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State of American History, Civics, and Politics

When Did You First Know Individual #1 Would Reject the 2020 Results If He Lost?

Will Robert Mueller Be Our John HancocK? (Image via Everett Historical / Shutterstock)

Eight months ago on September 7, 2018, I posted:

Suppose the very stable genius is wrong about the red wave. Suppose the Democrats win control of the House. Suppose the Democrats act on that basis and investigate all the items on the Republican hit list of potential problems where they are at risk. Will the President honor the election results? If a blue wave puts Democrats in charge will the President of the United States honor the results or will he demand a full investigation into the rigged results?

Suppose the very stable genius is wrong about 2020 (assuming he is still in office and chooses to run again)? Will the President honor the election results? Will the President leave the White House voluntarily? Will he demand a full investigation into the rigged results? Will he remain in the White House until the investigation by his Attorney General (not a stupid Southerner) is completed?

The big change since that prediction has been the replacement of the Attorney General with His Roy Cohn (HRC). With HRC in position, the chances of an aggressive assault on the rule of law increased substantially (Rule of Law: George Washington, Nimrod, and Today).

Then on March 17, 2019, I posted the following after the testimony of Michael Cohen (with a change to “Individual #1):

INDIVIDUAL #1 WON’T LEAVE THE WHITE HOUSE VOLUNTARILY

Back on September 7, 2018, I wrote [see above]

Those of you who read this blog, may I have thought I was off my rocker. I am pleased to note that five months later the Fixer, who well knows the personality of Individual #1 and what he is capable of, raised the exact same concerns in his Congressional testimony. There was not the chance to resolve this issue in the 2018 elections since the Democratic tidal wave was so huge. Even for someone living in an alternate reality there are limits as to how many Congressional districts can be contested. The situation is quite different at the presidential level.

Suppose in 2020, the Democratic candidate wins by the same small margin as the 306 electoral vote landslide in 2016? How many states would need to be contested to switch the national results? At this point it is impossible to know. Indeed we may never know if the margin is comparable to the Congressional vote in 2018. An almost 9% spread is difficult to finesse to an Electoral College victory.

There may be a preview of the 2020 crisis with his tax returns. Individual #1 will not voluntarily release his tax returns. It does not matter how the Democrats submit their requisition, he will not honor it. If his court rules in his favor, then the issue ends there. If the Supreme Court also has a traitor and the ruling is against Individual #1 he will not honor it. Instead he will claim Executive Privilege and that the Court has no authority over him. What will the Supreme Court do then? Or to update Andrew Jackson: “John Roberts has made his decision; now let him enforce it.”

Now we have the May 4, 2019, interview of Nancy Pelosi with the New York Times. It’s déjà vue September 7, 2018, all over again.

Let’s begin with the Congressional election. Pelosi’s concerns mirror what I had written.

Few people outside Ms. Pelosi’s inner circle were aware of how worried she was that Mr. Trump would try to stop the opposition party from taking control of the House unless the Democrats’ victory was emphatic enough to be indisputable.

It is mind-boggling that everyone in the Democratic Party and all their talking-head spokespeople could not figure this out for themselves. This failure to recognize what should have been taken for granted exposes that the Democrats still did not understand their adversary.

“If we win by four seats, by a thousand votes each, he’s not going to respect the election. He would poison the public mind. He would challenge each of the races; he would say you can’t seat those people.”

Exactly. If you do not understand this then you do not understand Individual #1. This realization should have been a no-brainer.

The same issues apply to the 2020 elections.

In recent weeks, Ms. Pelosi has told associates that she does not automatically trust the president to respect the results of any election short of an overwhelming defeat.

She said the victory in 2020 needed to be by a margin so “big” that it cannot reasonably be challenged.

“We have to inoculate against that, we have to be prepared for that,” as she discussed her concern that Mr. Trump would not give up power voluntarily if he lost re-election by a slim margin.

As it turns out, even with the 9% spread in the 2018 Congressional elections, the margin is quite thin. If those Congressional votes had been presidential votes then the Electoral College results would have been 329-206. Those numbers are deceiving. While Democrats won the House vote in Florida, they lost the state votes for Governor and Senator. That shift leaves an electoral vote even less than the landslide vote in 2016. It is reasonable then to anticipate the possibility of legal challenges in Florida, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan and any other states the Democrats manage to flip including those with Republican governors in control.

Pelosi may only be thinking of the legal challenge. With HRC going full-speed to deny the validity of any such election results, we should recognize that the danger is far more than legal. Certainly HRC will drag out the challenges well beyond what happened in 2000. We can see now in Venezuela what can happen when there are two claimants to the presidency. In Venezuela, the military stands with the loser who rigged the game against democracy. In America, the military should not be expected to act on American soil against Americans. That still leaves open who will physically remove him from the White House, take back the nuclear codes, and prevent him from doing something really dangerous during the interim.

I also wrote on March 17,

Will Individual #1 unleash his muscle in his militias, military, police, and Second Amendment people to protect him from the greatest threat to the United States ever?

How long would it take the Supreme Court to adjudicate all the legal claims filed?

If his Supreme Court betrayed him, would Individual #1 honor its ruling?

Who would actually extract Individual # from the White House?

At that time, I thought his income taxes would be the moment of truth. In anticipation of the refusal to turn them over, I expected the legal battle to reveal whether or not the rule of law prevailed in the nation’s capital or not. Now it seems we may have a quicker example. Will Individual #1 order HRC to refuse to let Mueller testify? We may know the answer fairly soon. If Mueller is ordered not to testify what will he do? We may know that answer fairly soon as well. If Mueller disobeys a direct order from HRC will there be additional civil disobedience?

So exactly how will America celebrate the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution? What will the legacy of our birth be in the present? Who will favor the Patriots? Who will favor the Loyalists? After all, there were mighty fine people on both sides. Will We the People have the experience of directly participating in the revolt against King George III by having one of our own starting May 15 with Robert Mueller in the role of John Hancock? What will happen in 2020? Who knows for sure? But as Pelosi said we have to be prepared.