
 
Hello cawacko,

cawacko said:
Unfortunately I do remember reading about it and can recall executive orders being mentioned. It’s one of those you see the heading, take a two second glance and then roll your eyes. It’s why I made the comment I did about being old and seeing this sh*t again.
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I hope I'm wrong.
 
PoliTalker said:
"(CNN)President Donald Trump's critics are increasingly focused on the question of which Democrat will challenge him for the presidency in 2020. It's an important question, but another one might be even more important: Regardless of who runs in 2020, if Trump loses, will he leave the Oval Office peacefully?

Let's start with why we need to ask this question: Trump is increasingly proving himself to be a President eager to overstep his authority. Just last week, Trump displayed his willingness to invoke unprecedented presidential power to declare a national emergency utterly without justification. This week has brought a startling report from the New York Times that, for the past two years, Trump has tried to undermine the investigations by Special Counsel Robert Mueller and other parts of the Justice Department in order to, in the words of the Times, "make the president's many legal problems go away." In light of these overreaching assertions of his own authority, it's at least plausible that Trump might attempt to cling to power in ways previously unimaginable by an American president.

Thankfully, there are four steps that key actors across the American system of governance can take to get ahead of this possibility.

Remember, when Trump was merely a private citizen running for President in 2016, he became the first presidential candidate in recent memory to refuse to commit that he'd honor the results of the election if he lost. Now, he occupies the Oval Office. He's the commander in chief of the most powerful military on Earth. If he even hints at contesting the election result in 2020, as he suggested he might in 2016, he'd be doing so not as an outsider but as a leader with the vast resources of the US government potentially at his disposal.
Trump's unrelenting assaults on the media and intelligence community, augmented by his baseless insistence on widespread voter fraud, have laid the groundwork for him to contest the election results in worrisome ways by undermining two institutions Americans would count on to validate those results.

As the 2018 midterms approached, Trump appeared to preview exactly such behavior. He tweeted that he was "very concerned that Russia will be fighting very hard to have an impact on the upcoming Election" and "pushing very hard for the Democrats." Without pointing to even a shred of analysis from the intelligence community, media reports or any other sources, Trump seemed to dangle the notion that, if the elections went too badly for the Republicans, he might allege foreign interference with the vote tally to cast doubt on the validity of the results.
In 2020, with his reelection on the line, the stakes for Trump himself are, of course, wildly bigger.
All told, there's real reason to worry here. So, what can be done now to avoid a potential constitutional crisis and ensure that the 2020 election results -- whatever they might be -- are respected and that any transfer of power occurs peacefully?
While many of us worry that President Trump has fallen woefully short in addressing foreign election interference through social media that can change American voters' minds, there's nonetheless an obvious imperative to respect the actual vote tally unless the intelligence community indicates that malicious actors have directly altered it (which would be unprecedented). Thankfully, there are four key sets of governmental actors across the United States that can commit now to certain steps that would help to isolate President Trump should he refuse to hand over power peacefully.

First is ... " (click the link to read more)

What if Trump refuses to accept defeat in 2020?
Click to expand...

There is as much chance of that happening as those who claimed Obama was going to declare martial law and cancel the 2016 election--alarmists.
 
Hello Flash,

Flash said:
There is as much chance of that happening as those who claimed Obama was going to declare martial law and cancel the 2016 election--alarmists.
Click to expand...

I hope you're right, hope I'm wrong, but I see a MUCH higher chance of Trump trying to pull a fast one to discredit the election if he loses. If it goes against him he is against it. He has both wanted to get rid of the electoral college and praised it depending on which year and which candidate. And his favorite thing to do is challenge things in court. He already managed to stonewall Congress and refuse to cooperate and they realized they could do nothing because he could just keep dragging the court battle out past the 2020 election that this impeachment is intended to protect.

If we really wanted to get to the bottom of the impeachment we need to hear from Trump under oath, Giuliani, Bolton, Mulvaney, Pompeo, Perry, Pence, OMB, all of them under oath.

Why would somebody who won't cooperate with the Constitution honor an election he doesn't like? He has no honor. He has no class.

He doesn't see barriers. He looks at legal barriers and says 'how can I get around it?
 
PoliTalker said:
Hello jimmymccready,



Precisely.

Which is why it not only needs to be a defeat, but it has to be a resounding one. Total drubbing. So bad he can't call it into question. Maybe Bloomberg will be the one. I know nothing about him, but already several people have mentioned him to me. I need to learn more.
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I agree but an ill-formed impulse of conservatism and populism opposed to internationalism is sweeping the world as evidenced by Johnson's victory in UK yesterday.

The future is unknowable, so all we can do now is work as hard as we can for the world we want now.
 
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