Read on Twitter
"The worst case, however, is not that Trump rejects the election outcome. The worst case is that he uses his power to prevent a decisive outcome against him. If Trump sheds all restraint, and if his Republican allies play the parts he assigns them, he could obstruct... 1/
"...the emergence of a legally unambiguous victory for Biden in the Electoral College and then in Congress. He could prevent the formation of consensus about whether there is any outcome at all. He could seize on that uncertainty to hold on to power" 2/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/11/what-if-trump-refuses-concede/616424/
"But few people have actual answers to what happens if the machinery of democracy is used to prevent a legitimate resolution to the election." - @julianzelizer quoted by @bartongellman in @TheAtlantic 3/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/11/what-if-trump-refuses-concede/616424/
"Let us not hedge about 1 thing. Donald Trump may win or lose, but he will never concede. Not under any circumstance. Not during the Interregnum ¬ afterward. If compelled in the end to vacate his office, Trump will insist..that the contest was rigged" 4/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/11/what-if-trump-refuses-concede/616424
“Ladies & gentlemen, I want to make a major announcement today. I would like to promise & pledge to all of my voters & supporters, & to all the people of the United States, that I will totally accept the results of this great and historic presidential election.. “If.. I..win!” /5
"he’s not powerless to skew the proceedings—1st on Election Day &then during the Interregnum. He could disrupt the vote count where it’s going badly, &if that does not work, try to bypass it altogether. On Election Day, Trump &his allies can begin by suppressing th Biden vote" /6
"He believes, with reason, that he is less likely to win reelection if turnout is high at the polls. This is not a “both sides” phenomenon. In present-day politics, we have 1 party that consistently seeks advantage in depriving the other party’s adherents of the right to vote" /7
"Trump was declaiming against mail-in voting an average of nearly 4x/day—a pace he had reserved in the past for existential dangers such as impeachment & the Mueller investigation: “Very dangerous for our country.” “A catastrophe.” “The greatest rigged election in history.”" /8
"Trump’s hostility to voting by mail is a reflection of his belief that MORE VOTING IS BAD FOR HIM IN GENERAL. Dems, he said @foxandfriends 3/30, want “levels of voting that, if u ever agreed to it, you’d never have a @GOP elected in this country again” /9 https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/11/what-if-trump-refuses-concede/616424/
"Trump..has created a proxy to distinguish friend from foe. Republican lawyers around the country will find this useful when litigating the count..they can treat ballots cast by mail as hostile.. Those are the ballots they will contest." @bartongellman /10 https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/11/what-if-trump-refuses-concede/616424/
"ballots showed up out of nowhere, & many ballots are missing or forged,” he tweeted, baselessly. “An honest vote count is no longer possible—ballots massively infected. Must go with Election Night!” Trump was panicked enough..to fabricate allegations of fraud" @bartongellman /11
"Things like this have already happened, albeit on a smaller scale than we can expect in November. With Trump we must also ask: What might a ruthless incumbent do that has never been tried before?" @bartongellman /12 https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/11/what-if-trump-refuses-concede/616424/
With every day that passes after November 3, the president and his allies can hammer home the message that the legitimate tabulation is over and the Democrats are refusing to honor the results. @bartongellman /13 https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/11/what-if-trump-refuses-concede/616424/
"...Trump has been flogging this horse already for months. In July he tweeted, “Must know Election results on the night of the Election, not days, months, or even years later!” /14 https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1288933078287745024?s=20
"An important thing to know about the Interregnum is that there is no umpire—no singular authority who can decide th contest/lay it to rest. There's a series of lesser officiants, each confined in jurisdiction and tangled in opaque rules"( @GOP just stacked the #SCOTUS so, uh) /15
"According to sources in the @GOP at the state and national levels, the Trump campaign is discussing contingency plans to bypass election results and appoint loyal electors in battleground states where Republicans hold the legislative majority." /16 https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/11/what-if-trump-refuses-concede/616424/
