There's a big list of things that it "doesn't work like" that, over the last 4 years, turn out to work however Trump and his supporters want them to work. Procedural norms aren't magic, and when they're not enforced they turn out not to be norms at all. https://twitter.com/SenhorRaposa/status/1302116274227511296

As @AlexandraErin has spoken about multiple times, if the election result is contested (and the waters are going to be *very* muddied either way), the incumbent has the advantage of being in post already. It's easier to not let Biden in than kick Trump out, if it comes to it.

'It' being, basically, a civil war in this case. If Trump is defeated and refuses to concede, or if he wins but sabotages recount attempts or orders mail-in ballots destroyed, there's going to be violence, and the military won't depose the guy already sitting at the desk.

Because the right already turned a faceless, indiscriminate pandemic into a partisan issue this year. Do you really think they won't reduce an election to a simple good-people-on-both-sides argument?

And then, as it drags on, it ceases to be about what *really* happened or who *really* won, because amid all the chaos and violence and the ongoing pandemic, how can you know for certain what votes were cast and by whom?

Trump's election strategy for November has basically been to cast doubt on the legitimacy of the electoral process itself. That way, if it goes against him on the night, his base are already fired up to dismiss it.

So, after months of unrest, of back-and-forth, of claim and counter-claim, of evidence of malfeasance that gets buried a day later by new scandal, by new horrors, we get to January and no one knows who should be president...

Protests, riots, military in the streets, cities aflame, the priority then becomes not justice, but *order*. And order means continuity. No general is going to be willing to play kingmaker. No one is going to be the *one person* who decides Biden is preferable to Trump.

There is no force besides overwhelming lack of public approval that can force Trump to leave the White House. If he still has enough support by then to cast doubt on that - to make his refusal to obey the law a partisan issue - he'll stay just where he is.

What's the alternative? A military coup. That's all you can hope for, and that's not much of a hope, even if it does happen (which it won't). He's spent 4 years violating every norm, pushing and pushing, testing the limits of his gun-on-5th-Avenue theory.

He's been allowed to get away with it and now it's all heading for its logical conclusion: outright dictatorship, a king by another name. The only thing that will unmake that future is a rejection so total in November that even he can't lie about it.

Trump, from the day of his inauguration, has been telling you to disbelieve the evidence of your own eyes, so this is a big barrier. But the key is for him to lose so catastrophically that his allies realise the marks have figured out the con and abandon him.

He personally will never admit defeat. But without the GOP behind him, he can't stay. The GOP will follow him all the way to civil war if they think they can win it, but the second they know they can't, they'll let him burn.

The November election is, essentially, the final chance to show the GOP what a loathsome figure they've tied themselves to. Right now, Trump serves their purpose, but the threat of nationwide civil uprising might be enough to make them realise it's not worth it.

That's what the election will say: not who the president is, or will be, or even should be. It will show the tolerance level of America to Trump remaining in office without mandate. Because *that's what's going to happen*.

If it's close 50/50, he'll go nowhere. If it's even 40/60 against him, he'll probably go nowhere. That's, like, his base approval rating, so he'll know he has enough support in that case to throw the result into dispute.

There are enough people who support him *right now* that the GOP is willing to say rain isn't wet. Almost 200,000 people have died of a disease that Trump will barely acknowledge, so have no doubt there's no bottom here.

He needs to be absolutely crushed in November. Unquestionably defeated, beyond all hope of dispute, no recounts, no ballots ignored, no gerrymandering, just rejected en masse by America.

Then, *when* he won't go, no one will have any doubt he's illegitimate.

Just over the line is not enough. 52/48 (ha!) is not enough. Technically taking the electoral college is not enough. They will take advantage of every possible irregularity, every little doubt in the minds of the public. Don't let them.