Could Trump get away with sitting tight and refusing to budge?

Following his Tweet yesterday suggesting that the Presidential election on November 3rd should be postponed there has been a huge amount of speculation about what Trump will do if if he doesn’t win re-election which based on current polling looks very unlikely.

This is from Susan Glasser in the New Yorker:

So, sorry, we cannot just ignore it when the President threatens to cancel an election. This is the kind of statement that should haunt your dreams. It is wannabe-dictator talk. It is dangerous even if it is not attached to any actions. And those who think that some actions will not follow have not been paying attention. My alarm stems from having covered Russia when Putin was dismantling the fragile, flawed democratic institutions that the country had established after the fall of the Soviet Union. It stems from reading history. It stems from having watched the past four years in America, where, day by day, the unthinkable has happened and been justified, rationalized, and explained away.

There are real concerns that Trump will refuse to accept the result and sit tight. What he does have which could put them in a very powerful position is controlling the levers of power right up to 9 am on January 20th which is the inauguration day. Until that moment he remains Commander-in-Chief.

We are already seeing some of the lengths that he is going to at the moment sending federal troops to various cities to underpin his position. The questions are would he dare to force himself on the nation for another 4-year term and what can be done to stop him?

What is interesting is how his moves are creating new political movements the most striking one of which is the Wall of Moms which was set up in Portland as a line of defence against rampaging federal forces.

An interesting bet in this context would who will be president on January 21st the day after the inauguration. So far I’ve not seen this put up by any bookie but my guess is that the odds on that happening would be better than those on Trump winning the election itself and that is very scary.

Mike Smithson