So whenever I talk on here, these past few days, about the possibility of Trump's response petering out and the fight going out of him, inevitably someone says "What about his followers."

Well, the thing about followers is... they follow. https://twitter.com/AynRandPaulRyan/status/1325601717682012160

I'm not saying that some of them wouldn't peel off and take matters into their own hands, but they're going to be bolder and badder about it if they think their big wet boy in the White House has their back and gave them their marching orders.

So, the part of this story that worries me the most is the rallies. All the legal theatrics is just that, theatrics. It's the riling up the crowd and giving them the smoke and mirrors version of "smoking guns" that the right-wing crowd has always loved that worries me.

My concern since long before the election was never about vote counts or legal maneuvers, it was about Donald creating a situation so chaotic that the establishments of both parties and all the powers that be decide it's safer, easier, to just let him have the damnable thing.

And the thing about that plan is, if he gets up the speed and strength to put into motion, then the failure condition for him is he rips the country in two. Civil war, mass destruction, total breakdown of society in this country.

So that's why I've been over the moon about his lackluster response and the organizational dysfunction and the reports about people pushing him to pack it in. Because it's safer, we're all safer, if he goes out with a whimper rather than a bang.

It's why -- apart from let's face it it's funny -- I've been loving embarrassments like Four Seasons Total Landscaping and I've embraced the heck out of anyone proclaiming his campaign/presidency ended. Because to a large degree it's about what story wins.

And I probably don't have to tell you that if he is able to Brute Squad his way into a completely illegitimate second term, that's not a four-year term. Once the country confirms what he believes -- that everybody else will back down and give him what he wants -- he's the king.

Here's where I have some hope: Joe Biden, for better or worse, is an institutionalist. He knows he's won, he knows it's legitimate, and he knows that Trump cheated in both elections. He doesn't like bullies or "malarkey".

They don't have to go for him; they just have to not go against him. Which is the path of least resistance; declare it a political disagreement and answer to whoever's behind the desk when the dust settles. https://twitter.com/jjainschigg/status/1325618909018533889

The way he has been comporting himself so far I have been a little more optimistic that the Secret Service would simply evict him once he's overstayed his welcome. If you think that's given... well, you probably would have thought the AIDS charity dinner he crashed would've, too.

If he gets his feet under him and catches his breath and gets his dander up, and gets his crowd behind him? Then I become considerably less sanguine. Any organization of federal gunhavers you might think would stop him... will see intervening as a worse outcome, I promise.

If we get to January 20th and it's a case where everybody but him knows it's over and he's a sad, washed-up joke... sure, they'll chuck him out on his ear if he makes them. Totally agree.

But his goal, if he can get enough support and enough steel in what passes for his spine, will be to create an atmosphere where there isn't much law or order, and possession is 9/10ths of what law remains.

And maybe the military brass will decide that no, actually, that is worth drawing a line in the sand over and they'll go against him... and hooooo boy, that's what we call a Jason Mendoza solution.

As in, "Whenever I have a problem, I throw a Molotov cocktail at it, and just like that, I have a different problem!"

I can't honestly opine on what the worst outcome is, among

1. Trump seizes total power illegitimately.
2. The nation splinters into pieces stopping him.
3. The military takes him out and installs Biden.

None of those are good outcomes.

So, what do we do about it?

Well, I mean, we're not there yet and we might never be. Keep celebrating, keep mocking, keep talking about him like he's a loser, the world's biggest loser, an impotent, incompetent crook who bungled his big score.

There are already wheels in motion in Washington trying to get him on board with the transition because of legal requirements for Joe Biden and team to start doing things, things that are urgent and necessary. His own family is reportedly losing patience with him.

Yes, exactly. Sooner or later all of our systems that deal with the rich and powerful expect their cooperation. If you're not will to shoot someone over it, all systems are ultimately voluntary. https://twitter.com/jjainschigg/status/1325622235890147328

And Donald Trump understands this fact the way the rest of us understand the basic effect of gravity on our lives. He has internalized this facet of the social world the way we all internalize things like responding to someone who sneezes, or whatever.

I keep coming back to that AIDS fundraiser because it illustrates one of the most chilling supervillain/movie monster things about him: he is able to defy rules that for most of us, our brain will insist it is impossible to defy them. No one would ever. He couldn't!

Everybody who thought his first campaign was going to end at whatever point, once he'd won the primary, what that really meant was "Well obviously he's going to withdraw. He has to. No one could keep going after that."

How'd he avoid dropping out?

He just... kept going.

As I said about the AIDS fundraiser the other day: they didn't have a plan for him. If you or I had tried to crash the party, they had a plan for that. If a man in a ski mask broke in with a gun, I'm sure they had a plan for that. Fire? They had a plan for that.

But when a famously rich and famous man shows up in a suit and elbows his way inside and ignores you as you're going, "Sir, this is a private event. Sir, this was invitation only. Sir, you can't sit there. Sir, those are for guests."... they did not have a plan.

Presumably the event organizers and staffers who watched this happening were watching with an increasing sense of horror, sheer and actual primal terror, as this man continued to do things that You Just Don't Do, because Surely He Can't, Surely He Won't, Surely He'll Stop.

At the end of the day, the most dangerous thing about Donald Trump is that he doesn't care. He doesn't care the way you care. He doesn't care the way you think he should care. He just doesn't. He doesn't care and he doesn't have it in himself to stop himself, if he wanted to.

People always say this and I don't know why it seems so obvious to them and also why it doesn't terrify them. It always just makes me think about the really bad times in Roman history. Praetorian Guard choosing the new emperor type stuff. https://twitter.com/Algoriitmo/status/1325622721628270592

Look, I get the legal theory here. As of January 20th, he's not president and Joe Biden is. As of January 20th, their job includes securing the White House from people who think they are the president of the United States who are not Joe Biden. Yes, I get that part. It's simple.

But say there are two people both pretending to the title. Each one represents a political party that is an entrenched part of the political power structure. Possibly they both have their own set of what they claim are the legitimate electors who say they're president.

This is not just a legal dispute we can solve by reading the Constitution and going, "hmm, yes." It is a political dispute. Do we expect the Secret Service to resolve political disputes at gunpoint in this country? That, again, is a Jason Mendoza solution: we've thrown a Molotov.

Do I think it's impossible the Secret Service will evict him? Obviously not, and I've said as much in this thread. I think if the threat he poses to the fabric of the republic is small, if his powerbase is small, if he seems weak and feeble and pathetic, yeah, they'll toss him.

Trump lost, and his response to the loss so far has been an amazing example of theater of the absurd tragicomedy. I hope it stays that way! It will be easier, better, if he just keeps getting ever more hilarious failures in court, defections from his circle, etc.