"Republicans control both legislative chambers in the six most closely contested battleground states. Of those, Arizona and Florida have Republican governors, too. In Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, the governors are Democrats." @bartongellman /17
"If the Interregnum is a contest in search of an umpire, it now has 535 of them, and a rule book that no one is sure how to read. The presiding officer is one of the players on the field." @bartongellman for @theatlantic /18 https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/11/what-if-trump-refuses-concede/616424/
"This is the next constitutional crisis, graver than the one three weeks before, because the law and the Constitution provide for no other authority to consult. THE SUPREME COURT may yet intervene" @bartongellman for @TheAtlantic /19 https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/11/what-if-trump-refuses-concede/616424/
Here @bartongellman pauses to describe the bipartisan Transition Integrity Project, citing:
- https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/07/25/nation/bipartisan-group-secretly-gathered-game-out-contested-trump-biden-election-it-wasnt-pretty/
- https://www.ft.com/content/250c79f3-f1e8-4251-a224-ee819c6a1f6b
- https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/07/06/what-if-trump-loses-insists-he-won/
- https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/09/03/trump-stay-in-office/
- https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/07/how-2020-election-could-go-wrong/614842/ /20
- https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/07/25/nation/bipartisan-group-secretly-gathered-game-out-contested-trump-biden-election-it-wasnt-pretty/
- https://www.ft.com/content/250c79f3-f1e8-4251-a224-ee819c6a1f6b
- https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/07/06/what-if-trump-loses-insists-he-won/
- https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/09/03/trump-stay-in-office/
- https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/07/how-2020-election-could-go-wrong/614842/ /20
"I called Rosa Brooks, a Georgetown professor who co-founded the project. Unnervingly, she had no answers for me. She didn't know how th story turned out. In 1/2 the simulations, th participants didn't make it as far as Inauguration Day" @bartongellman /21 https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/11/what-if-trump-refuses-concede/616424/
"If you are a voter, think about voting in person after all. More than 500,000 postal votes were rejected in this year’s primaries, even without Trump trying to suppress them. If you are at relatively low risk for COVID-19, volunteer to work at the polls." @Bartongellman /22
"If you know people who are open to reason, SPREAD WORD THAT IT IS NORMAL FOR THE RESULTS TO KEEP CHANGING AFTER ELECTION NIGHT" @bartongellman
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ATTN: It is NORMAL for the results to keep changing AFTER election night
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/23 https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/11/what-if-trump-refuses-concede/616424/
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ATTN: It is NORMAL for the results to keep changing AFTER election night
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/23 https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/11/what-if-trump-refuses-concede/616424/
here @bartongellman calls out preparations
If you manage news coverage
If you're an election admin
If you're a mayor
If you're a law-enforcement officer
If you're a judge on the bench (battleground state)
If you've a place in the mil chain of command
If you're a civil servant
/24
If you manage news coverage
If you're an election admin
If you're a mayor
If you're a law-enforcement officer
If you're a judge on the bench (battleground state)
If you've a place in the mil chain of command
If you're a civil servant
/24
WHAT @bartongellman IS SAYING IS:
PREPARE.
Yes, this is freaky shit to think about, but it's much less so if we've thought it through in advance.
@GOP sent a CLEAR SIGNAL OF INTENT stealing a #SCOTUS seat tonight.
PREPARE NOW - not after 11/3 - NOW
/25 https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/11/what-if-trump-refuses-concede/616424/
PREPARE.
Yes, this is freaky shit to think about, but it's much less so if we've thought it through in advance.
@GOP sent a CLEAR SIGNAL OF INTENT stealing a #SCOTUS seat tonight.
PREPARE NOW - not after 11/3 - NOW
/25 https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/11/what-if-trump-refuses-concede/616424/
"Take agency. An election cannot be stolen unless the American people, at some level, acquiesce. One thing Brooks has been thinking about since her exercise came to an end is the power of peaceful protest on a grand scale. “What effects would that have?” /26
