He's been planning the seeds for this for months. I'm sure most of his base fully believes that if the outcome is any less than a landslide victory for him that the election has been rigged, because orange man said so.
I agree with so much of what you say. But how would he get the military on his side? He would need it. When I was in the Army National Guard, soldiers throughout the Army were heavily Republican, but even more so than that, patriotic -- and that was a decade before 9/11, when the military went ultra patriotic. A dictatorship is not patriotic in the US mentality. I know he's been screwing around with what forces he can call in for the protests, but he's been using forces under DHS control like border patrol, who dressed like military. There's definitely some weird shit going on. I wondered why there weren't major protests when it first came out that Russia had interfered in the election.
Good point. But there would be serious political ramifications from even getting to that point, if it does get there- full on constitutional crisis level. Trust in our institutions already seems to be at an all time low, having to have the military step in to stop a coup certainly wouldn't help the situation. The scarier part is that a significant portion of the population probably wouldn't even see it as a dictatorship, they would just see further proof that the "deep state" is repressing their voice in a rigged election. To them, Trump is the true patriot, and the only thing stopping the radical left from destroying the country (like the
obvious super-Marxist: centrist liberal milquetoast Biden). At least, I think that's what Fox News is currently saying. Most of the people talking about patriotism right now are at the weird juncture of populism and nationalism- including most of the GOP who still haven't grown the balls to stand up to Trump, despite him repeatedly disregarding the constitution they claim to hold so dear. I'll be interested to see if these patriots come to their senses.
More importantly, how do you keep a country together when one side believes that one man is single-handedly protecting the American Dream, while the other sees a wannabe fascist intent on tearing it down? How do you keep the country together when this battle could be dragged on for months in Congress, in the courts, and in the streets with everyday citizens? I could be catastrophizing, but I don't see either side just lying down and taking whatever happens.
It's gonna be a wild few months y'all.
