As Election Day draws nearer, anxiety is naturally growing over whether Donald Trump or Kamala Harris will win.
But there’s also reason to worry about another possibility: What Trump and his supporters will do if Harris wins narrowly.
Trump did Repeatedly emphasized He could lose if the Democrats cheated. It seems clear that he will try to invalidate any Harris victory. Many expect He will reprise In the form of his shocking behavior after the 2020 election, when he tried to overturn Biden’s victory — and his supporters could try any way to help him.
Trump has several new safeguards in place this time around to make such an election-stealing attempt less likely to succeed Burton Gelman writes in Time A 2022 law last week reformed the vote-certification process, which could make it more difficult for Trump to systematically overturn a result. Trump is no longer the current president and cannot exercise executive branch powers. And authorities More thorough preparation preempt A January 6-esque mob action.
While it may be procedurally more difficult for Trump to challenge this year’s results, the risk is that procedure and legitimacy will matter less this time around — instead, Trump will usher us into a world where force and partisanship and the naked drive for power trump any remaining norms. could do.
Even an attempt at this could take the country to a more dangerous and chaotic place — but it’s also possible, especially in a close race and a narrow Harris win, that it could succeed in restoring Trump to the White House, because By Politico’s Kyle Cheney.
For one, the Republican Party has become more MAGA-reliant since 2020, and has largely made peace with defending the inevitable: denying Trump’s election.
The 2020 GOP was deeply conflicted about Trump’s election-stealing plan; Almost all key GOP officials whose positions were tasked with the outcome — the governor, statewide election officials, state legislatures and Vice President Mike Pence — have declined to help implement it.
Since then, there have been many critics has been cleared From the party, there are others made up their the peace With Trump. Additionally, Trump’s team, a Web supporting Republican activistsIt has been four years ready to challenge the results again. Last time, their efforts were shambolic and improvised; This time, they probably have a much better understanding of where the pressure points are.
For example, if Republicans hold the House, Speaker Mike Johnson may try to interfere With the results certified — a fear among Democrats intensified by Trump Recent public statements That she and Johnson have a “little secret”.
But perhaps the most ominous threat is that, this time, there is a widespread expectation in the MAGA world that Trump is certain to win (though The survey clearly indicates that a very close race that can go either way). “Donald Trump’s surrogates, allies and foot soldiers seem extremely confident that he will be re-elected next week,” Axios’ Zachary Basu reportsadding that it is “setting the stage for wholesale rejection of a possible Harris victory by Trump supporters.”
If a Trump victory fails to materialize despite reasonable expectations, anger and resentment among his supporters could prove far more intense than in 2020 — especially given Trump’s increasingly-apocalyptic rhetoric leading up to Election Day. His supporters, already convinced of voter fraud, may rally more quickly and seriously around the belief that the election was stolen from Trump and that something should be done about it.
That means, unless Trump chooses to back down — unlikely given his past behavior — the country could go to a more dangerous place.
Fear an angry MAGA base
Here’s one way to think about the risks ahead: Last time, 74 million people voted for Trump. But very few of them raised a finger to help him steal the election.
Trump’s attempt to steal the 2020 election has slowly gained steam and is primarily focused on legal and procedural efforts to overturn the results. Far-right groups, including pro-Trump protesters Proud boysMore started popping up in the final months of 2020 in Washington, D.C. and state capitals, but Scattered violence and intimidation tactics Elections did little to influence the certification process.
Then, on December 19, 2020, Trump tweeted that “There’s going to be a big protest in DC on January 6th,” adding, “Be there, it’s going to be wild!” That is proven enough to activate A little over 50,000 people, of whom about 10,000 came to the Capitol grounds; Of those, 2,000 or more made it inside the building. It was a painful day for the country — and yet it’s notable that only a relative handful of the vast US population was involved.
This time, Trump’s false claims of victory and fresh accusations of fraud may prove even more effective at mobilizing the discontent of his base, using their anger as a real weapon to intimidate Republicans and election officials into embracing his lies. Condition: Four years have passed since the “election was stolen from Trump” turned Republican conventional wisdom – which means this year’s message will be, “Are you really going to let them steal again?” Harris’s lead in the polls will be deemed immediate, damning evidence of a rigged election.
Trump also has an obvious enemy to point his supporters to, if he loses and refuses to accept that loss. In 2020, it was more challenging to determine who stole the election from him – he was the president after all. This time, he can blame the Biden-Harris administration and spew conspiratorial fears that “they” are stealing the election to keep him in power. Elon Musk’s ownership of X could help Trump Spreading misinformation is good About alleged voter fraud. Dangerous lone wolf May be radicalized into violent actions.
The current Trump-led GOP’s political climate could prompt the party to move further away from laws or procedural rules, increasing the potential for both system breakdown and violence. Many sympathize with Trump law enforcement And military Such a situation also worries – if the MAGA base really goes up, will law enforcement restore order?
Such situations may sound like irrational fear-mongering, better suited to a less stable democracy, but Trump’s complete lack of restraint and willingness to break democratic norms for power may mean that other countries have relevant lessons for us.
The scenarios that actually change the outcome are less likely to be about violence, and that Trump will win the procedural struggle — that he will get some Republican officials in state or Congress or conservative judges to throw out the state results, Harris pretending to win.
It will take the country into uncharted territory. Will Congress win? Will Biden stand down and accept the verdict, if it does? It is impossible to predict how such a crisis will be resolved.
The balance of American democracy?
Of course, there’s still reason to hope it won’t get anywhere near as bad.
despite a lot As predicted after the storming of the Capitol, that event was not actually followed by a new wave of far-right violence during the Biden years. Memories of aggressive federal arrests and trials of rioters on Jan. 6 — and state-level trials of Trump’s own members team — made clear that such behavior came with consequences, and the memory of those consequences could prevent future unrest (such as from Trump himself, who would face renewed legal jeopardy in the event of an election loss).
Perhaps the American public, including the right, isn’t engaged or excited about politics and won’t care much if Trump screams that the election was stolen. Or perhaps Trump supporters won’t prove as likely to descend into political violence as liberals fear.
This month, asked the Washington Post Dozens of Trump fans at the rally will discuss how to interpret and react to Trump’s defeat. Almost everyone they interviewed believed that the 2020 election was stolen from him and that the 2024 election could be stolen as well. But, according to the Post, these Trump fans were “significantly uninterested in repeating the heated speech that led to the violent uprising at the U.S. Capitol.” Instead, they suggested they would respond to Trump’s defeat by resigning.
The risk, though, is that Trump and the most staunch MAGA believers will push for something different — that he will use every tool at his disposal to try to return to power. And if they can convince millions of Trump voters to join him in that effort, the danger will be very real.
